To All, I thought that I would put out a note since a lot of you have been calling and writing to find out how things are and if I'm OK and what happened. If you hadn't heard, my boat hit a uncharted submerged sea mount at the highest speed we can go at about 500ft below the surface. There were about 30 of us that were seriously hurt and unfortunately one of my shipmates didn't make it.
First off I am OK. I am pretty beat up with my entire left side and butt as one big bruise. My shoulder is separated and may require surgery. They will evaluate later this week. I am very fortunate that I hit the wall and didn't go down a ladderwell that was right next to where I hit. If I had gone down that, I would have got really messed up. I took a tremendous shot to my left thigh from something. If it had been slightly lower in the knee area it would have been really ugly. But all in all I am in good shape.
We hit it at about noon right after field day (where all of us clean the boat for several hours). Thank God we didn't hit while we were doing this or it would have been much worse. We would have had flying deck plates through the air and such. Not good. As it was, it happened while chow was going on and most people were either sitting and eating or on watch.
I don't remember much of the collision. People describe it as like in the movie the Matrix where everything slowed down and levitated and then went flying forward faster that the brain can process. My mind has blanked it out exactly what happened. Adrenaline kicked in and I have no real memory of how I got down to middle level [of 3 in a single large compartment forward of the reactor and engineering spaces. Upper level is control area, CO/XO staterooms radio room, sonar etc. Middle level is crews mess, crew's berthing, storage, reefers and some environmental control equipment. Lower level is for the torpedo room, more berthing, auxiliary equipment, freezers and so forth. Below all that is the battery well,] or what I did immediately following. I helped carry several shipmates to the crew mess deck (adrenaline is a wonderful thing - my shoulder was wrecked and I had no idea until about 4 hours later). I sat with several of my junior guys that had bad head wounds and talked with them to keep them conscious until doc could see them. It seemed like an eternity but I'm sure wasn't that long. For those Navy folks that ever wondered why Chief's stomp around and preach "Stow for Sea" This was a perfect example. It definitely saved lives.
I am extremely proud of the crew to do damage control, help the wounded and get the boat safely to the surface (for the boat guys we blew the tanks dry on the emergency blow but unbeknownst to us we were missing some ballast tanks/some didn’t have integrity). The ship's control party did every thing exactly right even though they were hurt as well. The Diving Officer of the Watch had just unbuckled his belt [watchstanders in control such as helmsman, planesman, etc. must wear seatbelts when running submerged 'at speed' - for just such an eventuality as this incident] to update a status board and hit the Ship's Control Panel hard enough to break some of the gages. To add insult to injury his chair came up right behind him. Several people were injured in the Engine Room Lower Level area. Lots of metal and sharp edges in the area as well as that's were the boat's smoking area is at. Several crew members are reevaluating that habit now.
Once again we got lucky in the fact that we had an extra corpsman [essentially a highly qualified EMT - certified to be the only medical support on subs] onboard. One of our officers was a prior enlisted corpsman that was a Fleet Marine Force medic so he was a Godsend for us. Our Corpsman did an outstanding job getting everyone stabilized and did the best he could for our fallen shipmate. I am surprised that he got him to hold on as long as he did. Our corpsman is definitely a hero in my book. He didn't sleep for 2 or 3 days.
We finally put him down when the SEAL docs helicoptered in to help. Like I said, I am extremely proud of my crew and how they handled themselves. My Chief of the Boat [COB - the senior enlisted man aboard and right-hand man to skipper and XO] was an inspiration of what a leader should be and my Captain was as well. My XO took out an EAB manifold [Emergency Air Breathing - a series of manifolds throughout the boat into which the crew plugs in air masks if the air in the boat is unbreathable] with his back but still managed to help coordinate things. No matter what happens later, these men did a superior job under difficult circumstances. I am humbled by the entire crew's performance from the CO down to the Seaman that I was checking in two days before.
For those of you wondering, I am sure there will be an investigation into what happened and no I was not part of the navigation preps for this voyage. I work on the inertial/electronic navigation and interior communications part of my rate and didn't have anything to do with the conventional navigation part of it. I will be lending support to my comrades who were, to help them prepare for the pending investigation.
I thank you all for you concern and appreciate your prayers not only for myself, but for my shipmates. We are doing well, we band of brothers and will pull through just fine.
Thanks,
Xxxx Yyyy Zzzz
Great post. Thanks for sharing that with us, along with the explanations of some technical terms.
Thank you for the update.
"Uncharted" needs to be the word of the day every day for a while.
Godspeed to the crew of USS San Francisco.
What a great read.
Thanks.
Thanks for the updated information. I had wondered what time of "day" the accident happened. Right after field day, that figures. Sometimes on my boats we had GMT at the start of the watch after a morning field day so at least 2 watch sections would have been up.
I wonder how many people sustained neck injuries from being thrown forward (or out of) in their bunk.
Question - how would the writer know this already?
...my boat hit a uncharted submerged sea mount...
Thanks for the great post. I left the boats over 35 years ago and I'm still bursting with pride over the SF crew!
Thanks for the great post. Problem is, I have been lying awake for hours now, either visualizing what happened to them, or else remembering the hairier moments of my career. Sleep is being very evasive tonight. My prayers are with the family of the brave young man who gave his all for our benefit.
Thank you, a sobering account..Prayers for all of the crew..
Thanks for your post
My son has said the same thing to me. He went to the control room after impact to help out and he said the charts showed no geographical features.
He was eating lunch and debating with himself on whether to get dessert or not and said "ah, what the heck" and got some ice cream. He went back to his area in engineering and sat back down when the impact occurred. He remembers two impacts....the first was very hard and the second was a smaller bump. The back of his chair took most of the impact and he ended up sore and slightly bruised....if he hadn't decided to get some ice cream he would have been in the reactor area. At 6 feet 5 in. and 240 pounds, he would have become a formidable flying object. (The small pleasures of life are worthwhile and quite possibly lifesaving)!!
The memorial services for MM2 Ashley are today in Guam. I asked my son to try to have a few words with his father and to express condolensces from one crewmates father to the father of a fallen crewmember.
The CO is upbeat and taking the incident well; the Nav is really taking it hard. The crew have tremendous respect for their CO and are really hoping that he comes out well after the investigation, hearings, etc.
Lastly, as an Army vet of the Vietnam War, thank you to all the submariners, current and veteran, for your insightful information on this thread. It has given this ol' desert rat clarity on the nature and severity of this accident.