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Here's a report on the San Francisco submerged grounding, from a
CPO on board.
Not too sure how to take this. Doesn't sound
like the silent service to me.
Submitted by Vicki Barr
To All,
I thought that I would put out a note since a lot of you have been
calling and writing to find out how things are and if I'm OK and
what happened. If you hadn't heard, my boat hit a uncharted
submerged sea mount at the highest speed we can go at about 500ft
below the surface. There were about 30 of us that were seriously
hurt and unfortunately one of my shipmates didn't make it.
First off I am OK. I am pretty beat up with my entire left side and
butt as one big bruise. My shoulder is separated and may require
surgery. They will evaluate later this week. I am very fortunate
that I hit the wall and didn't go down a ladderwell that was right
next to where I hit. If I had gone down that, I would have got
really messed up. I took a tremendous shot to my left thigh from
something. If it had been slightly lower in the knee area it would
have been really ugly. But all in all I am in good shape. We hit it
at about noon right after field day (where all of us clean the boat
for several hours). Thank God we didn't hit while we were doing this or
it would have been much worse. We would have had flying deck plates
through the air and such. Not good. As it was, it happened while
chow was going on and most people were either sitting and eating or
on watch. I don't remember much of the collision. People describe it
as like in the movie the Matrix where everything slowed down and
levitated and then went flying forward faster that the brain can process.
My mind has blanked it out exactly what happened. Adrenaline kicked in
and I have no real memory of how I got down to middle level or what I did
immediately following. I helped carry several shipmates to the crew
mess deck (adrenaline is a wonderful thing - my shoulder was wrecked
and I had no idea until about 4 hours later). I sat with several of
my junior guys that had bad head wounds and talked with them to keep
them conscious until doc could see them. It seemed like an eternity
but I'm sure wasn't that long.
For those Navy folks that ever wondered why Chief's stomp around and
preach "Stow for Sea" This was a perfect example. It definately
saved lives.
I am extremely proud of the crew to do damage control, help the
wounded and get the boat safely to the surface (for the boat guys we
blew the tanks dry on the emergency blow but unbeknownst to us we
were missing some ballast
tanks/some didnšt have integrity). The ship's control party did
every thing exactly right even though they were hurt as well. The
Diving Officer of the Watch had just unbuckled his belt to update a
status board and hit the Ship's Control Panel hard enough to break
some of the gauges. To add insult to injury his chair came up right
behind him. Several people were injured in the Engine Room Lower
Level area. Lots of metal and sharp edges in the area as well as
that's were the boat's smoking area is at. Several crew members are
reevaluating that habit now.
Once again we got lucky in the fact that we had an extra corpsman
onboard. One of our officer's was a prior enlisted corpsman that was
a Fleet Marine Force medic so he was a Godsend for us. Our Corpsman
did an outstanding job getting everyone stabilized and did the best
he could for our fallen shipmdid. Our corpsman is definitely a hero in
my book. He didn't sleep for 2 or 3 days. We finally put him down when
the SEAL docs helicoptered in to help. Like I said, I am extremely proud
of my crew and how they handled themselves. My Chief of the Boat was an
inspiration of what a leader should be and my Captain was as well.
My XO took out an EAB manifold with his back but still managed to
help coordinate things. No matter what happens later, these men did
a superior job under difficult circumstances. I am humbled by the
entire crew's performance from the CO down to the Seaman that I was
checking in two days before.
For those of you wondering, I am sure there will be an investigation
into what happened and no I was not part of the navigation preps for
this voyage. I work on the inertial/electronic navigation and interior
communications part of my rate and didn't have anything to do with
the conventional navigation part of it. I will be lending support to
my comrades who were to help them prepare for the pending
investigation.
I thank you all for you concern and appreciate your prayers not only
for myself, but for my shipmates. We are doing well, we band of
brothers and will pull through just fine.
Thanks,
Brian F.
Chief Electronics Technician Submarines
USS San Francisco SSN 711 |
