Pilot details rescue of 2 from towboat
When the call for help came crackling over the marine radio on his towboat, pilot Charles Montgomery gave the three crewmen on the Rocket a choice.
They could get off if they wanted or they could brave a fierce current to try to rescue two men trapped on a sister boat, the Elizabeth M. Without hesitation, the crew decided to head upstream, Montgomery testified at a Coast Guard hearing Friday.
"I knew it was going to be a hairy situation, and I didn't want to jeopardize them against their will," Montgomery said.
Montgomery's testimony of the rescue capped the last day of a weeklong hearing into the sinking of the Elizabeth M.
The Elizabeth M and three of its six barges were swept over the Montgomery Lock and Dam in Industry, Beaver County, around 2:20 a.m. Jan. 9. Three crew members died: Tom Fisher, 25, of Derry, Westmoreland County; Scott Stewart, 36 of Elm Grove, W.Va.; and Edward Crevda, 22, of West Brownsville, Washington County. A fourth, Rick Conklin, 40, of Crucible, Green County, is missing and presumed dead. The accident happened shortly after the towboat and its barges went upriver through the locks.
Lt. Cmdr. Mike Kelly, the hearing chairman, said the Coast Guard will use testimony from the five-day hearing to determine the accident's cause. The Coast Guard could change its rules for using the river or recommend criminal charges if it finds negligence. Kelly said the report would not be completed for several months.
In other testimony yesterday, two Army Corps of Engineers lock workers testified they did not see or hear any of the barges hit the sides of the locks while exiting. That contradicted accounts from the boat's survivors, who said the barges hit the lock walls, snapping cables on the barges.
The Elizabeth M's captain, George "Toby" Zappone, previously testified he tried to save the barges by untying the towboat from them and reattaching further downstream.
Ed Helenic, who started working at the lock in November, said he was baffled when he saw the captain turn his boat downstream, toward the dam and the barges, in a river running 12 mph, four times faster than normal.
"I say to myself, 'What the hell is he doing?'" Helenic recalled.
Deckhand John "Tony" Thomas earlier said he saw Conklin in the pilothouse as the towboat pushed out of the locks. Conklin, the missing crewman, was a pilot-in-training, although his family said he operated boats during his 12 years in the military.
The Rocket's crew rescued Zappone and Thomas, who had been hanging onto the pilot house of the partially submerged vessel.
"I could hear them saying they couldn't hold on much longer. They were hurt. They needed help," Montgomery said.
As the Rocket approached, her crew prepared a flotation device and gathered blankets, Montgomery said. One crewman put a pot of chicken broth on the stove.
Montgomery steered the Rocket beside the Elizabeth M, while his three deckhands -- Robert Corman, Donald Brown and Thomas Zeigler -- threw the flotation ring into the water. Zappone, bleeding profusely from an injured pinky finger that was later amputated, was the first to be pulled to safety, Montgomery said.
"They yelled up to me, 'We got him,'" Montgomery said.
A third survivor, deckhand Jacob Wilds, was pulled to safety by a towboat crew downstream from the dam after he jumped off the sinking Elizabeth M.
The boat's owner, Campbell Transportation Co., based in Dunlevy, Washington County, announced it filed a petition in federal court asking the company be exonerated from any responsibility in the incident. The filing is an attempt to limit civil damages related to the accident.
