Relative raises questions over tug rescue effort

The father-in-law of one of two mariners who died last week when a tug sank quickly off Newfoundland is raising questions about that night's rescue effort.

Larry Parsons and Christopher Wade Oram died after the Check-Mate III went down in heavy seas north of Baccalieu Island, Trinity Bay, late Thursday night.

A distorted radio signal led authorities to dispatch a Cormorant helicopter from Gander, while the Canadian Coast Guard vessel George R. Pearkes, which had been in the area, was diverted.

The chopper arrived first, and directed the vessel to the scene, where two men were in the water, but not in the life-raft they had inflated.

Woody Kelloway, Oram's father-in-law, wants to know why the search and rescue technicians aboard the Cormorant didn't go for the men straight away.

"They got the gear on the helicopter to go down and pluck then out of the water," Kelloway told CBC News.

"They could have gone down and picked them up and maybe saved them."

Parsons and Oram were in the water for 14 minutes, until the George R. Pearkes arrived.

Lt.-Col. Tammy Harris, the base commander in Gander, said the crew of the rescue helicopter could not have done anything more to save the men.

"It's not that simple of a consideration to pluck them out," she said.

"The crews look at everything … One of our biggest concerns with people in the water, when they are in a hypothermic state, is the hoist extraction up can be quite traumatic to the system, so if there's a better way to extract them, meaning less traumatic to the system, then the crew would look at that."

Kevin Barnes, who works with the Canadian Coast Guard from its St. John's operations centre, said the George R. Pearkes was carrying vital supplies for search-and-rescue work.

"I would not be able to speculate why the decision was made.

"The vessel was actually less than a mile away and also aboard the ship we have oxygen, blankets and rescue specialists, so these things may have played a factor," said Barnes, who did not want to speculate on how the Cormorant crew made decisions.

A funeral for Parsons, 69, who was the mayor of Lumsden, was held in that community on Monday.

Oram, 32, who lived in nearby Badger's Quay, is scheduled to be buried Tuesday.