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June 2010 www.marinelink.com 53 raced as he tried to envisage the source of the emer- gency. Within seconds, smoke began pouring into the wheelhouse from multiple sources and as he activated the general alarm, he thought, this may be a little more serious than I imagined. He quickly realized that de- spite the blaring alarm, there would be crewmembers asleep in their bunks and bounded down the stairs to the main living space where he ran through the hall- ways kicking open doors and screaming fire on board.

By the time he returned to the wheelhouse, it was filled with heavy black smoke and as he struggled to hold his breath and search for a radio, there was a muf- fled explosion, like a big gulp of air, as the boat rocked violently from side to side. Now he turned to look through the back windows of the wheelhouse to see crewmembers pouring out of interior spaces onto the back deck gagging and coughing. Suddenly, every- body started screaming man overboard. According the

U.S. Coast Guard report on the incident, the vessel’s chief mate was leading a fire team below decks when he mistakenly assumed that the fixed carbon dioxide fire suppression system had been triggered and or- dered crewmembers to open exterior hatches to venti- late smoke from the space where he and his team had mustered. Approximately one minute later, the back- draft explosion that rocked the vessel blew the three- member fire team through the gear setting hatch at the stern and into the water. None was wearing a survival suit. Shoe- maker climbed through a small hatch onto the housetop to see three of his key crewmembers in the water with the vessel still making way. He screamed at the personnel assembled on the aft deck to throw them life rings and buoys as a column of thick, black smoke poured out of the hatchway from which he had just emerged.

I realized I needed to get back down inside, I needed to clutch out, I needed to take these mains out of gear, I needed to somehow address getting this thing turned back around to get to these guys in the back and when I went down in that wheelhouse, I held my breath, I got down in there, I clutched out the mains, and that point another explo- sion takes place. I needed to make a mayday call and I knew when I went back down in there, it wasn’t going to be easy and so when

I went back down in I’m trying to find the radios and it’s pitch black and the fire is just engulfing the inside of the boat and I remember that when I took that first breath, once I got back in the wheelhouse and I’m looking, searching frantically because it’s pitch black,

I’m trying to find radios, the alarms are screaming, the radios are squelching, they’re all squelching out and the ringing of the buzzers and the general alarm and the fire alarm and all this stuff is still going and I can’t find a radio and all of a sudden it’s dawning on me that I’m losing control, rapidly. Nobody knows where we are. The intensity of the heat in the wheelhouse was now unbearable. The books on the shelves were in flames and paint was burning on the walls. And I found a radio and I started puking and the snot’s com- ing out of my nose and I’m dropping to my knees and

I’m trying to squeak out a mayday, mayday, mayday and I realize that my radio cord is hanging just by the cord, because it’s already melted off the radio. Four minutes, 20 seconds had elapsed from the discovery of fire to the first explosion, and the horrific events aboard the Galaxy were just beginning. Captain Shoe- maker would enter the wheelhouse multiple times, suffering severe burns, in his efforts to make a distress call. I was black, totally black, the raw blood and meat exposed on my arms and my thighs, my clothes smok- ing and smoldering and I remember going up on the back deck and I crawled through that same hatch up on the back and my crew was back there and I re- member that there needed to be some control and I re- member looking at them and I pointed my finger at them and I said, We will survive, we will survive this day, you listen to what I’m telling you, you pay atten- tion to me, we’re going to make this. And I’m out on the back deck and I’m spitting orders and I’m going we will survive this, you pay attention to what I’m telling you, we will survive this, and in my heart, I knew we would not. As the fire consumed the vessel, her steel plates glowed red.

The port liferaft would be con- sumed in flames and as the crew extricated survival suits from storage lockers and tossed them on deck, the suits melted before their eyes. Strug- gling to distribute additional suits as explosions continued to rock the Galaxy, Shoemaker was blown off of the wheel- house deck and fell 25 feet to the foredeck where he lay on the blistering steel deck plates.

I remember landing on my side and I broke three ribs when I hit and it knocked my shoes off my feet and I remem- ber laying there and it sounded almost like bacon frying in a frying pan. The captain had lost propulsion, he had lost radio communication, he had lost vital safety equipment, he had lost critical crewmembers and now he was isolated on the foredeck with most of his crew mustered on the stern and oth- ers in the water. What he never lost was his will to sur- vive. Almost unbelievably, 23 of 26 members of the

Galaxy crew would endure the events of that day and

Shoemaker would be given the U.S. Coast Guard’s highest civilian award for lifesaving. Equally surpris- ing, Aleutian Spray Fisheries did such an effective job of caring for the survivors and the families of those who died that not a single lawsuit was filed in the wake of the casualty. Now, the captain has a new mis- sion: to share with other seamen the lessons learned on the Galaxy, and his newfound commitment to safety education and training. It’s the one thing that I can hang on my hat rack, the day that I die, is that at least I could contribute something to this industry.

Shoemaker tells the gripping story of the events that overwhelmed his vessel in a powerful new DVD training pro- gram: Lessons from the Galaxy,

Tragedy and Courage on the Bering

Sea: http://www.johnsabella.com/de- tail.lasso?title=650712. For more in- formation, contact John Sabella & at

Email: [email protected]