kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter pulling, push­ing, drag­ging and crawl­ing through a 30-inch di­am­e­ter pipeline with an in­jured arm, Christo­pher Boodram reached the end of that line but al­most gave up, think­ing he saw the an­gel of death.

Boodram was trau­ma­tised and fa­tigued. His mus­cles were bruised and his eyes burnt from be­ing in­side the pipeline, which was filled with oil and wa­ter.

But what he thought was death turned out to be a life­line, as it was his dive men­tor Ronald Ra­moutar. Ra­moutar got help from Corey Craw­ford to res­cue Boodram from the dead­ly line at Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny’s off­shore fa­cil­i­ty.

The brave and heart-break­ing tes­ti­mo­ny was shared by Boodram at the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) in­to the LM­CS/Paria Div­ing Tragedy at the In­ter­na­tion­al Fi­nan­cial Com­plex in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day.

The in­ci­dent claimed the lives of his col­leagues, Fyzal Kur­ban, Yusuf Hen­ry, Kaz­im Ali Jr and Rishi Na­gas­sar.

The LM­CS em­ploy­ees were re­pair­ing a de­fec­tive por­tion of Paria Fu­el’s Sealine 36’s ris­er off the Port of Pointe-a-Pierre on Feb­ru­ary 25 when the dead­ly ac­ci­dent hap­pened.

Short­ly af­ter lunch on that day, a Dif­fer­en­tial Pres­sure (Delta P) in­ci­dent oc­curred as the divers re­moved an in­flat­able plug, caus­ing a vor­tex that sucked the men in­to the pipeline.

Yes­ter­day be­fore the com­mis­sion­ers, Boodram wept as he re­called the hor­ror he, Kur­ban, Ali Jr and Hen­ry faced as they met up in the dark and cramped line.

He had to take sev­er­al breaks to com­plete his tes­ti­mo­ny.

Un­der ex­am­i­na­tion by CoE coun­sel Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, Boodram re­called reach­ing to work ear­ly for a tool­box meet­ing about the work ahead on the ris­er.

He said they dis­cussed the job, its stages and po­ten­tial haz­ards, but Delta P was not one of the is­sues raised. He re­called be­ing in the habi­tat with Kur­ban, Hen­ry and Na­gas­sar, while Ali Jr was stand­ing by on a barge.

The crew re­moved a blank flange, and then Kur­ban in­struct­ed Boodram to see if an­oth­er team had fin­ished car­ber test­ing the line. How­ev­er, he said there was a de­for­mi­ty in the pipe and the seals could not fit. Boodram said he and the oth­ers took lunch while Paria and LM­CS dis­cussed the is­sue.

Fol­low­ing lunch, Ali Jr in­formed the crew that there was clear­ance to con­tin­ue with­out the test. They re­moved the me­chan­i­cal plug, and as they de­flat­ed the in­flat­able plug, Ali Jr en­tered with a span­ner, and Boodram saw wa­ter ris­ing in the cham­ber.

“Al­lyuh, what go­ing on? Look, this thing is fill­ing up. Let we get out of here,” Boodram said he told his col­leagues.

He re­called be­ing caught in a tor­na­do-like event, hit­ting the walls of the pipeline, feel­ing de­bris and hold­ing his breath un­til his lungs were in pain.

I pre­pared for Heav­en

Sud­den­ly, Boodram said he was out of the wa­ter. How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted to not know­ing if he was alive or dead, or in heav­en or hell.

“At that point, I told my­self that I would die. I said to God I am com­ing. Ma, look out for me. I was ex­pect­ing to be dead,” he told the CoE.

He said he heard Ali Jr call out to him and thought his col­leagues were out­side the pipe. He quick­ly learned, how­ev­er, that the en­tire crew was there.

Not know­ing what di­rec­tion he was in, he crawled back­wards to Ali Jr and the oth­ers.

He said Kur­ban was groan­ing in pain and Hen­ry had a bro­ken leg. Boodram him­self had in­jured his left arm. Hen­ry told the oth­ers that he had crawled over Na­gas­sar fur­ther down the pipe.

“We go­ing and dead,” Boodram said was the cry of de­spair from Ali Jr, but Boodram said he tried to mo­ti­vate them to push ahead to get out of the line.

At first, Boodram said he was un­sure of what di­rec­tion to go in. He said it was his col­leagues who di­rect­ed him on the right path that saved his life. He said the men held on­to each oth­er, drag­ging them­selves across the hor­i­zon­tal sec­tion of the pipeline run­ning along the seafloor.

“Mind you all, in there was like an un­be­liev­able night­mare. Your eyes are burn­ing. Every time you try to open your eyes, it burns. It is pitch black; you can­not see any­thing. Your throat is burn­ing. Your ears are ring­ing, and your body is sore,” Boodram said.

“In­side there was not just a crawl through a pipe like how plen­ty of peo­ple might be think­ing.”

As they dragged across the pipe with eight-10 inch­es of wa­ter, Boodram said he found Ali’s Go­Pro cam­era and con­tem­plat­ed leav­ing a good­bye mes­sage for his fam­i­ly but de­cid­ed against it.

In­stead, they prayed for a res­cue. But as the men moved clos­er to the ver­ti­cal line, the wa­ter lev­el in­creased, so Boodram scout­ed for­ward, leav­ing the oth­ers be­hind.

“Small Kaz (Ali Jr) was hold­ing me. I said I am not com­ing out the pipe with­out you all. I would nev­er leave you all.”

How­ev­er, Boodram soon re­alised the grav­i­ty of the way back to life. He trav­elled ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15 feet and found a scu­ba tank. He re­alised then he would have to reach the sur­face and get help for the oth­ers. He said he was sure there were al­ready oth­er divers in the pipe search­ing. He said he made his way through flood­ed sec­tions of the pipeline, find­ing two more scu­ba tanks be­fore reach­ing the open­ing in the habi­tat. Kur­ban at­tempt­ed to fol­low but nev­er made it.

Poor treat­ment at hos­pi­tal

As Boodram float­ed in­to the pipe, he grabbed on­to a chain above but could not pull him­self out. He screamed, bawled and cried for help as he knocked the pipeline with the chain. He then heard some­one knock. Af­ter back and forth knock­ing, Boodram said Ra­moutar en­tered the cham­ber.

“I start­ed see­ing a lit­tle light in the habi­tat. I swear to God it was the an­gel of death com­ing for me. I told my­self that this was the light that peo­ple talk about.”

Ra­moutar could not reach Boodram and need­ed to get help, but Craw­ford soon en­tered the cham­ber. Boodram told them the rest of the divers were in the pipeline, and the men said they were wait­ing for more equip­ment and back­up.

Boodram re­called that he plead­ed with sev­er­al peo­ple to res­cue the divers be­fore an am­bu­lance took him to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

He was al­so crit­i­cal of the treat­ment he re­ceived, say­ing that nei­ther LM­CS nor Paria con­sid­ered he could de­vel­op de­com­pres­sion sick­ness. He said the hos­pi­tal was al­so un­pre­pared for his sit­u­a­tion, as he spent three of six days there with oil still on his body. He said they al­so placed him in a room with a COVID-19 pa­tient, who even­tu­al­ly died.

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