Audrey Santiago has two dates she will never forget.
March 21, 2007, the horrible day when one of her fellow employees died, and Oct. 27, 2009, the day she and fellow Coast rescuer Greg Gary were honoured with the Ian Fraser Award for their bravery and tenacity on that grim spring night.
The evening of March 21, 2007 began uneventfully in a logging camp on Deserted Island, but that soon changed. The men were eating the supper Santiago, the camp cook, had prepared when one of their co-workers, Wayne Joe, sounded the alarm. Another employee, Danny Paul, was in distress.
Joe went down to the wharf to get a boat and help Paul. After 12 hours aboard a boom boat Paul was delivering from Egmont, a wicked storm had stranded him while he was trying to mark a log.
The rest of the men eating, Tyrone Joe (Wayne's son) and Merrill Dixon, ran to the boat to help Wayne Joe on his rescue mission while Santiago remained at the camp.
"After they left it started to snow really hard. Flakes as big as my hand. Then I got the call, 'Danny fell in the water, Danny is in distress,'" Santiago related with tears in her eyes during a recent interview. "I told Wayne to take all [Danny's] clothes off and to redress him in warm clothing and blankets. 'You guys should follow protocol,'" she continued.
Wayne advised the four men were coming back to camp. Soon visibility was so bad Santiago could see nothing, nor could the men aboard the rescue boat. In spite of Santiago running all the truck lights she could, the men couldn't see the camp.
"I couldn't see any lights. I couldn't even hear the boat. I started panicking. I got the hand-held phone. The weather was so bad we had to get the Coast Guard," she said.
Soon after the boat went by, but the men could not see the camp.
"Then [the boat] went by me again. The voices were louder. There was chaos in the boat. Wayne was scared, you could hear it in his voice," she said.
And then tragedy struck. The boat crashed into shore. Tyrone Joe, the least hurt of the crew, was the first to regain consciousness. He managed to get a radio working and called back to Santiago.
"He kept screaming that Merrill was dead." This horrible assessment was soon proved true.
Santiago had been informed that there was a rescue squad coming from Comox and Richmond. Then Aaron Joe, the owner of the logging company, sent Gray, a water taxi operator from Egmont, to find the men.
Phone reception in the area is a challenge at the best of times. That night Santiago was manning three phones at the same time to receive and relay messages. Santiago forwarded the Coast Guard request for the GPS co-ordinates to Tyrone. The co-ordinates were relayed to Gray; however, he was still unable to see the accident site.
"I told Tyrone to flick his Bic so Greg could see them," Santiago said.
"Holy, did they ever crash, Audrey," was the grim news from Gray.
At that point he took over the rescue. Tyrone was found first. He had no shoes and his clothes were soaking wet. Wayne and Paul were in even worse shape and Dixon was beyond saving.
Gray managed to get the injured men aboard. After a harrowing voyage he made it back to Deserted Bay. Shortly after, the Coast Guard arrived by hovercraft and helicopter. But it soon became obvious that the helicopter would not be able to transport the men because of the dire weather.
Wayne Joe was in terrible shape.
"They looked at Wayne and said this one's not going to last," Santiago said.
Fortunately, the hovercraft was able to take the men to hospital.
Finally after nine hours, at 4 a.m., Santiago was able to put down her phones. "I was so distressed, it felt like I went to a war. The next few days are fuzzy. I couldn't deal with anything. I've never been back to camp since then," she said.
Now, more than two years later, counselling has enabled Santiago to deal with her grief over the loss of Dixon and the part she played on that fateful night.
The Ian Fraser Award, which recognized Santiago's and Gray's efforts that fateful night, is a recognition given annually to the Search and Rescue unit that performs the "most notable rescue, with the emphasis for selection based on initiative, seamanship and courage," according to the awards ceremony agenda - fit recognition awarded two Sunshine Coast residents, without whose perseverance, the death toll could have been much worse that horrible night.
Santiago was thrilled to receive the award. She said she was especially proud to be the only First Nations person recognized and it meant a lot to her that assistant commissioner Vija Poruks, who presented the award, is a woman officer.
Gray was also pleased with his award. "I was tickled pink. It was very good that Audrey was there to guide me [March 21, 2007]."
