The primary responsibility in this jurisdiction is that of the oil operators. The training is done in two places. The great majority of training is done in a place called Foxtrap, near St. John's, and it is under the aegis of the marine sciences department of the university. The training takes place there.
I did that training, which was very instructive, and Ms. Fagan did it also. The training is demanding, and it gives people like ourselves a grasp of what's involved. It's not easy.
There is training done in Halifax by a private company called Survival Systems, but most of the training is done here in Newfoundland. It's done every three years. You update every three years. When I was in the North Sea, I was interested to find that their training is every four years. Our experts pretty well all said it should be more frequent even than two years, but you have to be careful because you don't want to cause injury to the trainees, so you walk a fine line. You don't want to drown anybody or anything like that, and you don't want to put them into water that is too cold, because somebody who may not be strong or who does not have a strong heart may die. There's a fine balance to be achieved, but I think physical fitness, training, and familiarity with water--especially cold water--is a help.
The survivor of the crash that we had, Robert Decker, was a young man of about 26 or 27. He was in good shape. He had been a sailing instructor in small sailing boats for years. He was familiar with tipping over and being under the boat and in cold water. My own opinion, and perhaps the opinion of others also, is that his background helped him, because he didn't panic and lose his head when he found himself in a helicopter that was sinking on its side.
He didn't panic. He was knocked out, shall we say, at the instant, but he came to quite rapidly; the helicopter was sinking because all the windows and doors were knocked aside in the crash, and the water was literally going up through the fuselage of the helicopter and up through the windows on top. It was sinking sideways. He looked up and saw the open window. He didn't panic and he got up to the surface. He is, of course, the only one who did. There was another young lady who was found on the surface, but she was deceased. I don't know any more than that about the circumstances in her case. Perhaps the Transportation Safety Board may.
I think training, fitness, and familiarity with cold water are assets for anybody in a ditched helicopter in our waters.
I was born on the northeast coast of Newfoundland and grew up close to these cold waters. I have some knowledge of cold water. When I say cold, I mean cold. These waters are cold because of the Arctic Labrador current.