Posted on 05/31/2002 1:35:05 AM PDT by HAL9000
WEBBERS FALLS, Okla. (AP) -- The pilot who said he blacked out just before his barge toppled an interstate bridge had slept fewer than 10 hours in the roughly two days previous, investigators say.
But chief investigator Ken Suydam said Thursday that Capt. Joe Dedmon told the National Transportation Safety Board that he was not tired before the collision that killed 14 people.
Dedmon's barge rammed the Interstate 40 bridge in eastern Oklahoma early Sunday morning, collapsing 500-feet of the span and sending 10 vehicles into the murky Arkansas River.
"We have not reached a conclusion,'' Suydam told reporters. "The investigation is ongoing.''
Dedmon slept just 9 hours after waking Friday afternoon, Suydam said. The pilot slept six hours the night before the crash, he said.
Greg Beuerman, spokesman for barge owner Magnolia Marine Transport Co., said that sleep schedule was typical for Dedmon, a 61-year-old veteran captain with no previous violations.
"We clearly feel that he was rested enough,'' Beuerman said.
Suydam also said that health records for Dedmon did not reveal "anything remarkable.'' The captain, who was not injured in the crash, remained hospitalized Thursday.
Authorities are awaiting results of blood tests checking for alcohol or drug use, Suydam said. A urinalysis conducted Sunday by Vicksburg-Miss.-based Magnolia was negative for drugs but did not test for alcohol.
Meanwhile, engineers on the river studied how to remove an 800-ton chunk of roadway that's hanging from the bridge, about 40 miles west of the Arkansas state line.
They fear removing the chunk will damage the remaining roadway, which would be reused when the bridge is repaired, said Bruce Taylor, chief engineer for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation.
The piece is still attached to the undamaged part of the bridge and hangs at a 30-degree angle onto a barge, clogging the navigational channel. Two engineers from California who have repaired earthquake-damaged bridges are consulting.
"It's a very unique situation,'' Taylor said. "The piece that's hanging down will have to be demolished in place.''
Emergency workers recovered who they believe is the last victim Wednesday morning when they pulled from the river the body of a 3-year-old Lavaca, Ark., girl.
Her parents' bodies were recovered Monday. Couples from Spiro, Okarche and Norman also were among the dead from 10 vehicles that plummeted into the river, each pulled from the water in mangled condition.
One victim died from blunt trauma to the head; the others drowned, authorities said.
The U.S. Coast Guard, which oversees barge traffic, does not regulate the amount of sleep a towboat captain should have before a shift, said Lt. j.g. Natalie Magnino.
Beginning at 4 p.m., Dedmon traveled 12 hours to his hometown of Florence, Miss., Suydam said. There, he slept 3 hours before driving to Fort Smith, Ark., where he boarded the towboat, he said.
Dedmon went to bed that night at 11 p.m. and arose at 5 a.m. Sunday to take over in the towboat's wheelhouse, Suydam said. At 7 a.m., a crew member talked with Dedmon for 35 minutes before leaving, he said.
Dedmon told investigators the last thing he remembers before the collision was passing green channel buoys about a half-mile south of the bridge, Suydam said.
Traveling at 6-7 mph, it would have taken the towboat five minutes to reach the bridge, Suydam said.
====
A Barge Hit That Bridge, And We’re Sticking To That Story
I-40 Update By Sierra Times (plus a helpful hint to ODOT)
Published 06. 1. 02 at 2:17 Sierra Time
Guess what, Real America? We’ve got a Sierra Times Ranch Hand on the scene near the Interstate 40 bridge collapse. Go figure. The wire services are all reporting the absolute traffic mess over in flyover country, with still no explanation to the media clamp down we reported earlier. While Oklahoma Department of Transportation Spokeswoman Terri Angier has officially called it a ‘national emergency’, here’s what we know so far: Pay attention, this gets interesting.
Official line: The insomniac barge driver Joe Dedmon, 61, fell asleep at the wheel of his barge after getting only ten hours of sleep in two days.
Sierra Line: Five hours of sleep per day around this ranch is considered slacking off on the job – same for most truck and barge drivers. Not to mention earlier reports that other barge men were on deck. Add to this the conspiracy round table: Dedmon has no record of safety violations or serious health problems. But hey – he dozed off, and we’re sticking to that story.
Here’s more: The Sierra Times has learned that "Mr. Insomnia" remains hospitalized at the Muskogee Regional Medical Center. We figure that's what barge operators do when they are reportedly UN-injured from barge collisions. That’s right – almost a week since the accident, and Dedmon, who was not injured, still lays in his hospital bed as of Friday.
Official Line: National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators identified the town Dedmon drove the barge from as Merman, Mississippi.
Sierra Line: We sure hope that’s just a typo and they meant Meridian, MS, since we can’t find a Merman MS. on any map. If it is Meridian, we didn’t see any navigable waters big enough for a barge of that size there either.
Official Line: The owner of the barge is Magnolia Marine Transport Company, who say that Dedmon got enough sleep to do his job and that the initial urinalysis he received came back negative for drugs and alcohol. They also state the empty barge was travelling at 6 or 7 mph at the time of impact.
Sierra Line: Bruce Taylor, the Oklahoma Department of Transportation chief engineer said, "I was surprised that the steel could be twisted up like that. I couldn't imagine the forces involved in causing that to happen. California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) engineers were brought in to examine the bridge, and Pete Whitfield said “I've seen highways that have broken off like that in earthquakes, but have never seen one bent over like that and was still attached."
But what do we know? We’re just a bunch of news folks still trying to sort out all the weird train derailments and chemical plant explosions - just in the last two months. Like we said, you know the stories, and we’re sticking to them - all of them. The death toll from the bridge collapse remains at 14, with folks going nuts because of the traffic detours. Looks like it’ll be that way for at least six months. National Guard and other folks keeping media away from the scene? There's probably a reasonable explanation in there -
- somewhere.
In the meantime, Sierra Times suggests a possible way to alleviate some of the traffic congestion through those small towns is to look at the possibility of a temporary road to the shoreline for big rigs only. Then perhaps a couple of truck ferries can be steamed up river in short order, and be used as temporary transport across the Arkansas.
Just a thought; and we're sticking to it...
Ranch Hands Jamil Hassan, Bryant Jumeau, and J.J. Johnson contributed to this report.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.