Surviving the sinking of their 65-foot fishing vessel was a triumph for Captain Corey Starkes and crewmembers Chad Sheppard and Scott Drover. Their survival was the result of a remarkable combination of determination, knowhow, Search and Rescue (SAR) technician’s expertise and more, all sprinkled with some old-fashioned good luck. But their elation was sadly tempered by the heartbreak of losing a friend and shipmate, Max Pittman. To this day, nine years later, some of the ordeal still seems surreal to the three men — like something that happened in a parallel universe.
This is Part V and the conclusion of “You Can’t Fix It.”
After retrieving Max’s body, the SAR Cormorant helicopter landed in Gander with survivors, Corey, Scott and Chad at approximately 1:15 p.m. Saturday afternoon.
The 45-minute trip in the heated chopper revived the three fishermen enough that they could walk from the helicopter to a waiting ambulance that took them to Gander hospital.
Corey says it was hard to comprehend everything that had happened in just a few hours that morning and even their stay in hospital was a surreal experience.
“My brain felt fried. I remember my sister-in-law’s husband passing me a cell phone saying ‘here, take this, you have to take the phone.’ It was Leigh Anne, my wife — she was afraid to believe that I was still alive until she heard my voice.”
“Someone asked if I wanted anything and I said ‘yes, a Tim Horton’s coffee, the size of a five-gallon bucket.’ A few minutes later someone arrived with several large Tim’s coffee.”
But the phone call that has lasted in Corey’s memory to this day came a little later from a fellow fishing captain.
“He was a man who also lost his boat and lost a crewmember some time before us and he wanted to try and comfort me with some advice. It was good because it was coming from someone who had lived through what I was going through at that moment. He said he didn’t want to hear the story of what happened that day but he said ‘I want to tell you what you are going to try to do.’”
“‘He said ‘you’re gonna try to fix it — but I want to tell you that you can’t fix it.’ He said every day you’ll be trying to fix it and later on it clicked in with me. I realized I was trying to fix it — going back in my mind trying to start over and recreate the whole thing and do it differently. It went on for weeks. Sometimes I’d be almost asleep and I could hear Max saying over and over again ‘I’m not gonna make it; I’m not gonna make it.’ I’d be up at night talkin’ and talkin’ — my wife couldn’t help me, my family couldn’t help me; sometimes I’d break down and start crying not knowing what to do but eventually it was that call that started me thinking that the man was right, I couldn’t fix it.”
Corey says he is grateful his family members were all very helpful in getting him through about three weeks of hell on earth. He singles out his brother and one other man for having endless patience and understanding.
“That other man was a Salvation Army Captain and I’m not even a Salvation Army church member. He was so easy to talk too, just like any fella on the wharf and he didn’t care what I said; I’d be swearin’ and cursin’ and screechin’ and he would never get frustrated or mad at me, he’d sit and listen and pat me on the hand or whatever and drink coffee with me for hours and hours. He’s a wonderful man.”
Trying to piece together what went wrong on October 24, 2009 was a painful experience for Corey, Chad and Scott as they relived, over and over, every moment from the minute they realized something was seriously wrong to the time they were rescued and beyond.
The most excruciating moments were sharing each other’s memories and thoughts on what happened to Max that put him in a zombie-like state, unable to even put on his survival suit. There are still dozens of unanswered questions on that issue that will haunt all three men for years. Corey says one of the hardest things he ever had to do was visit Max’s wife and tell her how they remember the events surrounding her husband’s last minutes.
“That was real hard. She kept asking why Max wasn’t coming home.”
There were also surprise findings during the investigation process.
Corey had assumed the search kicked in when his mayday was transmitted, especially when he saw a Fisheries and Oceans aircraft fly directly over them a couple of hours later, dipping its wings to indicate the men had been spotted.
However, in conversations with Coast Guard people, along with Transportation Safety Board officials and others during their investigations, Corey was amazed to learn that nobody had heard a mayday from the Seafaring Legend and that Coast Guard picked up his approximate location from the vessel’s EPIRB (electronic positioning locating indicator) that activates when submerged in the ocean.
Search and Rescue then contacted Corey’s dad, Allan Starkes, the vessel’s registered owner and the search coordination started immediately following that contact.
As for the DFO aircraft fly-over and wing dipping maneuver; a Fisheries and Oceans official said there was a surveillance aircraft in the air that morning but the pilots did not see a life raft anywhere.
Corey still shakes his heard in disbelief when he recounts it all. He points out that an EPIRB usually doesn’t ping a signal quickly because a number of satellites need to be aligned appropriately to get a fairly accurate location and sometimes that can take hours. Comparing notes with his dad and Search and Rescue records, Corey says the EPIRB activated successfully indicating the position where the Seafearing Legend sank less than an hour of sinking.
Corey doesn’t bother to try and explain how he and Chad are certain they saw a DFO fixed wing aircraft fly over them twice and indicated that the pilots had a visual with the men in the life rafts by dipping the plane’s wings.
“I just don’t know what to say,” he concludes. “Your guess is as good as mine — all I can tell you is what I thought I saw.”
Investigators said it appears the Seafaring Legend was suddenly overwhelmed by a very large wave that listed the vessel hard to port and before she could recover, a second wave came crashing down and forced it beyond the point of possible return.
Corey didn’t go back fishing after the accident.
His wife and three children tried to discourage him from even talking about a return to life on the water and his brother Craig convinced Corey to join him working on the oil sands project in Fort McMurray, Alberta.
Meanwhile, Corey found himself growing more and more concerned about whether in fact he could overcome his psychological fear of going back on the water, so he followed his brother’s advice and trained for work as a heavy equipment operator and then headed west.
Finally, years after the accident, Corey decided to venture out in boat but it was not a pleasant experience.
“I was white knuckled even though it was just around the harbour,” he says. “I was OK in the water scuba diving and stuff like that, but not in the boat.”
After spending most of his life on the water Corey pushed himself to try again and after several times it eventually got a little easier but not easy enough to consider going back as a fishing captain.
“Those days are over,” he says.
The crew of Rescue 912 of Canadian Armed Forces Squadron 103 in Gander was recognized for bravery and dedication. Major Steve Reid, Captain Priscilla Jobin, Sergeants Morgan Biderman, Brent Lawrence and Kent Gulliford were selected as winners of the 2010 Cormorant Trophy for Helicopter Rescue.
