Rescues! Ten Dramatic Stories of Life-saving Heroics

Introduction: Putting Life on the LineIn October 1995, Hurricane Roxanne whipped the Gulf of Mexico into a chaos of four-story waves. Caught in the storm and blasted by winds howling at 140 kilometres (90 miles) per hour were 245 workers on board Derrick Lay Barge 269. And the barge was sinking.Longer than a football field and used to lay underwater pipelines between oil rigs and the shores of Mexico, the massive barge was more than 20 years old. It had been battered by too many storms, and with its rusty seams and outdated equipment, was no longer capable of riding hurricane waters. Within a few hours after the storm struck, the equipment rooms were filling with water. When the force of the waves snapped the towlines between the barge and the two tugboats responsible for pulling it through the water, the barge was left without power and with little ability to float. It slowly settled deeper and deeper into the ocean until the waves crashed over every surface of the deck.One by one, most of the 245 workers jumped from the barge into the sea, to be picked up by the waves and slammed underwater. It was like being lifted to the top of a cliff, then dropped to the bottom, again and again. Many of the inflatable life rafts were picked up like cardboard and blown away by the wind.Mexico has no coast guard, and boats from the navy and the U.S. Coast Guard were too far away to help. The workers' only hope lay in the captains of the two tugboats who had been pulling the barge, and the crew of one other tugboat that happened to be in the area.It was growing dark. Pitching onto the crests of waves, then hurtling into the troughs, the three tugboats struggled to get near the floating workers without crushing them under the bows of their boats. On board the Captain John, the smallest of the rescue boats, the crew tried roping themselves together for safety before they threw rescue lines to the survivors bobbing in the waves. By the time they had pulled a few men on board, their rescue lines were hopelessly tangled. They were forced to cut them off. After that, whenever a wave crashed across the boat, one man would yell and all crew members would drop to the deck, frantically grabbing any piece of equipment that would keep them from being swept into the sea. It became a rhythm: throw a rescue line, haul a survivor on board, drop as a wave tried to crush the boat, wait for the water to drain away, and toss another rescue line. One of the crew members was caught by a wave, battered against the deckhouse, then crushed against the bulwarks. Just as he was being swept over the edge of the stern, he managed to grab a pipe and stop his fall.On the Ducker Tide, the supply tug that had responded to the barge's rescue signals, First Mate Hayman Webster scanned the water for the blinking emergency lights attached to each worker's life preserver. Hayman was a massive man and a second-generation sailor. As the captain brought the side of the boat crashing down toward swimming workers, Hayman would lean over the side, grab a life preserver in one enormous fist, and single-handedly heave a man onto the deck of his boat. He pulled dozens to safety before some of the rescued workers organized ropes and began hauling their fellow survivors on board.On board the third tugboat, the North Carolina, the crew huddled on the most sheltered sections of the deck, terrified of being swept off the rolling, lunging vessel. But First Mate Eulalio Zapata Martinez put the lives of the barge workers above his own safety. Seeing that other crew members were too frightened to help, Eulalio tied himself to a winch on deck and began leaning far over the side to haul survivors on board one by one.Working alone, he was in constant danger of being swept overboard.Kyi, Tanya Lloyd is the author of 'Rescues! Ten Dramatic Stories of Life-saving Heroics', published 2006 under ISBN 9781554510344 and ISBN 1554510341.