January 11, 2005
8:38 AM
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 th ings 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 di dn'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 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 eterni ty 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 definately 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
didnââ≠¬â≥¢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 to update a status
board and hit the Ship's Control Panel hard enough to break some of the gauges.
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 a t. Several crew
members are reevaluating that habit now.
Once again we got lucky in the fact that we had an extra corpsman onboard. One
of our officer's 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 was an inspiration of what a leader should be and my
Captain was as well. My XO took out an EAB manifold with his back but still
managed to help coordinate things. No matter what happens later, these men did a
superior job under difficult circums tances. 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,
Brian Frie
Chief Electronics Technician Submarines USS San Francisco SSN 711