An industrial accident at an oil rig off the coast of Ventura County sent two men to hospital, one in critical condition, Wednesday afternoon.
Ships from the Channel Islands Coast Guard station at Oxnard, the Ventura Harbor Patrol and a local towboat TowBoatUS responded to a man overboard call from the Gilda Platform, a petroleum form located several kilometers from the coast, around 12:07 a.m. Wednesday.
“There was an industrial accident on the platform,” said Ventura harbor master John Higgins. “We provided medical assistance and transport to two patients.”
Three workers fell from the platform from a height of between 30 and 50 feet. At least one had jumped out to rescue those who had fallen, according to Coast Guard public affairs officer Lt. Ben McIntrye.
“When this person hit the water, he appeared to be unconscious,” McIntrye said. “In the kind of heat at the moment, two other people from the platform jumped in to help her.”
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When the ships arrived at the platform, they found one man unconscious and two showing signs of hypothermia.
“The person who was unconscious was being held by the other two people,” McIntrye said. “They took this person to a lower level of this platform and hoisted him up.
A member of the Ventura Port Patrol returned CPR, including the use of a defibrillator, to the unconscious man on the platform and as he was taken to Ventura Port, where paramedics from Ventura City Fire awaited the men.
“It was obviously a very chaotic situation with a lot of moving parts and decisions being made on the fly,” said McIntrye.
Because several boats transported the men to the port, there were conflicting accounts on the exact number of people involved.
Two men were transported to Ventura County Medical Center, according to Ventura City Deputy Fire Chief Matt Brock. One was unresponsive and in critical condition. One suffered from hypothermia.
The third person refused further treatment, according to Brock.
A fourth man may also have been transported to port and refused medical treatment, according to Higgins.
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Platform Gilda is owned by DCOR LLC, according to McIntrye. The men involved were working on the platform. No one answered the phone at DCOR’s Ventura office on Wednesday afternoon.
“They were most definitely working on this platform,” McIntyre said. The Coast Guard will investigate the incident, according to McIntyre.
The Gilda Platform is 8.8 miles off Ventura, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement of the US Department of the Interior. Gilda is in 205 feet of water and produced her first oil in 1981, the agency says.
Joe Curley covers the latest news for the Star. It can be reached at[email protected]. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @vcsjoecurley.
