Community effort and heroic act from jet skiers help avoid disaster at Pointe-du-Chêne Wharf

A boat is fully engulfed in flames at the Pointe-du-Chêne Wharf Sunday afternoon. (Courtesy: Scott Murray)

SHEDIAC -

What should have been a peacful Sunday on the water turned into anything but when a boat caught on fire inside the marina at the Pointe-du-Chêne Wharf in Shediac, N.B.

Police said the male boater was sent to hospital with serious, but non-life threatening injuries after jumping from his boat.

“He was having some engine problems,” said Paul Moores, the owner and captain of Shediac Bay Cruises, who watched the incident occur on Sunday. “He got it started, got it off the trailer and then he began to stall and some people came down to help him keep the boat off the dock and then at one point, once he got one engine going, it exploded.”

Several people caught the incident on camera, including the explosion, the man jumping from the boat and the fire that followed.

‘We just did what we were trained to do’

However, it’s what happened after the initial explosion that’s left people still talking on the wharf Monday.

“The boat started drifting towards other boats in our marina,” said Victor Cormier, Harbour Authority general manager.

Boaters rallied together to help.

Moores said they were able to deploy a small fire hose out the back of their cruise boat to spray water as it passed by the other boat. He also called 911 and the Coast Guard.

“We just did what we were trained to do,” he said

A group of jet skiers made their way toward the burning vessel.

“They continued on with their jet skis to try and move the vessel along,” said Moores.

“They were able to get a rope onto the vessel and tow it out behind the rock wall.”

Before they intervened, Cormier says the boat was headed towards the gas bar and the yacht club.

“If it had of hit one of those boats, the statistics are that on a marina fire usually 10 to 15 boats go at the same time,” he said.

“There’s no manual on this. When something happens like that you just try to do the best that you can and they realized that if that boat was going to go towards our gas bar or the Pointe-du-Chêne Yacht Club that it’s going to be a major catastrophe,” he added.

In an interview with CTV News on Sunday, Cormier referred to the jet skiers as heroes.

Patrick LeBlanc, who was driving one of the jet skis, declined to speak to the media on Monday following the incident

‘He did everything that was supposed to be done’

Cormier says there is an emergecy plan in place at the wharf.

“The gas bar attendant or the gate will phone each other and then we will put cones on the exit gates so no one can exit the wharf so that the emergency vehicles can access the wharf from the exit side,” he said.

What exactly happened to cause the explosion on the boat is still unknown.

In total, Moores says it only took about 15 minutes from the time the boat caught on fire to the time it was towed in behind the rock wall.

The incident is currently under investigation with the Coast Guard. Police determined the fire as accidental.

“It’s one of those flukey things,” said Cormier.

“He (the boater) did everything that was supposed to be done.”

‘We went through enough’

The wharf had to be evacuated for about 40 minutes on Sunday due to the smoke coming off the burning vessel.

“This is my 14th year. I went through the storm surge in 2010, we went through Dorion and then Fiona and then we got everything pretty well repaired from Fiona, so I don’t want anything else to happen,” said Cormier.

“We went through enough.”

Overall, Moores said everything happened so quickly and there wasn’t even time to think about what to do. Instead, everyone just jumped to action, working together to have a positive outcome.

“Everybody knows everybody and we all help each other out and that’s really kind of a boaters code anyways,” said Moores.

“When you’re out there and you’re in distress, we al have a responsibility. So definitely the community came together.”

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