PORT ANGELES — “Thank very mach to you for presented second life. Let keeps the God to you and your family.”
Nuts with the syntax. It’s the sentiment that counts — supremely so because the writer was Vyacheslav Kornya of the Ukraine, and the recipient was Dr. Bob Watkins of Olympic Medical Center.
Watkins shared the message with OMC commissioners last week, plus a picture of Kornya with his wife and parents.
Kornya, terribly injured two years ago and plucked from the deck of a storm-tossed ship, has healed and hopes to return to sea soon, Watkins said.
If you don’t remember “Slava,” as he came to be called at OMC, the tale bears repeating, even for people who poured out love, gifts and money for the sailor.
If you’ve never heard his story, it’s just what’s needed these frigid days in an even colder economy.
The day of Nov. 15, 2006, brought 91 mph gusts to the Pacific Ocean 30 miles west of Cape Flattery, where the 700-foot bulk container ship Iolcos Glory rolled in 30-foot swells.
Far below decks, 45-year-old Slava, an electrician, struggled to secure a collection of two-ton spare pistons that were threatening to break loose from the ropes that tied them to the bulkhead.
One did break loose. It hit Slava from behind.
The damage it wreaked on Slava’s left leg ¬– even photographed after OMC staff had cleaned the huge wound ¬to his calf — best is described as obscene. The piston had shattered bone and turned muscle to pulp.
Officers of the Iolcos Glory, bound for Victoria, contacted Rescue Coordination Centre Victoria, which called U.S. Coast Guard District 13 headquarters in Seattle.
Headquarters contacted Coast Guard Group/Air Station Port Angeles, which launched an HH-65 Dolphin helicopter.
Aboard Coast Guard Rescue 6591 were pilot Lt. Dan Leary, co-pilot Lt. Steve Mahany, Petty Officer 2nd Class Molly Weppner, Chief Petty Officer John Linnborn and Cmdr. Jeffrey Salvon-Harmon.
Before the helicopter could get to the ship, it had to get through the storm, a 45-minute flight that Mahany later described as “getting beat up pretty bad.”
Too big for bandages
As for the Iolcos Glory, “I’ve never seen a ship bob around like that,” he said.
Linnborn volunteered to be lowered to the pitching ship. Once below decks, he was shocked by the blood from Slava’s wounds, which were bigger than the largest dressing the helicopter carried.
Winched aboard the Dolphin, Slava’s cries of pain could be heard through the crew’s earplugs and flight helmets.
A blessed brief clearing in the storm and a strong west wind speeded Rescue 6591 to OMC, where orthopedic surgeon Watkins was on call.
Four hours after he was injured, Slava arrived gray-faced and unconscious, with no pulse in his leg and barely any blood pressure.
Horrific as the wound was, Watkins had seen similar injuries from logging accidents.
Still, he knew that Slava should be flown to the regional trauma center at Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center.
Couldn’t reach Harborview
Worsening weather canceled that idea, and downed trees and a closed Hood Canal Bridge eliminated any chance of transporting Slava by ambulance.
Slava, an 18-year veteran sailor, communicated two messages to his caregivers in heavily accented English before he was anesthetized:
“I have insurance,” and “Please don’t take my leg.”
Watkins, who later would explain that the soft-tissue injuries were graver than the shattered bone, started the first of nine operations to repair the damage, pin metal rods to Slava’s broken bones and graft skin onto the wound.
Even fully healed, Slava’s knee-to-ankle scars are shocking.
As he recuperated, Slava was attended by Oksana Ostrovsky, an OMC surgical nurse who had gone to school in Slava’s hometown of Odessa before immigrating to the U.S.
She acted as his translator.
Christmas in the hospital
Watkins said Slava owes his leg to his strong constitution and the competence of his Coast Guard rescuers.
Ostrovsky, though, credited Watkins.
“If this man had been shipped back home, he would have lost his leg and maybe his life,” she said.
Slava spent that Christmas in Port Angeles, far from his ship — by then in Brazil — his wife, Lyudmila Serbinova, and their 14-year-old daughter, Arina.
The community of Port Angeles, however, stepped into that family role.
Hundreds of strangers visited him, bringing candy, clothes and presents. Scores of school children wrote to him. Dozens contributed to a fund at Sound Community Bank in Sequim.
“I like this port,” he said on Christmas Eve two years ago.
On Christmas Day, his registered use reported Slava had many unknown visitors who visited him, wished him well and brought him gifts.
‘My heart remaining here’
When it came time for Slava to return to the Ukraine, after recuperation and physical therapy at Crestwood Convalescent Center, he bade farewell April 17, 2007, in an OMC auditorium packed with well-wishers.
They included the crew of Rescue 6591.
“For this time, I thank many people,” Slava said.
“I go from PA, but have my heart remaining here.”
The afterglow of Slava’s rescue included a Red Cross Real Heroes medal for Linnborn and an award to Watkins for “true medical heroism.”
But best, perhaps, was Slava’s e-mail last month to Watkins:
‘I walking without crutches’
“Hi doctor Watkins and yours family.
“I want personal to express thanks for your great surgery.
“I walking without crutches; however, there is small is limped.
“The Navy doctor has canceled the surgery in view of positive progress. He recommended only courses in centre of rehabilitation.
“I [myself] drip the vegetable garden, use shovel and rise and down on stairway (ladder).
“At January-February want to close the medical examen [sic] and return for working on ship.”
After sharing the message, showing the photos and briefly describing Slava’s rescue and recuperation last week, Watkins had just one thing he could say:
“Merry Christmas.”
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Reporter Jim Casey can be reached at 360-417-3538 or at jim.casey@peninsuladailynews.com.
