Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire To See a Man KIlled.....................

My four year hitch in the Marine Corps was during peacetime,'60 - '64, so I've never seen a man killed in combat.

But I've witnessed, first hand, men killed in accidents on the job. Two died in my arms.

Ken's thread about the cannon getting loose on the ship brought chills down my spine, because I saw a death so similar in much the same circumstances.

We were making the trip from Okinawa to Camp Fuji McNair in Japan, which we did 3 or 4 times a year. Sometimes we went aboard LSD's and sometimes LST's. It is a mean stretch of water.

This particular time, we were on 3 LST's and the second or third night out, a storm came up about as bad as I've ever experienced. No troops were allowed topside.

All our 155's were on a different ship than the one I was on. We had our vehicles chained to the cleats on the Tank deck, including a TD18, the equivalent of a D5 or D6 Cat, it seemed to me.

The rack I had chosen was the first one inside one of the four passageways [doors for you landlubbers ] to the walway and just before "lights out", a Staff Sgt. came in assigned me to guard the passageway to ensure that no one could could access the walkway that ran around the Tank deck, but a couple decks above it. It had ladders going down and they provided the only access to the Tank deck where our vehicles were lashed down.

We were to keep everyone off the Tank deck. If a vehicle got loose, we were to ignore it. Any loose ones would be dealt with when the sea calmed.

The operator of the dozer somehow got onto the Tank deck. I suppose one of the other guards let him thru. His dozer had slipped two of its turnbuckles on the same side. I could look down on the whole affair, being almost directly above him.

The 18 would slide back, loosening the chains that still held it on one side, then as the ship took a 35 or 40 degree roll in the opposite direction, the chains would catch it, so it was not completely loose. Diesel [ the catskinner's nickname] was attempting to fasten the turnbuckles that had come completely loose from one side as the ship made a roll in that direction.

After a few attempts, I saw one of the other chains come loose, I screamed at him, but their must have been too much noise since he never gave any indication that he heard.

He was bent over, with the turnbuckle in his hands, stuck thru the tiedown loop on the 18, and intent on putting the other end in the deck cleat when the dozer made its slide toward him.

This slide, with no lashing to restrain it, the dozer didn't stop. The end of the blade pushed his head up against the front wheel of a Five Ton truck and just kept going right thru his head.

As soon as I yelled back into the Troop quarters about what had happened, the ship's crew took over, and we were confined to quarters.

It didn't take them long to recover his body as they brought it back thru our quarters and placed it in the reefer. It was another day or so before the sea calmed enough to get a chopper in to haul Diesel's body out.

I wish I hadn't read the loose cannon thread this morning.

I'm always amazed when people opine that life aboard a warship must be a piece of cake. Let's see... you're living in an all-metal environment subject to constant motion, filled with heavy machinery that's always in motion, surrounded by high-explosive, toxic or highly flammable substances. What could go wrong?

Damn near everything...

Murphy was a Pollyanna �

Howell's Law is much more realistic �

Whatever can not possibly go wrong will go wrong sooner or later.

My father told me of times when men on deck forgot to pay attention and walked into the prop of an idling fighter.. He said they just hosed down the deck and kept on..

He was operations officer on the old carrier Langley in WWII.

Forgot to add: when I was in the Navy we were always told by senior chiefs that Navy rules were written in blood.. I did not doubt them..

One of the deaths when I served my mandatory year was via OT64 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OT-64_SKOT - they were parked side by side and driver was backing one in while talking to a friend standing on the side.

They did not realized that the next OT is not parallel and the moving one snipped the friend mid body.

When you deal with heavy stuff, people get hurt.

Dead doesn't bother me. Dying, on the other hand, does.

The chiefs were right. Unfortunately, I saw too often what happens when those rules were broken or ignored. Hosing blood off of decks is a memory that never quite goes away.

read my response to loose cannon.

norm

I was on the USS Saipan at the end of 1991 or early 1992 (Summer Med cruise turned into a through the med, into the gulf cruise after the Gulf War) when a harrier pilot had a "parking" accident and drove his plane off the flight deck.

I don't think that helps your chances at promotion......

Depends on the individual.

Made a t-stop on a kid wanted for sticking a gun in a bank tellers face. He put one in one ear and out the other....

After he was loaded up in the meat wagon, I returned to my car and finished my banana which I started prior to him driving past.

You can watch 100 deaths but "ONE" tends to and will always stick out for some reason? Never understood that? Something makes it different?

This thread made me reflect how lucky I am. I've never witnessed anyone getting killed.

Two accidents, one a pedestrian hit by a truck on the interstate and was not killed instantly, the second was a truck driver who jackknifed his rig on a curve, and hit the stone cliff next to the road.. I was one of the first people on the scene... both died in my arms...and I had no idea what to do with injuries that severe...

That was when I was in college... on e in Pennsylvania and one at home in Virginia...

both were the motivation contributors for me picking my MOS in the military....

I didn't see it happen, but I had to take care of the aftermath... when an M60 Tank ran over another soldier.. that wasn't fun...

have dealt with many patents dying over the years... both on the wards, and in the OR....

you get use to it, but those first two stick in the memory the most....

Only one I've seen happened when I was 11. I rode up on my bicycle literally seconds before the line snapped and he got electrocuted. Won't ever forget the sight of it or the smell. Here's the obit with story:

"Leland Thorne Services for Leland Eugene Thorne, 13, son of Mr. and Mrs. Donnie Thorne of 1115 E. 78th St., were at 3:30 p.m. today at Sanders Memorial Chapel with Richard E. Cline of the Jehovah's Witnesses officiating. Burial was in Resthaven Memorial Park under direction of Sanders Funer- ai Home. The boy died here Thursday afternoon from electric shock and burns sustained when the cable he and other youths were playing on broke and fell into a high-voltage line. Justice of the Peace Bill Ross ruled that the death was accidental. The boy was born in Lubbock. He was a seventh grade student at Atkins Junior High School. He was a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses"

When I was part of emergency service we worked a head on accident one morning where the guy was in a half ton pickup that had taken on a semi. Fella was pinned in in the sitting position behind the wheel and the whole firewall had moved in pinning him back with the steering wheel, both legs badly broken and virtually tucked under the seat yet still able to speak to us very coherently. Sadly though he had an internal bleed and the only thing keeping his blood pressure up enough to survive was the pressure being applied by being trapped. As soon as we pulled the firewall back to release him it was like a switch was turned off in him when his BP dropped. Even M.A.S.T. pants couldn't bring it back up and he did not survive. Life can end very quickly. Not the only one I've seen die but was looking right at him as the hydraulic unit released him and saw his last waking moment.

LT is right, the ones that are dead, ain't so much. But I've got one particular one, in a bad wreck, in a rainstorm on opening day of bow.. I was in the stand when the pager went and it sounded bad so I ran... and drove...

Guy was pinned in, and I"m on a hose line trying to keep the one vehicle on fire out, and from catching the one on fire that he is in... we are cutting him out and he keeps staring at me saying help me, please help me.... When the guys finally lifted the dash... I could see all the pink drain from his face, which is what I had kinda thought was going to happen... went from hose line to CPR on him all the way to town in a rain storm, to have him pronounced when we arrived.

I say it doesn't bother me, and it doesnt' so much, I don't think... but I won't ever forget that one either. I don't dream of it or it doesn't wake me... but I do see him from time to time in my mind.

Damn.. funny that we typed about exactly the same thing at the same time...

I've seen a lot from when I worked with the Rescue Squad. Had a young black woman die on us from an embolism caused by childbirth. Same thing killed my mother.

Wouldn't 'young women ' suffice ?

curdog;
Hopefully this finds you and yours acceptably well this snowy and slick January afternoon sir.

I've been fortunate thus far into my life - will turn 52 this year - in that I've never had anyone expire while I was right there.

For a number of years now I've been an Occupational First Aid guy at work and carry a go bag in my vehicles, so I've stopped at a couple good wrecks over the years.

One that stands out was an older chap who'd rolled a Pontiac Solstice at least 3 times. The crazy thing was he had this techno pop/disco music blaring and I couldn't get a pulse with the entire car shaking from the tunes.

The doors wouldn't open and for whatever reason the airbags hadn't deployed - but the gas cap and cover were gone. Funny what you remember on these details.

Anyway I could see he'd taken a mighty blow to the head and as a result he was a GCS of 2 when I first gloved up and made a shaky 3 before the local volunteer firemen got there.

I couldn't do much for him as it turned out curdog, but I had the distinct impression he was about to make the last leg of the journey so to speak.

There was another accident where the chap had already gone, but again I wasn't there until after.

Philosophically speaking I think I'd be OK attending anyone other than family or folks close to me, but with all things, only riding that one down would tell for sure how I fared.

Thanks for the thought provoking thread this afternoon curdog and all the best to you folks down there.

Dwayne