Time for a reckoning

Hindsight, unfortunately, will not raise the dead.

There's no saving Larry Parsons and Christopher Oram, who perished at sea when their tugboat went down off Baccalieu Island last month.

However, information released by the coast guard following the tragedy leaves the families of these two men to constantly dwell on the most distressing of questions, What if?

According to coast guard officials, the two men were in the water and appeared to be alive when the Cormorant helicopter arrived on the scene.

Yet, the helicopter crew determined it would be safer to wait for a nearby coast guard fast rescue craft.

By the time that vessel arrived 15 minutes later, both men had succumbed to the freezing north Atlantic. Their survival suits had filled with water and, unbeknownst to the helicopter crew, the men were dying of hypothermia while the helicopter hovered.

This tragedy is just one more chink in the waning confidence Newfoundland and Labrador mariners have in rescue operations.

In September 2005, four men drowned when the Melina and Keith II rolled over and sank on the northeast coast. All four men survived the initial sinking, but when the hull they were standing on eventually slipped beneath the waves, they were lost forever.

The 'what if' their families live with is the 'What if the coast guard rescue helicopter had arrived sooner?'

In that tragedy we learned that helicopter crews are on standby during normal business hours and can be airborne in 30 minutes.

But if you happen to run into trouble on the sea after the coast guard's normal working hours, it will take crews one or two hours to respond to your emergency distress signal.

When the Ryan's Commander went down off Cape Bonavista on a stormy night in 2006, the coast guard helicopter that was dispatched to help ran into trouble with the hoist used to lift the men out of the water.

No one can say for sure whether the hoist trouble led to the loss of two lives. But in an emergency situation, every second counts.

No doubt, the families of the Ryan brothers have their own 'what ifs' to live with.

We are a province bounded by the ocean, with marine traffic passing by our shores at all hours of practically every day of the year and oil rigs pumping wealth from sea. Hundreds of people, men and women, who hope to return home safe to their families are working on board those ships and rigs.

Our waters are important highways and workplaces, thanks to oil exploration, fishing and the transportation of goods. It is time for Ottawa to consider marine emergency services as an integral part of that system. It's time for a reckoning of how the coast guard search and rescue system operates and how it can be improved.

Ottawa is now tasked with restoring faith in this service. They can start with the addition of sufficient personnel to ensure there's always a standby crew, and by ensuring the equipment used by the crews is top notch and up-to-date.

They can begin by acknowledging the importance of the coast guard service to Newfoundland and Labrador and its role in saving lives.

And they have to start the process of improvement now before another family is faced with having to live with 'what if?'