Congolese stowaways cast adrift
Ray Smuts
IT WAS a tale in the finest tradition of seafaring as a ship's crew battled valiantly round the clock for four days to save the life of a critically ill shipmate as the vessel steamed full speed for Cape Town.
Alas, it proved too late. The patient, Joseph Mayes, 46, was declared brain dead and died in hospital on Friday night (January 5) after a 150-nautical mile mercy dash by Court sea rescue helicopter.
Mayes, an American
crew member aboard
the oceanographic ship Knorr, rolled his car in Cape Town harbour on December 7, a day before the vessel was to set sail. Once at sea he complained of headaches, collapsed and stopped breathing at 4 a.m. on Tuesday.
As the skipper of the Knorr turned his vessel about to return to Cape Town, the 22-member crew split into 15-minute shifts, pumping air into Mayes manually using a rugby ball-shaped ventilator.
By the time the Sikorsky 61 helicopter arrived, sea rescue medic Phil Ress and private paramedic Geoff Bettison had only 15 minutes to connect Mayes to an automatic ventilator and winch him into the aircraft.
During the process the winch overheated, leaving pilot Ian Labuschagne no option but to depart without the medics who remained on board till the vessel arrived in the Mother City 14 hours later.
In another sea drama
off Cape Town, four
stowaways from the Democratic Republic of Congo were cast adrift without food or water by the crew of a Durban-bound vessel Krissa - now the subject of an investigation by the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA).
Their inflatable liferaft was spotted on Friday, eight nautical miles off Cape Point, by the sailing research vessel Zuza. The men were later landed at Hout Bay by National Sea Rescue Institute vessel and taken into custody by police and officials from
the Department of Home Affairs.
The four stowed away aboard the Krissa while
she was moored in the Congolese port of Matadi. Once discovered, the Oriental crew allegedly threatened to kill them before setting them adrift.
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