HAZELWOOD SAYS SHOCK OF SPILL MADE HIM SICK

NATALIE PHILLIPS
Daily News reporter

ANCHORAGE- When the captain of the Exxon Valdez a tanker the length of three football fields realized his ship had run aground, he got ill, physically ill. He raced up a set of stairs to the vessel's rear deck and saw two officers looking overboard. "There was a a bathroom right there. And I open I vomited into the commode. Knowing what I'd learned in the last 20 or 30 seconds, it just felt like I'd been hit in the breadbasket with about a 10-pound maul,"

Joe Hazelwood said as the packed federal courtroom was held spellbound.

"I went, tried to pull myself together, composed myself. . . . I could see oil boiling at a pretty good clip starboard side."

"I was having trouble catching my breath. Semi-hyperventilating, I guess," he said. "Just the world as I'd known it had just come to an end. It was the worst experience or worst nightmare I could ever imagine, and I wanted to be anywhere else but perched on Bligh Reef."

Thursday was Hazelwood's third and final day on the stand. And his 18 hours of testimony was the first time he had publicly told his story about what went wrong March 24, 1989. That night, the tanker he was commanding ran aground, spilling 11 million gallons of North Slope crude oil in Prince William Sound, the worst oil spill in the nation's history.

Hazelwood didn't testify in a 1990 criminal case when he was tried on charges of operating a vessel while drunk and negligently discharging oil. He was acquitted of the more serious drunkenness charge and is appealing his misdemeanor conviction for negligence.

The state and federal government filed criminal and civil cases against Exxon, but those were dropped when out-of-court settlements were reached with the oil giant in 1992.

Now, the final chapter of the 5-year-old saga is being written as 12,000 fishermen, Alaska Natives, and business and landowners take Hazelwood and Exxon to court. They are seeking $1.5 billion in actual damages and an additional $15 billion in punitive damages. To collect punitive damages, the plaintiffs must prove Exxon acted recklessly. So attorneys are focusing on Hazelwood and his drinking. They hope to prove Exxon was aware Hazelwood had a drinking problem, but failed to deal with it.

Hazelwood said that when the tanker hit the reef, he knew "intuitively that something was wrong, pretty seriously wrong. You don't take belts like that on a ship."

When he reached the vessel's command post, Hazelwood immediately started giving orders to assess the damage. He considered ringing the emergency alarm, but decided against it.

"I had a second mate ring a general alarm on me once and it panicked the whole crew. It's not something that is done lightly at all. . . . I didn't want to create a stampede of people out of a sleep," said Hazelwood, who more than once was asked to refer to the 2,300-page deposition he gave over 10 days in January.

About 20 minutes passed before Hazelwood radioed the Vessel Traffic Center in Valdez to report the grounding. A recording of that call has been played a couple of times for the 12 jurors who will decide the case.

On the tape, his voice is monotone, slow and guttural. It sounds as if the tape is being played at half speed. He occasionally slurs a word or begins a sentence with the wrong word, stops, and starts over.

"I remember picking up the mike and calling the Coast Guard," Hazelwood testified. "I remember it was almost a surreal event to me, because I had this microphone in my hand talking to somebody over the airwaves, and, you know, it was almost a detachment of what they could do and they weren't going to levitate me away or 'Beam me up Scottie.' "

"There was a good, healthy chunk of fear there, and I don't know if it was a realization but a recognition that I'd better not panic. That I've got to try to control the situation. I don't know if it's not a machismo thing or anything like that, but just make sure that people working under me see that I'm not panicking so they don't panic, basically."

Today, a two-hour videotape of Third Mate Greg Cousin's testimony will be played for the jury.

---

Story Index: Main | The Captain	Overall: story 293 of 380 The Captain story 52 of 56