Lögberg-Heimskringla - 21.03.1997, Blaðsíða 3

Lögberg-Heimskringla • Föstudagur 21, mars 1997 • 3
Icelandic Coast Guard Saves Lives
Editor’s Note: The boxbelow shows the
news briefs that ran this month over the
intemet, explaining the heroic ejforts of
the lcelandic Coast Guard. The
accompanyingfeature story takes a look
at how those rescue workers train for
events such as these.
Thirty-nine iives
saved in six days
In just six days, 39 seamen have been
plucked to safety from the engulfmg
grey nightmare of a merciless winter
sea by the aptly named Icelandic
Coast Guard helicopter TF-LIF. They
are the fortunate ones, two of their
comrades and one engaged in rescue
have become victims to the swell of
the vast Atlantic ocean.
Earlier this month, the helicop-
ter crew scrambled to action to
winch 10 men to safety after their
fishing vessel, Thorsteinn GK,
drifted without engines heading for
destruction against a sheer cliff face
in southwest Iceland. The crew set
down anchors and the TF-LIF heli-
copter was called out. Strong winds
caused the anchors to give way,
though, and the seamen were hauled
aboard the helicopter. The fishing
boat was driven up against the cliffs
and is considered totally demolished.
The vessel was insured for $1.2
million US.
A few days íater, under atro-
cious conditions 100 miles off the
eastem tip of Iceland, ten men, their
arms linked together as they helped
each other stay afloat for two hours
as debris, oil and ten-meter high
waves swept over them, were res- .
cued from certain death by the crew
ofTF-LIF after the container vessel
Disarfell listed and sank. Four days
earlier the bird of seaman’s prayers
was called to air-lift to safety the
19-man crew of the containér ship
Víkartindur which had run aground
on the desolate black sands of the
windswept south coast. □
By John Iwasaki
P-l Reporter
Dr. Edward Palmason sang with
operas, at weddings and in the shower.
“He loved to sing,” said his wife of
56 years, Vivienne Pálmason, said. “Like
one of the ministers who knew Ed said,
‘He just didn’t sing the song; he did it
with real feeling.’ That’s what everybody
loved about him.”
Dr. Palmason, who died last month
of heart failure at 81, also was re-
membered for his 14 years of service on
the seattle School Board during the
volatile 1960s and ’70s, and for practic-
ing family medicine in Ballard for more
than 30 years.
The North Atlantic can be a merci-
less part of the world at the best
of times. Its uncompromising
weather and treacherous seas make life
for those who make their living from the
ocean an often precarious one. Occa-
sionally, ships get lost or wreck, men go
overboard, or some other life threatening
circumstance results ina distress call ffom
ship to shore being made. And that’s where
the Icelandic Coast Guards come in.
On average 55 potentially life saving
missions, or “scrambles” as they are
termed, are carried out each year by the
crew of a coast guard helicopter. Indeed,
in the opinion of various accompanying
doctors, over 120 lives have actually been
saved with the assistance of just such an
aircraft and its crew in the last 10 years.
Not surprisingly, for these coast riders in
the sky, the job of saving lives is a serious
one, requiring constant practice and a
high state of alertness.
As helicopter pilot Lieutenant-
commander Hermann Sigurdsson points
out: “Although the role of the coast
guards is primarily ocean patrol and law
enforcement in and guarding of Iceland’s
fishing jurisdiction, the airbome division
is foremostly concemed with search and
rescue.”
No matter the weather
A Monday in early March and the
crew of the latest addition to the coast
guard’s fleet of aircraft, the aptly
His stands sometimes proved con-
troversial. He worked to desegregate
schools through mandatory busing, and
said that he admired young men who
chose to stand on principle and pay the
price for evading the draft during the Viet
Nam War.
A liberal Democrat who ran un-
successfully for Congress in 1964, Dr.
Palmason believed greater govemment
involvement could help solve a variety
of social problems.
A Seattle native and accomplished
tenor, Dr. Palmason seriously considered
a full-time singing career before deciding
to concentrate on medicine.
Even so, he sang throughout the
Northwest, making his operatic debut in
registered TF LIF (lif being the Icelandic
word for life) Super Puma AS-332L1, is
preparing to practice a rescue at sea. The
weather is up to its old tricks. One minute
it’s raining, next it’s snowing, then it’s
brilliant sunshine. The wind is blowing
strong. As far as the weather goes, this is
considered a good day!
Perhaps in no other place on earth
is a coast guard’s job as potentially
dangerous as it is here, battling the often
harsh and freezing conditions and poor
visibility of a North Atlantic winter.
“That’s probably fair to say,” says
Sigurdsson, the sentiment echoed by
Commander Bogi Agnarsson. “But
missions don’t seem so hazardous since
we took delivery of the Puma. It has
changed our operation dramatically,
particularly since it has a de-icing
system.”
ln few other places on earth
is a coast guard’s job as
potentially dangerous as it is
arouÁd Iceland, battling the
often harsh and freezing
conditions and poor visibility
ofa North Atlantic winter.
Sigurdsson further explains that the
sophisticated autopilot system better aids
the aircraft to hone in on the subject of
its mission, while the de-icing system
means the helicopter can fly in conditions
that without such a device would be
impossible.
“Due to its size and power I don’t
think there are any conditions that we
wouldn’t fly in. If there’s a life at stake
we go,” says Sigurdsson, a 31-year
veteran who took part in the so called
“cod wars” with Britain when Iceland
extended its fishing limits to 50 and then
200 miles in the early seventies.
On board the impressive twin engine,
long range helicopter with its sophisti-
cated four axis autopilot, de-icing system,
dual rescue hoist and emergency flotation
1937 with the Seattle Civic Opera Com-
pany. He was a featured soloist with the
Seattle Symphony, Seattle Opera and
Oregon Symphony, among others.
He sang his first solo in 1931 at
Seattle’s Calvary Lutheran Church and
gave his final performace at the same
church 65 years later.
He is survived by his wife; sons
Dennis Palmason of Seattle and Jon
Palmason of Mercer Island; brother
Victor Palmason of Salem, Oregon; and
sisters Victoria Johnston of Edmonds
and Elin MacDonald of Seattle.
A private service was held and a
memorial service was held at Plymouth
Congregational Church, Sixth Avenue
and University Street. □
gear and medical equipment, the crew
consisting of two pilots, a navigational
officer who also doubles as winchman
and legal adviser, plus, on this occasion
two doctors from the city hospital, an
engineer and a second navigational
officer, are all set for take off.
Up and away
After cabin checks and take off
clearance, the whirling whop and chop
sound of the rotors gradually become
louder and higher in pitch as the 8.5 ton
aircraft rocks gently before lifting in a
swift vertical motion into the sky. Nose
down, it casually swoops up and to the
north, over the coloured roofs of Reyk-
javík and out over the chilly waters of
the bay, 200 feet above the waves.
The practice session on this day
involves winching the doctors along with
a litter, onto the deck of the Týr, a cutter
type vessel and the coast guard’s flagship.
As soon as the vessel has been
located, the pilots hover the aircraft
within 70 feet of the deck. The winchman
lowers a doctor who has harnessed
himself to the winch. Down he descends,
guided by a trailing cable previously
despatched to men on the ship’s deck.
Once aboard the ship, the litter, used for
transporting the sick and injured, is sent
down. Those aboard the ship receive it
and send it back, laden, followed by the
doctor to the helicopter.
The exercise is repeated several
more times with the same apparent ease
and equal precision before TF LEF retums
to its Reykjavik base.
The French-made helicopter was
delivered to the Icelandic Coast Guard
in June 1995. Much heated political
debate had focused on whether it was a
necessary investment of about $15
million (US) to purchase and as much as
$3 million a year to operate. But with
Iceland deriving almost 70% of its
merchandise export eamings from the
fishing industry and the coast guard
assisting the Life Saving Association in
training the 6,000 seamen that need to
be trained every five years, the decision
would seem justified. Besides, a framed
letter that hangs on a wall in the coast
guard operations centre echoes Sigurds-
son’s philosophy that “civilized nations
have a duty to take care of their people
and should be prepared to rescue lives
that are in danger.”
An extract from the letter from
thankful parents in response to a rescue
operation successfully carried out the
year before conceming a Dutch freighter
reads: “Herewith we want to express our
thanks to the crews of the helicopters
which had rescued our two sons,
daughter-in-law, grandchild and the rest
of the crew of the Hendrik B, with danger
to your own lives!”
Without the efforts of the coast
guards, that letter might never have been
written and 120 people might not be alive
today. What price can you put on life or
should that be LIF? □
Edward Palmason, the singing doctor, dies at 81