August 18, 2008 began as any other day of work for former Port au Port resident Shane Doucette, but by day’s end he had saved the life of a co-worker.
Mr. Doucette, who has made his home in Red Deer Alberta for the last 12 years, was on site at his job at the time which was with an oil production company.
He says he and a co-worker, Jason Riggs, were finishing up measuring several of the wells on site when he noticed something out of the ordinary.
“We were going to have a break and after I finished my paperwork I left to go to my truck to have a drink and on my way I noticed a tank hatch up.”
He says the tank hatches were never to be open. He knew immediately that something was wrong.
“It was so weird. I just had a real bad feeling – kind of when the hair stands up on the back of your neck for no apparent reason.”
Mr. Doucette immediately went to the tank, and scanned the area as well to try and locate Mr. Riggs.
“I was trying to find Riggs because I was wondering why the hatch was up and I was going to question him about it, but it was weird and I had such a weird feeling.”
Mr. Doucette made his way three quarters up the tank’s ladder, when he did, he could see Mr. Riggs floating face down in the fluid it held.
“The well was still wide open, returning gas back to the tank, so when I noticed that, I immediately jumped down from the tank and I ran to the well head and I shut the well in completely to remove the gas threat because it was still flowing. While I was doing this I was yelling to the on-site consultant to get help.”
He was able to retrieve Mr. Rigg’s from the tank. He was unconscious so Mr. Doucette administered CPR and was able to revive him.
Looking back on the situation, Mr. Doucette says he definitely used his head that day.
“There’s no doubt about it. I jumped into the tank and I was holding my breath because there was no breathing apparatus available or anything like that,” he said.
“The whole point of that being dangerous was the fact that if I was actually into that tank and there was toxic gas present, if I had taken a breath I would have been done with. You don’t recover once you take a whiff of it.”
Mr. Doucette says paramedics attended the scene and Mr. Riggs was transported to hospital where doctors put him in an induced coma for a week and a half to clean out his lungs.
“He has ingested what essentially would be coal dust because he was in coal bed methane production fluid,” he said.
He didn’t learn that Mr. Riggs was in good health and would recover until after he awoke from the coma. He says it took a while for it to register with him that he had saved someone’s life.
“It was a very long time before it actually registered to me what was really going on, he said. “A pretty big ordeal.”
Mr. Doucette says he has asked Mr. Riggs if he could remember how he ended up in the tank that day and his co-worker unfortunately could not.
“For his mind it was probably too traumatic I guess and there’s a large portion afterwards he can’t remember,” he said. “Like the short term memory of the incident itself.”
Mr. Doucette was recently informed by the Governer General’s office that he would be receiving a Medal of Bravery for his act of courage on that day.
He says he’s very excited about the honour, which he will travel to Ottawa to receive, and nervous as well.
“All I know is the greatest honour out of all of this is he is alive and well today,” says Mr. Doucette.
“That’s the number one thing right there.”
Mr. Doucette is the son of Gerard and Gertie Doucette of Port au Port.
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