FERRIDAY, La. — Chad Murray was one of the last people off the Deepwater Horizon. He twice fought his way back through the burning, debris-strewn living quarters to help rescue injured co-workers, risking his life to save them from the smoke and flames.
A day and a half later, when the survivors finally arrived at shore, they were told to wait on the boat. Final preparations for their arrival supposedly weren’t ready. Murray, having been through the most grueling ordeal of his life, had had enough. He walked up the gangplank anyway, and his crew mates followed him.
Now, Murray, 36, is leading the way again, determined to make sure the Deepwater Horizon’s victims, its survivors and their families aren’t forgotten.
Earlier this year, he settled his legal claims with Transocean, the rig’s owner and his former employer, and while he can’t discuss the terms, he said he accepted a lower settlement so he could move on with his life.
Last April, on the first anniversary of the disaster, he used some of the money to form DWH11.org, a charity to help families and workers affected by offshore drilling accidents.
“The focus ought to be on the people who were there and went through it,” he told me last week at a hunting lodge here on the banks of the Mississippi where he works part-time as a guide. “Our lives have forever been changed.”
Murray, the Deepwater Horizon’s chief electrician before the April 20, 2010, accident that left 11 of his crew mates dead and 17 others injured, said while public attention quickly shifted to the oil spill from the plight of the crew, their ordeal was just beginning.
Some of his co-workers, several of whom he’d known since childhood, were injured so badly they may never work again.
Even for survivors like Murray, though, rebuilding their lives took months, and they still struggle with the aftermath of the accident.
“He may not have been hurt so bad physically, but he’s still hurt emotionally,” said Murray’s stepmother, Toni Murray.
Murray remembers vividly the events of the evening of April 20, which he previously recounted before a government panel investigating the disaster.
Much of his testimony was corroborated by that of his co-workers.
That evening, Murray had been helping four technicians in the pump room, isolating power to one of the huge machines that pumped drilling mud from the well.
He stepped out to grab a tool from his shop down the hall, closing the watertight door behind him.
As he returned, he heard what sounded like a loud hissing. Suddenly, the rig was shaken by a massive explosion and everything went dark.
Disoriented, Murray managed to scramble back to his shop and grab a flashlight, then make his way to the pump room door.
When he opened it, all he could see was black smoke.
The four men he’d been working with moments earlier would be among the 11 dead.
More explosions soon followed, and Murray realized the rig was in serious trouble. A panic ensued as the crew scrambled to reach the lifeboats.
Murray headed for the nearest exit, picking his way through the living quarters, which he said looked as if a tornado had ravaged them. Ceiling tiles and debris were strewn everywhere.
As he made his way down a hallway, he ran across Miles “Randy” Ezell, one of the toolpushers, who was kneeling over a pile of debris.
Ezell told Murray that Buddy Trahan, a Transocean manager, was under the pile, injured too badly to walk. Murray and another worker, Stan Cardin, went to find a stretcher.
By the time they returned, Ezell had found someone else under the debris — Wyman Wheeler, another toolpusher
who was from Murray’s hometown of Monterey, La.
They’d known each other since childhood. While Cardin helped move Trahan to one of the lifeboats, Murray left to find another stretcher for Wheeler.
Racing back into the flames and smoke for a second time, he and Ezell were able to get Wheeler on the stretcher and move him onto the deck.
They arrived just after the last lifeboat had left. A few more remaining crew members had come down from the control room, and together they were able to deploy an inflatable life raft.
Murray and Ezell scrambled in to help load Wheeler’s stretcher.
On the ride down from the deck, the raft flipped one way and then another. As it hit the water, Murray thought of his daughter, Maddy, and said a prayer.
“I promised the Good Lord that if he’d get me home to my little girl, I would never go back,” he said.
He and the others in the raft were eventually rescued by a nearby supply boat. I’ll have more on Murray’s return to shore and his reunion with his family in Sunday’s column.
Murray kept his promise and hasn’t returned to offshore work.
He remains convinced that the accident never should have happened, that the 11 men, whose bodies remain with the Deepwater Horizon wreckage on the sea floor a mile below the Gulf of Mexico, never should have died.
He’s still bitter about what he sees as a lack of concern for employees by Transocean, and a reluctance on the part of the entire offshore industry to do more to protect rig workers.
DWH11 is a way to pay tribute to those he died, he said.
“I’ve done for them what they would have done for me,” he said. “It’s a brotherhood out there, and everybody took care of everybody else.”
Last April, Murray started an electrical contracting business, but even combined with his work as a hunting guide, his income is a sliver of what he made working offshore.
“It’s not nearly as much money as I used to make, but I’ve been blessed,” he said, glancing at Maddy, who’s now 6 years old. “I get to come home every night.”
Loren Steffy is the Chronicle’s business columnist. His commentary appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Contact him at loren.steffy@chron.com. His blog is at http://blogs.chron.com/lorensteffy. Follow him on his Facebook fan page and on Twitter at twitter.com/lsteffy.
Interesting story. I went to check out the website, DWH11.org, and all that comes up is a single image. You can’t click on anything or get additional information.
So what matters more to you, some tar balls on a beach that will go away in a few years or stories like this?
He didn’t get hurt but he had to sue anyway, and you want to make him into some kind of hero. What a joke
Mike you are a complete tool. I guarantee anyone on this planet, yourself included, would have done the same thing. He’s got injuries, make no mistake. They just cannot be seen from the outside. Go troll on another article.
Mike,
Yes,he DID get hurt. Emotionally, monitarily. His whole life has changed. My son has worked offshore, and my thought was the same as Tired’s – we’ve not heard enough about the people who lost their lives and their families.
Wow. Mike I wonder how you would act under that pressure.. Never know until it happens. What matters to me is human life, but I understand some people put the money over all things else. For the nation it was the money. B/c this explosion slowed the economy down even more and yet BP and Transocean act like its no big deal business as usual. Move along move along nothing to see. Well, its working.
Mike,
He is a hero. All these men are. And PTSD is a very real and complicated and life altering injury. Not only for the men & women on this rig but also for their families. And there is the stress of financial hardship on top of that. Some of these workers have no other training except for in the oil industry, no college. It is very difficult to earn the same wage. Bills remain the same and wage decreases due to others’ negligence. I can guarantee you that these companies would sue any worker if they were negligent on the job.
Unfortunately, the donate link does not work on his site. Good article to help us remember these men and their families.
DWH was a terrible catastrophe, and I feel for the families of those who lost their lives and those that are forever scarred by the DWH tragedy. However, working on rigs is dangerous. Does anyone think that the guys on that rig didn’t know it was dangerous work before they went out there? Now that something has happened, they want to claim that they had no idea something like this, something dangerous, would happen? To me, that defies logic.
Chad Murray is one big reason why American still has a bright future despite the current jerks that run it.
Murray has demonstrated to be person of initiative and courage unlike the cowards who run much of this country.
I have worked as a designer of several engineering firms in Houston for the past 28 years. One aspect of this accident really hit home with me – part of the issue was they were trying to meet some superficial unrealistic deadline, and that really played a huge part in the accident. Every project I have ever worked on has has been that way – not just one or two but every project we do, some guy in senior management makes some unrealistic date the deadline and everyone beneath him is forced to attempt to meet this deadline – safety and every other aspect of doing good, quality work be damned – meeting the deadline is the only thing that matters. This is what needs to change in the industry as a whole, it does not matter if it’s onshore or offshore work the attitude is exactly the same, if it takes a month to do it, management wants it done in 2 weeks – nothing else matters but the deadline. This to me is one of the biggest culprits of a large majority of accidents in the oil and gas industry. It’s time for the leaders in thus industry to change this mindset – we should focus on safety, first and foremost, then doing the absolute very best design and construction techniques and practices second – the schedule and timeline should fall behind those two things but presently it does not, it comes before them – and that is why history will continue to repeat itself onshore and offshore with regards to catastrophic accidents because the industry leaders refuse to change – they only care about getting it done as fast as possible so they can maximize their profits -
“Murray, the Deepwater Horizon’s chief electrician before the April 20, 2010″.
As the Chief Electrician onboard he ought to have known about all the safety systems out of order or turned off. Why did you not discuss this Mr. Steffy?
Chris,
Transocean claimed a safety record of no major incidents in 7 years.
Just because you assume some danger in a situation does not mean you should not be compensated when someone else causes you to be injured. I get in my car everyday with the assumption that there is some danger in it. If someone in another car hits me, I expect them to pay for the damage and I’m pretty sure you would too.
A good journalist would have asked the Chief Electrician why safety systems were not working or turned off.
Been wondering why Steffy has been so quiet through the ConocoPhilips (China), Chevron (Brazil) and Shell (GoM) spills (two out of three with a rich overlay of Transocean involvement). Now I guess we know the reason why.
But just to show how daft Steffy is, he did not get his article out in time for last minute Xmas shopping for his book (sic).
Maybe he was stuck in Hooters with me. Wait a minute… the guy three along from me… beard, bad suit….. STEFFY!!!
Thanks to Chad Murray and Loren Steffy for sharing this story. Talking about a trauma like this takes a lot of courage.
It sounds like Transocrean and BP valued meeting project timeline and saving money more than they valued the lives of these workers. That needs to change. I hope it has.
Renting an offshore rig the caliber of the Deepwater Horizon costs upwards of $400,000 per day. I hope Murray got at least that much in the settlement.