The recent fire aboard HMCS Protecteur is a reminder of the many types of danger our Canadian sailors face every time they go to sea.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Shawn Marleau is the senior fire instructor at the navy’s Damage Control Division in Purcell’s Cove, N.S. He trains sailors to deal with emergencies at sea.
“They don’t leave here unless they are up to scratch,” says Marleau.
It was no training session when an engine-room fire left the Canadian navy ship stranded in the mid-Pacific last week.
Twenty sailors sustained minor injuries, including smoke inhalation, but Marleau says things could have been much worse.
“They paid attention to their training,” he says. “They acted as a team and they fought together and that’s the big thing about ship’s company, you got out and fight together to save the ship and they obviously did that and they did a very good job of it.”
The navy has two training facilities in Canada. The one in Nova Scotia trains roughly 4,000 people each year, including some of the sailors aboard HMCS Protecteur.
"Whatever happened out on the West Coast they put that into action. So all the training that they had throughout the years obviously kicked in," says Chief Petty Officer 2nd Class Edwin Seaward.
After fire, the other deadly scenario faced by sailors is a flood on the ship. The Damage Control Division is set up to help sailors deal with that situation as well.
"You have to deal with it,” says Seaward. “You have to deal with it quickly. Like I say, there's nowhere to run when you're at sea. I use that analogy, you don't have 911 out there. You may not have assistance. You need to deal with it."
The training centre itself is named for HMCS Kootenay. Nine sailors died aboard the ship after an engine-room fire in 1969 - a grim reminder of the importance of the training that takes place at the navy’s Damage Control Division.
HMCS Protecteur was towed into Pearl Harbor today. The cause of the fire is not yet known.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Jayson Baxter
