In their own words
Four Sisters crew share incredible rescue story
CANSO - For Fred Munroe and Addie Underwood, the pain is all too real.
The Canso residents were part of the four-man crew on board the Four Sisters No. 1 fishing vessel that rescued four military members after their Cormorant helicopter crashed into Chedabucto Bay early last Thursday morning during a night training exercise.
The other members of the Four Sisters crew were Bill Bond and Ken Snow.
Killed in the accident were Sergeant Duane Brazil, 39; Master Corporal Kirk Noel, 33; and 31-year-old Corporal Trevor McDavid.
The survivors were Captain Gabriel Ringuette, 41; Sergeant Martin Moloney, 48; Captain Ronald Busch, 40; and Major Gordon Ireland, 42.
A military investigation into the cause of the accident is underway and a memorial service for the fallen trio was held at CFB Greenwood on Tuesday afternoon.
The Journal gave Munroe and Underwood a chance to tell their story about that fateful night in their own words.
Here's the edited text of that interview, conducted with the men outside Taylor's Market in Canso early on Monday morning. The interview took place shortly before the pair left to speak with military officials and reintroduce themselves to the four survivors.
The interview begins when the Four Sisters - with the crew acting in their capacity as members of the Auxiliary Coast Guard - arrived at a pre-arranged meeting point with the Cormorant, near Bald Rock.
Fred Munroe: We got out in the bay…between 11:30 pm and 11:35 pm. (The pilot of the Cormorant) called us (from Port Hawkesbury) at 11:45 pm and told us he was getting ready to take off. So all we had to do was wait for him to come. When we were coming out into the bay he was explaining to me on the cellphone what the procedure was going to be. He was going to come around my boat, make a scan of the boat, then he was going to go back to the stern, come up on the quarter, come in over the boat, drop a man aboard and take the man back off.
One of the instructions was not to touch (the man who would be dropped onto the boat) or anything unless we were asked.
The plane came up the first time to make an initial drop, which didn't happen. He aborted it and went around again.
Then he told me that he was in position; he told me, "I'm coming up on your quarter" and he said, "We will make the initial drop" and whack - everything went to hell. Addie can tell you actually how the plane looked. He was over on the deck. I had to take care of the boat.
Addie Underwood: Before we could hear the helicopter, we could see the running lights. As it got close to us, it turned spotlights on. They made a pass over and then they stopped. We were moving ahead and they were hovering…all of a sudden, she took a little bit of a drop, a pitch to the left and she went down. I thought it was an exercise on its own that they didn't tell us about, right?
All of a sudden, crash. I went, "Oh my God, this thing crashed." I know it wasn't a couple of minutes - maybe 30 seconds to a minute - you could hear people screaming. At that time, we had a couple of guys that were excited. We told Fred and he was asking us, "Where?" because he couldn't hear anything with the engines going. Kenny Snow and I were directing Fred to the guys.
Journal: How much time do you think went by from the moment of the crash to the moment you got to the helicopter?
Fred: Maybe 10 minutes.
Addie: I was thinking five minutes, to tell you the truth.
Fred: We weren't looking at a clock. Something was dropped on to us that really threw…different feelings into your body. Once I got the confusion settled down on the boat, I took charge of the situation because the task was in my control - more or less.
I instructed Mr. Bond to take care of the (radio) sets, to put out the maydays. I didn't have to instruct Addie and Kenny to do anything because they were out there; they were my eyes and ears because I could not see; I could not hear the men in the water. I was in control of the boat, trying to get it to them. We couldn't get to them quick because I could run over somebody. We didn't know what we were getting into. It was dungeon black with the fog. We couldn't see anything.
I steered my boat to the location they were saying. We were close, less than 15 feet...the plane illuminated when the lights hit it, so we could see them. Once we got alongside of the plane they were still hollering for help and we assessed what we had to do to get them out of the water. Now we were into a rescue situation. We were trained for it in classrooms but not of this magnitude.
There was only one fellow who didn't have quite a bit of blood onto his face…they were in totally bad shape. The most hurt fellow - the other fellow took care of him. They had paired up while we were coming to get them.
Addie: Stronger weak, stronger weak - that's the way they were.
Fred: Even though the man on the plane had an arm injury, he took care of his buddy, because his buddy got his leg broke. That's the first thing they told us before we went to lift them off.
Addie: As soon as we got there Fred said, "Cut some ropes." The best thing we could do was to cut ropes and throw them to the (crew). Fred could keep an eye on them while we were getting them in.
Journal: So you pull up beside them, they've paired off in the water. What happened next?
Fred: I turned on my hydraulic system and I lowered down…a winch that will lift 4000 pounds. While I was lowering that down, Addie took one of my stern lines, cut it up and made a strap to hoist these boys out of the water. In the meanwhile, we'd thrown a rope to the fellows in the water and we were working them around the stern to get them into position to grapple them.
Addie: (Ken Snow) tried to grab a hold (of one of the injured crew) and get him up but he was in too bad a shape. Kenny is probably one of the stronger men I know - but when you have a fellow in the water who's hurt, you can't do it. Anyway (Ken) came back up on deck. At the time, we had a rope underneath (the injured crew member) of him…so we started winching him up to the side of our boat.
Fred: The strap was too long. We didn't have time to measure out a length. Then the strength of human beings took over.
Addie: We pulled him in over the side of the boat.
Fred: Then Addie shortened up the strap. The next fellow came up plenty far. (The two helicopter crew members who were perched on top of the helicopter) were much easier (to rescue) because then we were into it then, we were more relaxed. We knew how to get them out without hurting them. But these guys were professionals. When the rope went around them…most people, when a rope goes around you, it will start to hurt. But these boys, being the professionals they are, held themselves straight and everything was simple.
I feel so sorry that this damn thing happened…the fatality part of it…because these boys came out of their way to show us how to do night rescues. And here this type of thing happened and put us into a position…that we had to rescue our buddies that were going to train us. I'd like to thank all of them for coming out to help us, even though we helped them in the end. That's beside the point.
Addie: They were the heroes as far as I'm concerned.
Fred: When we got them aboard the boat we could not leave the scene. We were trained in our classroom activities that we do not leave the scene until someone relieves you. We had four men that were hurt quite a bit. We had to take the sleeping bags out of our bunks and cover them over, try to keep them warm if we could.
But we had a boat very close to us and I asked Mr. Bond to make contact with them and see if that was the fellow that we were expecting, Howie Johnson. The minute that Howie gave his word that he wouldn't leave the wreck site - knowing the man Howie is, if he gives his word he's gonna stay regardless - it eased my mind. I said, "Now we're going." He was the first boat on the scene.
Journal: So who made that first call for help?
Fred: The mayday was put out first. Bill was designated to take care of the radios and he did a very good job. After the maydays, he called his daughter, Melissa Bond, who raised the alarm. I'd like to thank her for her efforts too.
Once we had our counterparts (the injured cremen) on the boat I wouldn't let anyone use the radio, use the phone. No one was going to touch anything outside of what we were doing.
Addie: We didn't know too much about this…aviation fuel, I guess they're calling it. You've got to keep washing them down with water to stop chemical burns. So that's what (the survivors) were asking us to do. Gabriel and Marty were the two fellows I had. I had to talk about something, just to keep them conscious, right? So anyway, we were talking back and forth…and he was asking me to (wash him down) every two minutes. He had a broken arm, broken leg…but he was walking me through this.
Journal: So he was actually giving you instructions on what to do?
Addie: Like we said, total professionals. It was a great help. I didn't know what to do about (aviation fuel).
Fred: These fellows were training us at the time. Talking about heroes, we're not the heroes.
Addie: No, we aren't. These guys took the time to come and train us.
Fred: The ones we rescued were the total heroes. That was their professionalism cutting in. As bad a shape as they were in, they knew what we had to do to make them better. People don't know this stuff. They just think about what a great job we did - and I'm not saying we didn't do a good job - but the fact is we were working with total professionals.
Addie: One fellow was a little delirious but he had a lot of head trauma. But you think about it…we were watching that thing go down. It's a 60-foot helicopter. As soon as it went down…there was the crash and the screaming. But Marty, he was just talking to me like I'm talking to you right now.
Fred: Once I knocked down the panic on the boat, we went totally into a rescue mission. We were just like a well-oiled machine. We never had to talk. It was just like someone else was inside of our four bodies and just took right over. We did exactly what we were supposed to do. I'm not saying we're perfect but we did get them out of the water with the least amount of pain we could cause them. We got them to the wharf. Everything was set up when we got to the wharf. The volunteers of this community should be highly commended because they were there. It was just unbelievable.
When we came into Canso, you couldn't see 100 feet. You couldn't see 50. It was the worst conditions we could have had to come back into the harbour. But it wasn't like that before. When the plane was coming around the stern I could see the lights of the town.
Addie: It was a matter of minutes and it fogged up.
Fred: When the helicopter dropped, you couldn't see anything. It was just like someone turned the lights off. Anyway, when we came back into town - I've been fishing since I was 16 and I've been running my own rig for 25 years - and I've come into this harbour 500 times. I've towed boats as high as 90 feet that were in trouble. But I want to tell you, when I was coming into this harbour - after all this trauma and looking back on my deck and seeing these injured men and Addie and Ken running back and forth, taking care of these men - it was the hardest task of my whole career to get my boat back into that harbour. My mind was not working real well. Trying to keep that boat in the channel was a real task. Up until that point it didn't bother me.
Journal: Maybe shock had set in?
Fred: Well, something was setting in. I had to fight to keep my boat in position. Once I hauled across the harbour I felt more confident in myself and I could see the lights flashing on the deck. But that trip from Bald Rock to the inner part of the channel was a real battle for me to try and keep my composure. I'm just a human being. I'm not a superman.
Once we got into the wharf, we were in there pretty near an hour. After that hour had gone by, we went back out. In our minds, we were going to rescue these other three. Nobody could convince me I wasn't going to find these other three men. I wasn't giving up.
Our constable here, Stan Boudreau, asked us if we were going back out. I said, "Definitely. As soon as they get these fellows off we are going back out because we're going to get them."
When we went into our search plan after going back out, when that helicopter (the second Cormorant) that they were using to do a scan of the area…when that came over our boat, that was some nerve-racking for us.
Addie: It was for me. I was up in the wheelhouse and I came down because we were flinching.
Fred: Because we'd just had one almost drop on us. But up until 3:50 am, when they told us to stand down, we were going to find those people because it was our job to do this. In my heart and my head, there was no way they were not going to be found by us.
Journal: So what happened when you finally came back again and went home? How are you dealing with this?
Fred: At about 5:05 am we were down on the wharf, kind of at the last part of everything. I had a chat and then I came home but there was no way I could sleep. My body was so hyper, my heart was just hammering because of what had happened. My wife Thelma was lying down, she was tired. I sat there by myself waiting until well after daylight…then I was discussing with my wife what I went through. Until 3 pm that afternoon, when I was totally exhausted, I tried to go lie down. But my heart was still hammering. It was like my head was going to explode. I took a couple of aspirins, went back into the bedroom and from somewhere until about 4 pm I don't remember so I must have been out. But then I woke up at 4 pm and the whole thing was there again.
Addie: Our wives were our backbones through this. They got us through it.
Fred: Oh yes.
Addie: Fred and I talk to each other a lot, we're together all the time but I would say our wives were the strong ones.
Fred: Yes, by far. My wife knew I was on an exercise involving a plane but when this happened, the last thing on my mind was to notify anyone that I was all right because I wasn't worried about me. On the other hand, she was.
Addie: The pagers were going off, mayday, mayday, Four Sisters…my wife, Nora, was running down to the wharf, waiting and nobody would tell her nothing, right? She was beside herself. When we got in and they asked if we were OK, they sent…someone off to let my wife know I was OK.
Fred: They are more than our backbone, they keep us in line all of our lives. Not just now, during this…they're our guidance through our whole lives.
Addie: We're coming around a little bit now. The first couple of days were the hardest for me.
Fred: Addie had some problems. I deal with things differently because I've had quite a bit of trauma in my life. Over the years, I've lost a lot of close friends, a lot of them at one time and I deal with it quite differently.
But we went to a session with a military psychologist and he did help the others that were there. We all helped each other. It was the first time we'd talked since this happened as the unit that we were. It helped that we were getting together to talk about things.
But will it ever leave us? You can forget it. It's always going to be there.
I lost my dad at sea when I was not quite 13 years old. It was a big loss in my life because I needed my dad. It's not been until now that I can really, truly talk about it. It would have bothered me big time. Then I lost a whole bunch of friends in that Sea Hawk…but this here, this is going to be full-on because we were actually personally involved, which makes it different.
Addie: It's different when you can drive up into the scene but when you're part of it, it's a completely different story. It's something I'll never forget and which I shouldn't. What we're trying to do now is to have us control it. If we let it control us, we're going to be in bad shape.
