In a Rescue, What's the First Thing You Do

... after the actual physical rescue?

If your answer is, "Cover your a*& and have the victims sign release forms," you too can be an oil company executive.

We have all been following the story of the Deepwater Horizon blowout and subsequent oil spill. The economic devastation to Gulf Coast communities, the environmental damage, the human toll, the apparent lack of oversight by the federal Minerals Management Service -- there's a lot here for an ethicist to absorb.

I'd like to concentrate on just one aspect of the story. Here's the scenario:

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig has just blown up and sunk. Survivors, traumatized by the deaths and disaster they have witnessed, want nothing more than to go home and be able to assure their loved ones that they are indeed OK. But before they can do that ... there are forms to sign.

The Damon Bankston, a cargo boat attached to the rig when the blowout occurred, picked up survivors from lifeboats.

What happened next? According to New York Times reporters Ian Urbina and Justin Gillis,

The men were kept aboard the rescue ship, in the middle of the ocean, for a full 12 hours. Worse than the wait, [the interviewed survivors] ... said, was being forbidden to call their families. The men were told that the Coast Guard wanted to conduct interviews before the workers spoke to family or anyone else.

Rumors spread that the BP executives who had visited the rig were up on the Bankston’s bridge using the ship’s radio or a satellite phone to call home. (Complete article is here.)

NPR correspondent Joseph Shapiro interviewed one young survivor, who told him that when the Coast Guard arrived, papers were handed out, and they were told, "You need to sign these. Nobody's getting off here until we get one from everybody ... And then at the bottom it says something about ... this can be used as evidence in court...."

Even when the survivors got back to land, their ordeal wasn't over. The group were taken first to a hotel to meet with representatives from Transocean (owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig) and the Coast Guard. Urine samples for a mandatory drug test were collected, and the representatives handed out forms which the exhausted survivors were told to initial, which said, "I was not injured as a result of the incident or the evacuation." (Click here for the complete NPR piece)

According to the Associated Press, an attorney for 10 of the Transocean workers said that, "These men are told they have to sign these statements or they can't go home. I think it's pretty callous, but I'm not surprised by it."

Survivors' families waited at least 12 and in many cases more than 24 hours before receiving word that their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons were alive.

Is this what you'd call ethical?

Me, neither. These men have been traumatized by a disaster, and the company shows its concern for them by traumatizing them all over again.