Cheers to their bravery… and also to our parents’ sanity for not having to deal with their missing sons when they were our age”.
I can’t believe it’s been 37 years. This and then the Lockerbie disaster later on the same year made me realise how properly shite life could be.
Piper Alpha. My dad worked as a paramedic at the Forties in 89-91. Several of the people he worked with had links to both the platform and had been part of rescue operations.
That disaster scared the living daylights out of roughnecks for years.
Huh, never heard about this, can someone explain about this please?
Never forget they didn’t stop pumping oil for hours after piper alpha was already on fire because of shareholders profits.
This and Lockerbie were major events in my childhood. In both cases we had links to people involved and it was all very surreal. One of my mums good friends had a brother who was on the rig. He made it off but shattered both his legs jumping from the platform into the North Sea. His hands were also melted from the heat generated by the fire that made the platform red hot and melting in parts. While he physically survived, he was broken mentally and was a shell afterwards.
My dad had worked on one of the other platforms in the late 70’s to early 80’s but quit after seeing a guy fall from the platform. There weren’t proper railings as H&S just wasn’t a thing back then.
I’m offshore the now and we just had a minutes silence for it. Always a strange mood onboard on the anniversary…. for obvious reasons.
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Cheers to their bravery… and also to our parents’ sanity for not having to deal with their missing sons when they were our age”.
I can’t believe it’s been 37 years. This and then the Lockerbie disaster later on the same year made me realise how properly shite life could be.
Piper Alpha. My dad worked as a paramedic at the Forties in 89-91. Several of the people he worked with had links to both the platform and had been part of rescue operations.
That disaster scared the living daylights out of roughnecks for years.
Huh, never heard about this, can someone explain about this please?
Never forget they didn’t stop pumping oil for hours after piper alpha was already on fire because of shareholders profits.
This and Lockerbie were major events in my childhood. In both cases we had links to people involved and it was all very surreal. One of my mums good friends had a brother who was on the rig. He made it off but shattered both his legs jumping from the platform into the North Sea. His hands were also melted from the heat generated by the fire that made the platform red hot and melting in parts. While he physically survived, he was broken mentally and was a shell afterwards.
My dad had worked on one of the other platforms in the late 70’s to early 80’s but quit after seeing a guy fall from the platform. There weren’t proper railings as H&S just wasn’t a thing back then.
I’m offshore the now and we just had a minutes silence for it. Always a strange mood onboard on the anniversary…. for obvious reasons.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8mdpao
Fire in the Night is a great documentary about the Piper Alpha tragedy, well worth watching,
Rip.
Grandad had Scottish blood and worked all his life on ships and oil rigs.
He always told me about Piper Alpha.
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