Saluting some unsung heroes of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy

It’s easy to be cynical at the government and corporate response to controlling what may be the beginning of the worst manmade disaster in American history. 210,000 gallons of oil are pouring into the Gulf of Mexico while the fingers of blame are pointed.

Seemingly forgotten by the media in the unfolding story is the fact that 11 lives were taken in the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon platform April 20.

Even more overlooked is the fact that 115 persons were saved that night 50 miles from Louisiana by extraordinarily unsung acts of heroism.

Some of those unsung heroes are the captain and crew of the Tidewater Damon Bankston.

The Damon Bankston is the 260-foot supply boat that sailed directly toward the inferno of flames engulfing the platform.  The survivors were brought aboard from escaping capsules and plucked out of the water and onto the vessel’s long open deck.

Other heroes were the capsule captains who piloted workers away from the rig to safety.

There were the Coast Guard helicopter pilots who lifted off in the middle of the night and flew toward 50 story high pillars of flame. Their crew winched down to the water and pulled up workers who had jumped nearly 100 feet from the platform into the sea.

“You have to go out. You don’t have to come back,” is an old Coast Guard saying.

Then there was the mysterious “man in the white T-shirt.” That’s who Oleander Benton, a cook on the platform, credits with leading her safely through falling debris and raining mud to her lifeboat (read her story here).