[Granville-Hough] 5 Dec 2009 - Thule Accidents

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Sat, 05 Dec 2009 10:05:37 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Thule Accidents - 6 Dec 2009

As I took my driver's test today (Dec 2008), and passed it; I was 
reminded that I taught driver's school in Thule in order to qualify 
people who had never driven.  Among those I taught was our group 
surgeon, who had grown up in New York.  No one in his family had ever 
owned a car.  They got around all of New York by subway.  Others were 
soldiers from our batteries who had never had the opportunity to learn.  
Driving instruction in high school was still a novelty and an elective.  
Of course, some of our soldiers had never been to high school.
   I took on this task because of the high rates of accidents in our 
different units.  During the long summer days, soldiers could not sleep 
and would continue working at different tasks until they fell asleep on 
the job.  Some drivers ran off the road in dangerous places.  During the 
long winter nights, visibility was sometimes obscured so much that 
headlights showed nothing but blowing snow or ice crystal.  You might 
not see a person (pedestrian) until you were about to hit him.  That is 
why we put the reflective stripes on the parkas.
   One of the things I taught was to take a block of wood in your 
vehicle, which you placed under one of your wheels when you parked.  I 
had a staff car I once parked in a regular parking space on top of a 
rather steep embankment.  I set my parking brake, went into the building 
and conducted my business, then came back out.  My car had moved right 
up to the edge of the embankment.  I never figured out the mechanics, 
but the brake linings I was setting with the parking brake were probably 
frozen and they did not grip as they normally would.  So the vehicle 
just slipped forward or backward, whichever way gravity dictated.  So a 
block of wood was insurance.
   We had to learn how to step out of building onto the ice or 
permafrost.  You generally took a few hard falls until you remembered 
what to do.  When you were in the heated building, your shoe soles were 
at the heat of the floor, well above freezing. When you stepped out on 
the permafrost or road or pathway, the soles of your shoes instantly 
thawed  a minute layer of ice, slippery as could be.  Then when you 
moved your feet, you got a free fall.  I do not remember any broken legs 
or ankles, but I did see broken bottles or broken whatever the person 
was carrying.  I cannot see a bottle of Drambouie without thinking of 
the time I saw a visitor step out of our club and take a fall and break 
the bottle he had just bought into smithereens.  What one had to do was 
to stand still for a minute or two until the soles of your shoes 
adjusted to the coldness of the permafrost.  Then you could move safely.
   The hardest fall I ever got was in the long night when I was visiting 
one of the batteries.  I did not know it, but the honey wagon had just 
left and it had spilled hot human waste on the road.  I stepped out on 
the road, and my feet zipped out in all directions, and I hit with my 
bottom on the road.  My, that was painful as well as embarassing!  I cut 
short my visit and got back to my BOQ for a change of trousers and a 
cleanup of my parka.  It was hard to convince anyone the human waste 
smell was from the road and not from me.
    I have mentioned the sledding incident in Delta Battery which sent 
two injured men back to the States for medical care.
   The nearest to a true tragedy was when one of the phase safety ropes 
gave way in a storm and two people were tumbled about 100 yards when 
they hit the Danish Liaison Officer's house.  Beyond his house was a 
beach and open but then frozen ocean.  The Danish officer rescued the 
two, and got them reoriented and they stayed with him until it was safe 
to get back to their quarters.
    We had to learn that cold drinks such as Coca Cola could explode.  
Toward the end of September, the days grew colder quite rapidly.  All 
the ships were trying to unload so that they could join the Coast Guard 
ice breakers and get to the open ocean.  Otherwise, they were frozen in 
for the winter, or they simply took the cargo back to other 
destinations.  Crews worked around the clock to unload..  We learned 
that bottled goods moved from the warm ship's hold to the dock could 
freeze suddenly and explode.  So we had to work out ways to get 
everything out of the ships' holds and moved into a warehouse without 
delay.  I never learned of any casualties from flying glass, but it was 
a hazard to avoid.
    I will not try to cover all the Air Force accidents and tragedies, 
but will cover one in another story.
   With love to all, Grampa.