Crew Relied On Training In Distress Call Response

Within about two minutes of the mv. Shelby Gros hearing a distress call January 15, crewmembers had called 911, grabbed an automatic defibrillator and were on board a fleet boat with an incapacitated wheelman.

Cheri Dufriend, vice president of Platinum Marine, based in Mandeville, La., said the quick response of the crew is an example of how river companies pull together and help each other during an emergency.

While the captain of the fleet boat for the ABM Reserve Elevator, Lower Mississippi Mile 139, ultimately passed away, Dufriend credited the quick thinking of the Shelby Gros’s crew for springing into action and likely preventing more damage from the fleet boat, which remained in gear with one barge and was spinning in the water near the fleet, grain elevator and a dock.

Crewmembers of the Shelby Gros are Capt. Jonathan Gilliland, Pilot Taylor Martin and deckhands Dakota Corley, Logan Slade, Jacob Anclade and Gerardo Canales.

At about 1:25 p.m., a deckhand who was the only other person on the fleet boat made a distress call on the radio that the captain of the boat had passed out in the wheelhouse, and he didn’t know how to operate the vessel or the whereabouts of medical equipment. Martin was in the wheelhouse on the Shelby Gros and immediately sounded the general alarm, rousing the whole crew.

“There were other vessels in the area but none as close as us who could respond to get help to him,” Gilliland said.

The fleet boat, which had just pulled a barge out of the fleet to fill at the elevator, was spinning in the water with the attached barge, he said.

Martin nosed the Shelby Gros against the barge, providing enough resistance to stop the vessel’s spin.

“As soon as they said incapacitated wheelman, I told the other guys to follow me,” Gilliland said. “I instructed one of my guys to grab the AED and told the other one to call 911 on the way out.”

Gilliland, Anclade and Canales made their way onto the vessel, started chest compressions and used the automatic external defibrillator (AED) from their boat to try to shock the other boat captain’s heart back into rhythm. Gilliland took control at the wheel and brought the fleet boat back to the fleet, and the deckhands helped firefighters carry the man to the second deck, where a man basket was used to transport him off the vessel.

Gilliland said the events showed the importance of training and regular drills. Every man on the mv. Shelby Gros knows CPR, he said, and they participate in weekly drills, covering what to do in a man overboard, fire, incapacitated wheelman and abandon ship situation once each month.

“We do our vessel trainings, and we take it seriously, and that’s a huge part of how our crew responded the way we did,” he said, adding that the crew stayed calm, and their training meant they knew exactly what to do.

“It’s never going to be an ideal time for an emergency, and it’s important to note that it will happen and that these drills and trainings aren’t just for paperwork purposes,” Gilliland said. “They can actually save a life or save a vessel.”’

Caption for photo: The crew of the mv. Shelby Gros—Capt. Jonathan Gilliland, pilot Taylor Martin and deckhands Dakota Corley, Logan Slade, Jacob Anclade and Gerardo Canales—gather with Platinum Marine’s Trey and Cheri Dufriend on the boat just before Christmas. The crew responded to a radio distress call of an incapacitated wheelman on a fleet boat January 15 at a grain elevator in Reserve, La. (Photo courtesy of Platinum Marine)