ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — One of the hardest things Melissa Mayo-Norman has had to do since she lost her husband on the fishing vessel Sara Anne last spring is answer her son’s questions.
“My son is 12 and he says, ‘Mom, I know Dad can swim so how come he didn’t get home?’ The worst part is having to tell him I don’t know, and for him to watch us doing everything that we can (to try to find out),” she said Monday.
Mayo-Norman’s husband, 35-year-old Scott Norman, was one of four men who perished after leaving St. Lawrence in the 36-foot Sara Anne May 25 to fish crab. The others were his father Edward Norman, his cousin Jody Norman and Isaac Kettle.
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While the bodies of the three Norman men were recovered by the Canadian Coast Guard the next day, Kettle’s body wasn’t located until nearly two weeks later, by lobster fishermen. The Coast Guard had conducted an extensive search, but called it off days after the vessel went down.
The Sara Anne still hasn’t been recovered.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) said last June it is investigating what happened to the vessel and suggested the investigation could take up to 450 days. Mayo-Norman said it’s been the families of the lost men who have been doing the work.
“In the last eight-and-a-half months we’ve been investigating, because no one else will,” she said. “As we were told by the TSB, there are means to tell what could have possibly happened out there that day once the boat is recovered. Little did we know it was our responsibility to recover it, unfortunately.”
On Monday, Mayo-Norman joined Merv Wiseman, a retired Coast Guard search and rescue co-ordinator, as members of the Concerned Citizens Group for Search and Rescue, speaking to reporters and calling for improved search and rescue services. The system is broken, they said, and needs to be fixed once and for all.
“We’re in the throes of an election and we’re in the middle of an inquiry on ground search and rescue. We thought this would be an opportune time to advocate,” Wiseman said.
Earlier this month the provincial government formally established an inquiry into ground search and rescue operations. Led by former provincial court judge James Igloliorte, the inquiry will examine the organization of the province’s SAR operations with informal hearings, for the most part. One hearing will be dedicated to Burton Winters, a 14-year-old boy from Makkovik who died in 2012 after his snowmobile got stuck on sea ice. Winters was reported missing three days before his body was found, and SAR aircraft were not immediately involved in the search for him, joining only after multiple requests from local rescue teams.
Wiseman said he hopes to gain standing at the inquiry and believes there will be space to examine SAR issues related to the sea as well as on land.
Despite a high number of lost fish harvesters in the country — an average of 10 per year for the past 25 years, and more than 10 in Atlantic Canada in 2020 alone — marine SAR endeavours aren’t given the same priority as others, Wiseman said.
“In the aviation industry, they go to all lengths and they have the resources to effectively carry out the recovery of the aircraft because they want to understand what happened for that aircraft to go down. They want to implement prevention measures to make sure it doesn’t happen again. This would not happen in any other industry. The fishing industry has had to endure this and it’s almost accepted, like if you go out the harbour you may come back, you may not.”
Wiseman said he has issues with the co-ordination of SAR efforts and believes it shouldn’t fall to the RCMP. He says the recovery aspect is where things are really broken and he wants oversight for SAR operations.
Mayo-Norman wants more resources on the water so recovery efforts aren’t left up to families.
“Everyone should be treated equally, whether you die on land or in water,” she said. “We don’t get a chance to grieve because we have to fight.”
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