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Deadly Waves: The Rescue Effort

Aired June 16, 2003 - 10:22   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Federal investigators say that it could be months before they know why a certain charter fishing boat capsized in rough surf off the coast of Oregon this weekend. At least nine people were killed when a large wave slammed into the boat. Two men are missing and presumed dead this morning. Eight others did survive the accident, though. Some of them are sharing what they went through, at least what went through their minds at the moment of impact.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN LOLL, SURVIVOR: Up until I went out, I knew where my father was. When I went out, there was maybe a foot of air left in the boat and it was either wait, drown in the boat, or take a wild guess and go through the window and take my chances out in the ocean.

MARK HAMLETT, SURVIVOR: I mean I saw it coming. I -- when we rolled, I did not expect to take another breath. And when we came upright the second time, or came to a stop after the second roll, and we're standing inside the cabin with air to breathe, it was beyond anything that I could have imagined.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: A Coast Guard official said Saturday's accident was one of the worst he has ever seen at Tillamook Bay. Crews tried frantically to rescue everyone, but unfortunately, they were not able to do so.

Coast Guard surfman Harvey Hatfield was on the scene shortly after that accident, and he joins us now from Garibaldi, Oregon, to tell us about what happened on Saturday morning.

Thank you for taking time to talk with us. And give us an idea, you have seen, you've been out there actually working in this kind of rescue work for some time. How would you compare the conditions that you saw Saturday morning, was that about the worst you'd ever seen?

HARVEY HATFIELD, U.S. COAST GUARD: No, not exactly the worst I've ever seen. They were pretty normal for this -- for this Oregon coast in this area. It was pretty rough for being out there, though. Weather conditions last week were great, it's just those seas picked up over the weekend, a lot of people on the beach this weekend.

HARRIS: All right, tell us how you got the call.

HATFIELD: I was actually getting ready to get underway on our boat, head out to relieve our boat that we had out on the bar at the present time. And as soon as we turned our radios on on the boat, we heard the call and we got out underway. Got out there on scene to approximately eight minutes by the time it got us out there.

HARRIS: And what was the first thing you saw when you got out there? Could you -- could you still see the boat? Could you see people in the water?

HATFIELD: Once we got to outside the jetties and I got around to the north side of the jetty, we looked for the boat. I couldn't see the boat because the sea conditions were -- they were pretty large. We had probably 15 to 18-foot in the area to that we had assumed where the boat had capsized. I was mostly searching for people or debris in the water. We did find the one person, brought him on board. And once we got him on board, we immediately left the surf area, assessed his situation and brought him back into the docks here at our station and turned him over to medical facilities.

HARRIS: Did you -- did you know at that time how many people were in the water?

HATFIELD: We had a -- we'd heard that there was quite a large number of people in the water, up to 19 people, and that's what turned out to be the amount of people that were actually in the water.

HARRIS: This boat that these people were on, I understand it was a rather small boat, and that I also had read reports that there were enough life vests on board for everyone. But as I understand it, it's -- the law doesn't require that everybody on a boat that size has to put on their life preserver, is that correct?

HATFIELD: Right now, that's what I know. They are not required to wear the life jackets at this time. Like we can't say that that if everybody had been wearing life jackets, they all would have survived. However, if they had had them on, their chances would have been greatly increased the survival.

HARRIS: So as it turned out, the -- those who did get life vests on, they were all definitely saved. Would you want that kind of a law to be made, a requisite from here on out now that you've seen that?

HATFIELD: It's hard to determine. From my standpoint, I would like -- in the Coast Guard, we highly recommend that anybody that goes out on the boat has a life jacket on no matter what size seas or what size boat you're on.

HARRIS: Yes. Now should the captain -- in your estimation, and I don't want to condemn the captain or anything like that or don't want to pass judgment as yet, it's too early in that process and there are too many -- too many broken hearts involved here right now, but just from your professional perspective, should someone have taken a boat that size out with 10 to -- with -- you said 18 -- 14 to 18-foot waves splashing around like that in a boat that size?

HATFIELD: From his standpoint, he's been across this bar many, many times, probably many more than I have, and I'm sure he's seen the conditions even worse. But as for his experience, I don't know what it was. And I didn't really personally know Mr. Davis, so I can't really look at it from his standpoint. He maybe saw something that we didn't, and he probably looked like he'd done it before.

HARRIS: Yes. Does this mean, you know in the wake of what happened over the weekend, does this mean now that you'll change procedures in any way out there? And perhaps even though some of these captains, like the captain involved in this incident, he was an experienced captain from what we're seeing and reported in the wires, despite any level of expertise in handling these things, you've said yourself you can be surprised at what happens to you when you get out there. Does this now give you an opportunity or reason to change the rules allowing who gets to go out on the waters when the conditions are the way they were over the weekend?

HATFIELD: That's, like I said, that's hard for me to determine. A lot of that stuff will be under investigation with the National Transportation Safety Board and we'll get the results of that later on.

HARRIS: All right. Harvey Hatfield, we sure do thank you for your time this morning, and I'm sure everyone in Oregon thanks you very much for your work over the weekend as well. Congratulations for jumping in and doing what you could when you did. Take care.

HATFIELD: Thank you. Yes, and our prayers and sympathies go out to the families that were involved in this.

HARRIS: And ours as well. Take care.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired June 16, 2003 - 10:22   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Federal investigators say that it could be months before they know why a certain charter fishing boat capsized in rough surf off the coast of Oregon this weekend. At least nine people were killed when a large wave slammed into the boat. Two men are missing and presumed dead this morning. Eight others did survive the accident, though. Some of them are sharing what they went through, at least what went through their minds at the moment of impact.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN LOLL, SURVIVOR: Up until I went out, I knew where my father was. When I went out, there was maybe a foot of air left in the boat and it was either wait, drown in the boat, or take a wild guess and go through the window and take my chances out in the ocean.

MARK HAMLETT, SURVIVOR: I mean I saw it coming. I -- when we rolled, I did not expect to take another breath. And when we came upright the second time, or came to a stop after the second roll, and we're standing inside the cabin with air to breathe, it was beyond anything that I could have imagined.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARRIS: A Coast Guard official said Saturday's accident was one of the worst he has ever seen at Tillamook Bay. Crews tried frantically to rescue everyone, but unfortunately, they were not able to do so.

Coast Guard surfman Harvey Hatfield was on the scene shortly after that accident, and he joins us now from Garibaldi, Oregon, to tell us about what happened on Saturday morning.

Thank you for taking time to talk with us. And give us an idea, you have seen, you've been out there actually working in this kind of rescue work for some time. How would you compare the conditions that you saw Saturday morning, was that about the worst you'd ever seen?

HARVEY HATFIELD, U.S. COAST GUARD: No, not exactly the worst I've ever seen. They were pretty normal for this -- for this Oregon coast in this area. It was pretty rough for being out there, though. Weather conditions last week were great, it's just those seas picked up over the weekend, a lot of people on the beach this weekend.

HARRIS: All right, tell us how you got the call.

HATFIELD: I was actually getting ready to get underway on our boat, head out to relieve our boat that we had out on the bar at the present time. And as soon as we turned our radios on on the boat, we heard the call and we got out underway. Got out there on scene to approximately eight minutes by the time it got us out there.

HARRIS: And what was the first thing you saw when you got out there? Could you -- could you still see the boat? Could you see people in the water?

HATFIELD: Once we got to outside the jetties and I got around to the north side of the jetty, we looked for the boat. I couldn't see the boat because the sea conditions were -- they were pretty large. We had probably 15 to 18-foot in the area to that we had assumed where the boat had capsized. I was mostly searching for people or debris in the water. We did find the one person, brought him on board. And once we got him on board, we immediately left the surf area, assessed his situation and brought him back into the docks here at our station and turned him over to medical facilities.

HARRIS: Did you -- did you know at that time how many people were in the water?

HATFIELD: We had a -- we'd heard that there was quite a large number of people in the water, up to 19 people, and that's what turned out to be the amount of people that were actually in the water.

HARRIS: This boat that these people were on, I understand it was a rather small boat, and that I also had read reports that there were enough life vests on board for everyone. But as I understand it, it's -- the law doesn't require that everybody on a boat that size has to put on their life preserver, is that correct?

HATFIELD: Right now, that's what I know. They are not required to wear the life jackets at this time. Like we can't say that that if everybody had been wearing life jackets, they all would have survived. However, if they had had them on, their chances would have been greatly increased the survival.

HARRIS: So as it turned out, the -- those who did get life vests on, they were all definitely saved. Would you want that kind of a law to be made, a requisite from here on out now that you've seen that?

HATFIELD: It's hard to determine. From my standpoint, I would like -- in the Coast Guard, we highly recommend that anybody that goes out on the boat has a life jacket on no matter what size seas or what size boat you're on.

HARRIS: Yes. Now should the captain -- in your estimation, and I don't want to condemn the captain or anything like that or don't want to pass judgment as yet, it's too early in that process and there are too many -- too many broken hearts involved here right now, but just from your professional perspective, should someone have taken a boat that size out with 10 to -- with -- you said 18 -- 14 to 18-foot waves splashing around like that in a boat that size?

HATFIELD: From his standpoint, he's been across this bar many, many times, probably many more than I have, and I'm sure he's seen the conditions even worse. But as for his experience, I don't know what it was. And I didn't really personally know Mr. Davis, so I can't really look at it from his standpoint. He maybe saw something that we didn't, and he probably looked like he'd done it before.

HARRIS: Yes. Does this mean, you know in the wake of what happened over the weekend, does this mean now that you'll change procedures in any way out there? And perhaps even though some of these captains, like the captain involved in this incident, he was an experienced captain from what we're seeing and reported in the wires, despite any level of expertise in handling these things, you've said yourself you can be surprised at what happens to you when you get out there. Does this now give you an opportunity or reason to change the rules allowing who gets to go out on the waters when the conditions are the way they were over the weekend?

HATFIELD: That's, like I said, that's hard for me to determine. A lot of that stuff will be under investigation with the National Transportation Safety Board and we'll get the results of that later on.

HARRIS: All right. Harvey Hatfield, we sure do thank you for your time this morning, and I'm sure everyone in Oregon thanks you very much for your work over the weekend as well. Congratulations for jumping in and doing what you could when you did. Take care.

HATFIELD: Thank you. Yes, and our prayers and sympathies go out to the families that were involved in this.

HARRIS: And ours as well. Take care.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com