WHY WE DO IT

The ocean is a vast wilderness, both below and on the surface. We learned through the Seacor Power disaster that finding individuals lost at sea is extremely difficult and too often unsuccessful. There are so many stories from survivors where in broad daylight boats passed right by them and planes or helicopters flew right over them before they were finally rescued, sometimes days later, and these boats and planes were searching specifically for them. Our hearts hurt to think of how many other men and women had the same experiences but were never rescued. We’ve provided links below to just a few of the numerous gripping stories of life and death waiting on water rescue.

What is frustrating for those of us that have lost a loved one to the sea is to discover that a small hand held emergency device exists that will alert the US Coast Guard within minutes of being activated with their GPS location. While these devices, PLBs - Personal Locator Beacons, are expensive for an individual to buy, a company could get a volume discount. We found out that despite continued requests by the National Transportation Safety Board for the US Coast Guard to mandate these life saving devices for all lake and ocean offshore workers, the Coast Guard continues to decline to do so, and that the vast majority of offshore workers are not voluntarily provided these devices by the companies they work for, to wear while they are in transport by boat and on locations working offshore, sometimes for weeks at a time out on open water. I bet those same companies assign their land-based office workers with laptops that cost more than a water buoyant PLB.

We don’t know if having a PLB on him would have saved Jason’s life. We don’t know because he’s never been found. But we do know that he and the others on the Seacor Power weren’t provided one and we think it is a serious gap in US offshore worker safety for employers not to provide them. We should make it clear that we are not anti-offshore industry. We are not anti-oil & gas industry. We drive gas powered cars, use plastics, and choose to depend on numerous mechanisms and products in our day to day lives that require oil and gas. This applies to ALL US offshore and maritime industries, including a gap with the growing offshore wind industry as well. What we are is Pro-offshore worker, regardless of industry. We are Pro-offshore worker safety at the expense of the lucrative corporate entities that make up the oil & gas, offshore wind energy, and merchant mariner industries.

We also included links to other interesting stories, such as how the government agency put in place to track and promote safety in the offshore energy industry, the BSEE, intentionally under reports the number of deaths by 50%, making the industry appear safer than it actually is. See the story below.