SHELBY.GROS

General information

Course/Position

Latest news

Qucik thinking prevented damage after captain of fleet boat passed away

within about two minutes after a distress call was received on the 'Shelby Gros' on Jan 15, crew members grabbed an automatic defibrillator and were on board a fleet boat with an incapacitated wheelman. 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 grain elevator and a dock. At about 1:25 p.m., a deckhand, who was the only other person on the fleet boat, issued the distress call on the radio that the captain had passed out in the wheelhouse, and he didn’t know how to operate the vessel or the whereabouts of medical equipment. The helmmman of the 'Shelby Gros' immediately sounded the general alarm, rousing the whole crew. The 'Shelby Gros' nosed against the barge, providing enough resistance to stop the vessel’s spin. Three crew members made their way onto the vessel, started chest compressions and used the automatic external defibrillator (AED) to try to shock the boat captain’s heart back into rhythm. One man 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.