Navy Story #30
Crunch Time
Even peacetime in the military can be hazardous. When you have a bunch of equipment being operated even in training situations, even in the best of conditions, things can go wrong.
And people can get hurt.
In story #2 I told you about when we were doing a landing exercise in Italy in 1973. On a second cruise to the Mediterranean in 1975, we also did some practice landings in Italy, and
on one occasion it turned into a very bad day for one of the Marines who was aboard the Pensacola with us.
I was boat group officer again, meaning I was in charge of a small group of landing craft. My boat in this case was, again, an LCM-8. Here is a picture of an LCM-8:
Note the upper deck in the rear of the boat, where there are about six or seven people standing in the picture. Also note that only one of the people in this picture (that you can see)
is wearing an orange life vest. He is one of the boat's Navy crewmen, not a Marine. The Marines were crazy. They should have had life vests on.
Anyway, it was not the actual boat in this picture, but another LCM-8, that I was in command of during this practice landing in 1975. We were still in the welldeck, loading Marines
aboard our LCM-8, when the incident I am telling you about happened. I was already aboard my LCM-8, watching as equipment and men came aboard. There was water in the welldeck, since the Pensacola was ballasted down so boats
could come and go for the landing. There was enough water in the welldeck so that the LCM-8 was floating, still tied (moored) to the vertical wall of the welldeck. The deck around the welldeck is about 7 or 8 feet above
the deck of an LCM-8 that is afloat, so people have to climb down a ladder to get to an LCM-8 in the welldeck. One of the Marines didn't time his step off of the ladder and onto the deck of the rocking LCM-8 very well,
and his foot slipped on the edge of the wet deck of the LCM-8. He fell between the LCM-8 and the wall of the welldeck.
Fortunately for the Marine, he did have on a life vest. The water in the welldeck was sloshing around a bit, since the seas (waves) at the time were gentle but still there, and the
ship (the Pensacola) was rocking gently. The Marine couldn't get back up to the deck of the LCM-8, and before any of us could get over to him to pull him up, the LCM-8 sloshed over against the welldeck wall, meaning that
it crunched the Marine between it (the LCM-8 itself) and the welldeck wall. Ouch. I could hear the Marine moan and his breath being squished out of his lungs. Before the LCM-8 could slosh out and back in again, I ran over
to the Marine, at small but not negligible risk to even myself on the wet deck, and I pulled the Marine up onto the deck of the LCM-8, along with help from another of the boat's crewmen. We were amazed that the Marine
was still alive. A medical corpsman was called for right away, and he came aboard and checked out the Marine. The Marine was hurting but alive.
That Marine's life vest saved him for two reasons: First, it kept him afloat until the crewman and I could get over to him to haul him aboard. And secondly, it took some of the
crushing weight of the LCM-8 and cushioned the crunch a bit.
I always say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Or to put it another way, as the Boy Scouts say, be prepared! This same attitude goes for life vests, whether on a Navy
boat or on a pleasure craft; and also for seat belts.
So, be prepared! And enjoy your adventures!