Ambika Jagassarsingh
ambika.jagassarsingh@guardian.co.tt
Paria Fuel Trading Company’s acting technical lead Catherine Balkissoon yesterday admitted that the company had no plan to rescue four divers who eventually died in a tragic accident at its Point-a-Pierre facility on February 25.
“It was not made to have a rescue,” Balkissoon told attorney Prakash Ramadhar, who represents the families of divers Fyzal Kurban and Rishi Nagassar, after he asked exactly when Paria made the decision to execute a rescue to save the men during the Commission of Enquiry into the Paria/LMCS Diving Tragedy.
Earlier on in the day, Balkissoon also broke down in tears on the witness stand after being asked by chairman Jerome Lynch if the decision to enter the pipeline and save the four divers would have been different if it were her own family who had been stuck there.
She said sending men into the pipeline was a “balancing act,” and it posed many risks to those who would have been involved in the rescue operation.
When asked by CoE counsel Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj whether Paria Fuel had taken “quick and urgent action” regarding the incident Balkissoon agreed they had.
“We took quick and urgent action to try to de-risk going inside a pipeline that had oil and also, we did not know the cause of the incident, so if it is I could turn it around and say Paria also took action by telling LMCS not to dive, Paria also took action to say ‘listen, hold up, are you sure you want to dive in there because these are the risks too eh, someone’s life could be lost. It is a balancing act.”
To this, chairman Lynch told Balkissoon, “It might be a different balancing act if it was your father in the pipe or your son.”
After this response, Balkissoon became distraught and broke down in tears.
Paria attorney Peter Gilbertson SC intervened, saying it was only fair that Balkissoon be extended the same fairness that LMCS witnesses were afforded.
This provoked an apology from Lynch.
“It’s not my intention to upset anybody and I have been meticulously trying to avoid doing that. Of course, I am very sorry you are upset by this Ms Balkissoon. Part of the risk analysis must include the person being willing to go into a pipe and take a greater risk. I cannot divorce myself from the fact that if it were my son, I would take a risk that I might not than if it were not my son. And that is a perfectly reasonable factor to take into account. And I’m simply asking the question, whether or not there were willing people prepared to enter the pipe and that risk whether that was factored into deciding whether to prevent people from going into the pipe,” Lynch said.
“That is all I am interested in ascertaining, it is certainly not designed and I regret deeply Ms Balkissoon was upset by it. It does seem to me to be a relevant factor because everybody who has a child or a father, would wish to make a different decision to the professional who may not be prepared to enter the pipe. You might be prepared to risk your life far quicker if it were your son or your father than you would if it were a stranger.”
Prior to this, Maharaj asked whether Balkissoon classified the situation as simple or complex due to its nature, in accordance with Paria’s incident action plan.
She agreed it was a “large and complex” situation, but said Paria did not have a documented plan of the emergency response that took place, which, by company policy, stated, “large or complex incidents will require the action plan be documented.”
During cross-examination, Lynch asked if in the event of failure to remove the possibility of a differential pressure situation occurring, whether Balkissoon thought there should be an emergency plan to deal with it.
Balkissoon said she was unsure whether it was possible for anyone to develop a plan that eliminated a Delta P situation similar to what occurred in the Paria tragedy.
“I don’t think we could ever come up with an acceptable emergency plan to rescue someone in there,” she admitted, noting she did not think it possible to completely engineer that factor out.
However, she conceded that “it is worth trying to find a plan.”
Throughout the session, Balkissoon maintained Paria’s Terminal Operations Manager Collin Piper gave the command to “stop diving,” since it was not safe to do so and would effectively put more men at risk because the conditions in the pipe were unknown and “visibility would have been impaired because of oil in the pipe.”
Balkissoon said when she arrived at the scene, she spoke with LMCS dive supervisor Andrew Farrah, who told her there were divers and commercial equipment to do a rescue. However, she said she was not in charge and did not have the authority to make a decision and had to speak to Piper, who said to “stand down.”
Asked whether she spoke to Michael Kurban, son of one of the deceased Paria divers, Fyzal Kurban, to ascertain information about the condition of the pipe, she said, “Mr Kurban was not in the best state of mind.”
Earlier, Lynch also asked if Balkissoon, as the senior Paria official, had gathered those present and asked them to relay their plans so she could alert Piper that a solid plan of action was formed, which could have potentially rescinded his orders prohibiting entrance into the water.
Balkissoon answered in the negative, saying that was not how the Incident Management Team operated.
Ramadhar accused Balkissoon of not knowing the conditions of either the pipe or the other divers trapped within it, which made her incapable of relaying reliable information to Piper over the phone, so he could assess whether or not a rescue should have been affected.
In response to further questions by Ramadhar, she revealed Paria’s “Incident Command Team is stood down...it’s only activated when you have an emergency.” Balkissoon also said she was still employed at Paria and was also involved in “structures for planning for emergencies” within the company.
Balkissoon also repeatedly denied she had any discussions about a confined space expert entering the pipeline with LMCS managing director Kazim Ali Sr, despite being called “untruthful” by LMCS attorney Kamini Persaud-Maraj.
