Ocean Ranger, 35 years later: 'I'm glad I took the pictures. Because without that, we'd have nothing'
Medic/radio operator donates personal collection of rig photos to The Rooms
Four days after Lloyd Major left the Ocean Ranger, it sank beneath the stormy waters of the Grand Banks in the early hours of Feb. 15, 1982.
The medic/radio operator left the rig, 267 kilometres east of St. John's, and flew back to the island after the last shift of his usual three-week rotation.
All 84 men on board died
I got them all marked off in black, the ones they found.- Lloyd Major
He didn't know then that the next time he'd see the men on board was when he'd help to identify their bodies. All 84 aboard the Ocean Ranger died.
He still has the list of names of the men on board the rig that night, which he used to check them off as their bodies were brought back to shore.
"I got them all marked off in black, the ones they found," he said.
A short time after the Ocean Ranger disaster, a Soviet ship in the area, the Mekhanik Tarasov, sank, and the bodies of those men needed to be separated from the Ocean Ranger crew — a relatively easy task, said Major, for a simple reason.
"Most of those guys had beards, and on the Ocean Ranger, you had to be clean-shaven in order to use the masks for gases and that on the rig," he said.
Most crew not allowed cameras
Now, Major has donated his personal collection of photos to the provincial archives at The Rooms — pictures he was in a unique position to capture.
"Part of my job on the rig was liaison between the Newfoundlanders and Americans," he told CBC News. "And as a medic/radio operator, they didn't mind me taking the camera on board."
"So I took all those pictures. But any other employees that carried a camera on board would have been fired on the spot if he had a camera at that time. Everything was confidential with the oil field in Newfoundland."
Each picture in Major's collection is a memorial to a person or a place, including Ken Blackmore, who drowned that night.
"[Blackmore] was my relief," said Major. "He drowned on the rig. He was the first body found. This fella here is Warren Haverty. He was a safety guy on the rig. This was our room there."
"I'm glad I took the pictures. Because without that, we'd have nothing, just the people drowned, and that would be it. But the pictures show us a great deal about the rig."
'Now they can come to The Rooms and see what we actually done out there. And I'm proud to give it to The Rooms. Very proud.- Lloyd Major
Major said he wanted to donate the material to The Rooms to ensure it would be looked after when he and his descendents are gone.
"What's going to happen to this when I pass on, my daughters pass on, my grandchildren?" he said. "Well, they know he worked on the Ocean Ranger. But today, now, they can come to The Rooms and see what we actually done out there. And I'm proud to give it to The Rooms. Very proud."
