Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Alfa Team, Alfa Team

One of the main or I would rather say, the biggest source of disaster on any ship is called "fire", and because that is a constant reality, there have been developed international safety regulations that all the major and not so major companies that owns ships have to follow, or otherwise they are not allowed to set sail. Anyway, all these things and more we have to hear over and over again and we do all sort of drills like for example, fire drills, man overboard drills, bomb search drills, medical disaster drills among others. However one thing is to know about them in theory, and another very different is to deal with it in reality. Yesterday in the morning, there was a major fire in one of my areas of supervision in one of the many kitchens. By the time I learned about it, it was already controlled. My eyes didn't give credit to what I saw and how the pantry was afterwards the fire was extinguished. How did it happened? was my first question. I was very nervous, because had it been a human mistake then many heads would roll over and mine could be among those. Almost nobody realized about the whole event, although it is located in a very busy section where all the guest pass, the area was blocked by security and so there was no panic at all. Right after all the ship top deck officers, and engine officers left the area we started the cleaning of the area and then that was it for me as I left cuz my shift was long pass over. I went to my cabin and I was stressed out and worry, because in this kind of situation, always, someone have to pay even if it's not the responsible of the incident. So I prayed and I put all the investigation process in the hands of God and asked for protection against any injustice and wrong doing from the investigators. And to my surprise I slept peaceful. After all, God heard my prayers and answered me. Apparently, someone left a plastic item on top of the bread toaster and when the cook came in the morning, he turned it on to start toasting bread, but didn't remove the plastic glass rack, and left the area for some time, and when he came back the whole area was on fire. Now, he said he didn't see that rack there when he switched on the toaster, and the bar cleaner who also works there, said he saw it since the day before lying on top of it. And to be as honest as possible with myself and God, I am not completely sure if I saw the rack lying on top of the toaster. And there is my concern, cuz as one of the supervisors on duty of that area, the logic is that I should've removed it had I saw it. But then again, I can't remember clearly if I saw it or not. Anyway, the two guys on the spot at the moment are the cook and the bar cleaner who work there. And after all, it was a shocking experience to pass through the event of a fire onboard.

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