It’s a tough news day………really, a tough month. First, the coal mine tragedy, now this oil drilling platform explosion , and while reading the news this morning, the little 2 month old boy that was “kidnapped” in Houston – his little body was found this morning. I just don’t get it. How does someone kill a baby?
I feel really bad for all of these families. The coal miners’ families whose loved ones were involved in that industrial explosion in the mine….These groups seems to be such a tight nit groups – coal miners and their families. I know working in a mine or on an offshore drilling platform is a decision they’ve made, but man-o-man, what a life – what risk. Now we are learning more about the oil industry – seems to be a pretty tight nit group too – unfortunate that under these circumstances they are gathering, but still good to see the support. Stories of the phone trees used in the middle of the night to get the word out after the explosion on this deep water drilling platform staffed by Transocean, leased by BP, and called DeepWater Horizon. Did you know that some of the workers leave their families for 2 weeks, then are home for 1-2 weeks and some stay on the platforms longer?
These poor workers are saying that they had NO time – the only decision was to jump. One of the rig blast survivors said, “It blew and we had like ZERO time from the time the alarm went.” Less than 4 minutes to make a life-altering decision. Jump into 5000 feet of water with no boat.There are still 11 missing and as time goes by, hopes are fading. Most of the workers interviewed are stating that if they didn’t jump, that they probably burned in the fire. Some families are receiving great news – it just took a while. These workers are having to be “boated” back to shore. 52 miles out………takes a while to get back in, especially on a large vessel.
I can’t imagine the thoughts that some of these families are having to deal with right now. Who do I call? We still don’t know. What caused the blast? Of course, the major players in this explosion are investigating, but in today’s day and age, you KNOW they have their Jones Act and Maritime lawyers on call. The law that governs open and navigable waters is called the Jones Act. These oil rig and drilling platforms that are NOT permanent fall under the jurisdiction of this law. It’s actually fascinating to study, but there are a lot of maritime lawyers out there – that’s all they do is represent those who have suffered an injury at sea, injury on a vessel, or in this circumstance, and injury on an oil platform. This is an exploratory rig that exploded in the middle of the ocean. With 126 or so workers on it, 17 people were injured at sea and taken to hospitals in the southern Louisiana area………this could be one of the deadliest offshore drilling accidents in the past 50 years……………
