At ~8-8:30 a.m. yesterday a 19 year old shipyard metal worker, I believe that's 32 trade, fell out of a vent duct when removing some temporary scaffolding from the port (as you're looking at the ship from the sky and it's 'facing' North, this would be the Western part of the ship, fyi I guess) side of the Carl Vinson carrier and into the water.

The pier is on the starboard side so there's nothing but water on port until you get to the barges for the new construction carrier G. Bush.

He held onto something as he fell but couldn't hang on and eventually landed in the water. He resurfaced and was there for a few seconds, no longer than a minute, before he wasn't seen again. A couple of guys from the Bush who saw it jumped in to try and swim over to him but they couldn't find him.

3-3:30 this a.m. he was found at the bottom of the James River.

Another body was found in the James River within hours of the incident but then determined to be unrelated (pregnant woman), so they resumed the searching.

We had a moment of silence for this unexpected tragedy (I guess all tragedies are unexpected) and will probably be doing many drills and/or corrective actions and figure out why he couldn't be saved. I honestly find it pretty surprising that this all happened the way it did. I have a whole list of "why didn't"s, but I wasn't there so I can't be sure why there was nothing that could be done. I thought we had patrol boats goin back and forth to watch for incoming attacks via water who have life preservers on them...

 

Wow, very Sad. My condolences

 

Thats sad. RIP. Do you know why he only came back up for a few seconds and couldn't tread water longer? Maybe an injury falling or something?


Also, finding the pregnant woman in the water is weird too.

 

Always sad to hear of at work deaths. What a crappy way to go.

 

I think if you look for a day or two in the James River you'll probably find another body... just my opinion.

But as to why he couldn't stay up... I thought the same thing. When I first heard about it I thought it was one of those typical SY workers... 300+ lbs and has trouble making it up 1-2 flights of stairs... so when I heard it was a 19 year old I was extremely surprised he couldn't tread water like you said.

He didn't hit something on the way down because he was able to hold on to something for a lil while before falling.

The only logical reasons I can think of are:

He may have been harnessed, nobody knows the details as to whether or not he was secured to something when he was doing the work. I'm 95% sure he should've been wearing a harness of some sort for that kind of work. If the harness caught on something, ripped, whatever and he fell with it still on him he could've gotten tangled up in that while in the water. Again, nobody knows the exact details on the work he was doing.

The conditions were super shitty. I don't know if any of you have tried swimming in 50 degree or colder water, but it's damn hard because your body will be spasming and shivering so hard to try and maintain body temps. A long time ago I could barely make it across a swimming pool ONCE in 50-60 degree water. He had to have been wearing steel-toed boots, we're all required to... and them bitches are heavy in the water when you're supposed to be kicking your feet back n forth. I've swam with steel toed boots before and it's not fun. Lastly, he was probably wearing coveralls and/or a jacket and whatnot... it's not exactly t-shirt weather.

 

My thoughts and prayers go out to his family.

 

why are there random bodies in the James River?

condolences to your NG co-worker.

 

RIP to him and his family.


Don't mess with DC©. That's all I'm saying.

 

I was thinking the same thing. That's kind of scary because the story makes me sort of feel like they found a pregnant woman dead in the water and just sort of pushed her aside to find this worker... How many people are in the water? How many families out there have missing persons cases open, with a closed case being at the bottom of the water? I know it probably costs a lot of resources but it could certainly give a lot of people closure in cases like that if they would spend a day or two searching the water.

That's awful to hear about the young man dieing that way though. That's an awful way to go out!

 

if they found her and knew at the time she was pregnant, then her case must be pretty new.


I am not the least bit suprised they found another body.