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Posted in BP British Petroleum,Deepwater Horizon,Gulf Coast,Maritime Lawsuits,Texas Maritime News,Transocean on April 29, 2011
HOUSTON, TX – Survivors of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 have a message for the companies involved: start taking some responsibility and stop with the finger pointing. People’s lives are at stake.
Left to right: Matthew Jacobs, Douglas Brown and Daniel Barron for the Anderson Cooper 360 interview one year after the Deepwater Horizon disaster.
This is the message from a recent interview on Anderson Cooper 360 with 3 of the survivors of the disaster.
In the interview with Anderson Cooper, the survivors tell their harrowing tales of the event and how it has affected their lives.
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The piece also shows some new computer generated footage of the explosion sequence on the rig that dramatically illustrates the horror of the disaster. There was more than one explosion that night.
Doug Brown, Daniel Barron Matthew Jacobs recount the details just before the first explosion. Doug Brown says that he began to hear a loud “hissing and venting sound”. Matthew Jacobs says it began to get louder and louder. Daniel Barron recounts a conversation with someone, “He just looked at me and he goes, ‘Man, I smell gas!’ I said, ‘What do we do?’ He goes, ‘Run!'”
Then there was the first explosion. When Doug Brown was asked by Anderson Cooper, “What was that explosion like?” he said it was “like being hit by a freight train from behind.”
Now, after one year, them men are still suffering from their experience. Daniel Barron tells of a suicide attempt with a loaded gun.
All of the men are now without pay. Transocean was paying their salaries up until mid-December, 2010, but have stopped paying. They did make an offer for an additional six months of full pay if they dropped their claims. The offer was turned down.
Houston maritime lawyer, Steve Gordon, said that there was some discussion that Transocean may go bankrupt or that BP may go bankrupt, but the only people who are going to go bankrupt “are people like this.”
They believed that before the accident Transocean valued profits over safety and afterwards, saving money over taking responsibility. Transocean did comment in response, but their sentiments rang hollow to some after awarding top executives bonuses for “the safest year in the company’s history.”
Doug Brown said it was a “slap in the face” and “how could they say that” with 11 people dead and so many others seriously injured.
After the reaction to the executive bonuses, Transocean executives decided to donate the bonuses to the Deepwater Horizon Memorial Fund.
Aside from wanting to put the experience behind them, the survivors want one more thing from the company. In the words of Doug Brown, “Accountability”, “Be accountable for your actions” instead of pointing fingers back and forth.