Mayday call from burning cargo ship in New Jersey prompted doomed rescue effort for 2 firefighters

UNION, NJ — The cargo ship Grande Costa D’Avorio was loaded with 1,200 cars bound for West Africa at Port Newark last July when a deadly fire broke out. Dense black smoke limited visibility to about three feet, and the floor was so hot that the soles of a firefighter’s boots began to peel off.

“We can’t find our way out!” Newark Fire Captain Augusto “Augie” Acabou shouted into his radio as he tried to battle the growing blaze. “We are lost!”

Those words set off a frantic battle over Acabou and fellow Newark Fire Department Captain Wayne Brooks Jr. who had become disoriented in the heat, smoke and darkness – an effort plagued by confusion, adrenaline, panic and staff shortages. and equipment.

By 3 a.m. the next day, Acabou and Brooks were said to be dead.

Now the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board are among the many agencies trying to determine what went wrong aboard the ship. An attempt to not only determine what happened on the night of July 5, 2023, but also to prevent and protect others from dying under similar circumstances in the future.

Investigators, dock workers and ship crew members testified this week at an investigative hearing in New Jersey that will continue next week. This report is based on that testimony.

The fire started around 9 p.m. when a Jeep Wrangler used to push the largely out-of-service vehicles up the steep ramps of the 12-story ship caught fire, causing a dock worker to jump out of the driver’s side door and run for portable fire extinguishers, which quickly proved inadequate. .

The Newark Fire Department was the first to respond to the fire. About 45 minutes later, Newark firefighters requested mutual aid from two nearby fire departments, the North Hudson Regional Fire Department and the New Jersey Regional Fireboat Task Force.

But two minutes later, a deputy fire chief canceled that request.

“He did not believe those resources were needed at the time,” Michael Richardson, a fire fatality investigator at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, testified Friday.

Under cross-examination by a port authority attorney, Richardson said the cancellation occurred at a time when it was not clear the fire extended beyond some burning cars on the ship. The decision was important, especially as conditions deteriorated and numerous firefighters expressed concerns that there were not enough personnel and oxygen tanks on site, Richardson said.

At 11:13 p.m., another mutual aid call was made, this time with assistance from firefighters in Elizabeth and Jersey City, both adjacent to Newark.

Finding Acabou and Brooks was the top priority; Neither had been heard from since Acabou made his first desperate cry for help a minute after he repeated, “We’re lost!”

Newark firefighters searched Deck 10, where the fire started, and found the first one.

Acabou, who was unconscious and unresponsive, stood upright, wedged so tightly between two vehicles that no one could move him or the vehicles. The face plate of his breathing apparatus was partially detached. Rescuers attached a replacement unit to him and had to replace it several times.

It took 70 minutes to free Acabou using a hydraulic rescue tool known as the “jaws of life.”

Then began the grueling attempt to carry him away from the burning parts of the ship, up a flight of stairs to the upper deck and across the red-hot metal. They placed him in a horizontal rescue basket and used a crane on the ship to lower him to the dock at 12:45 p.m., more than two hours after his distress call.

While this was happening, some rescuers looking for Acabou and Brooks themselves ran into trouble. At least one of the two Elizabeth firefighters issued an emergency call for help from a stairwell not far from where the missing firefighters were being sought.

The Elizabeth rescuers were found and taken to safety. But Brooks was still missing.

Additional mutual aid from other departments, including New York City, spread out in search of him. Jersey City firefighters literally reached the end of their rope, spooling out a 200-foot lifeline before turning back, not wanting to get lost in the smoke.

New York City firefighters took up the trail from there and advanced another 75 feet. Along the way, someone found Brooks’ flashlight on the ground.

Soon a piercing scream sounded: it was a personal location alarm that firefighters wear, which activates if they are motionless for more than a short time. The sound led them at 2:09 a.m. to Brooks, who was lying on the ground next to a ship’s column, also unconscious and unresponsive. His helmet was found some distance from him.

But his radio was never found, and an oxygen tank initially thought to have been used by him turned out not to be the case, Richardson said. Investigators continue to investigate what happened to his tank; one found in the wreckage was so damaged that it could not be identified as belonging to a specific firefighter, he added.

Brooks was lowered onto the quay an hour later, also by crane. He and Acabou were pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.

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Follow Wayne Parry on X, formerly Twitter, at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC