Cape Safety, Inc. - Cast of Characters: Danger Dogs Series, #2

By Richard Hughes

Cape Safety, Inc. - Cast of Characters continues the travels and travails of the men and women of a fictitious top-notch safety consulting firm, internationally recognized as the "go-to" safety, industrial hygiene, and disaster specialists. Look over their shoulders as they describe the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 in Boston, as a giant tank full of molasses exploded, covering the city. Learn how a team of hazmat specialists disposed of 70,000 lbs. of rotted food in the U.S.S. Cole, how to avoid getting hit by lightning, just how badly Hollywood's stunt performers--including Jackie Chan--get hurt in every part of their bodies and why no one is doing anything about it. Read a fascinating, true tale of how a 1300-acre lake in Louisiana literally "went down the drain" in one of the most bizarre stories ever told.

 

The diverse collection of personable experts at Cape Safety, Inc. remain the busiest safety guys and gals around, but don't think for a minute it's all work and no play. Cape Safety Inc. - Cast of Characters, the 2nd in his Danger Dogs Series, continues Mr. Hughes's unique genre of "actual fiction" combining the elements of true news events with fictional characters, set on picturesque Cape Cod.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Waquoit Wordsmith Press
• Release date: Nov 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201840433

Richard Hughes

Richard Hughes closed his 24-seat safety training center on Cape Cod to become a retired student of modern worldwide shipping operations. He graduated from Massachusetts Maritime Academy with a B.S. in Marine Transportation then obtained a Masters Degree in Business from Lesley University. While at MMA, he sailed on the Bay State, the Lightning, and the Mobil Lube. His books include the Cape Safety, Inc. – Danger Dogs Series—a collection of 9 novels detailing the exciting lives of a top-notch bi-coastal safety consulting firm. His popular non-fiction Deep Sea Decisions is an expose of maritime tragedies. He and his wife, Lavinia M. Hughes, have co-authored Newtucket Island, Training Ship, and Cape Car Blues. He lives and writes in the seaside village of Waquoit, MA, with his wife.

Book preview

Preface

During the ten minutes it has taken you to gather a cup of hot chocolate, find the remote to turn off the television, and snuggle under a warm throw to keep your legs warm in your favorite reading chair, the following happened.

Two persons were killed and 396 persons suffered disabling injuries. The associated costs for these "accidents" will be upward of $8,920,000.

The novel you are about to read, a sequel to Cape Safety, Inc., fictionalizes a small company dedicated to altering those statistics.

With the exception of the Sea World incident that I hope can never come true, most of the stories these characters find themselves in are based on actual incidents and events.

By reminding you of these news items that may have skipped your attention while hurrying through your daily papers and magazines, I hope to pay tribute to the real victims of these tragedies and to those who did their best to prevent them.

Although Cape Safety, Inc. lives only in our imaginations, the spirit and dedication of C.S.I.’s staff is personified for real by hard working safety professionals throughout the world. To those actual people I have woven into the fabric of this novel, I thank you for being my fantasy.

As these characters are proud to call you their friends, I trust that you, too, would like to have the likes of Bob, Gene, Heidi, Lars, Mike, Rocky, Sandra, Candace, Snake, Bill, Maggie, Megan and Sam on your Christmas card list. Enjoy the tales and stay in touch.

Richard Hughes

Send me your thoughts at [e-mail]

WAIVER STATEMENT

This book is a complete work of fiction, although some events that are mentioned really happened. Unfortunately, this writer knows none of the celebrity characters. Their words and actions spring forth only from a creative mind.

CHAPTER ONE

The turquoise van dodged around a tree branch that had fallen across Woods Hole Road. On a quieter day Bob Guard would have hit his roof-mounted light-bar and dragged the tree out of the road himself, but today he was extra busy, so he simply cell-phoned his friends at the Falmouth DPW to come out with their chain saws to remove the new obstruction.

Bob was on his way back from two morning safety meetings in Quincy, Massachusetts, City of Presidents, where American Presidents John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams, had lived and were now entombed.

While he was there Bob had queried his client whether he thought the other historic father and son Presidential duo, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, would, some far-off-day, be remembered with similar reverence in the State of Texas.

Bob tended to doubt it. Maybe it was the constant traveling and campaigning of modern politicians that made you think of them more at home in a Sheraton Hotel; or asleep in a straight talk express campaign bus; or maybe even a chartered plane full of aides and reporters than in a real house and neighborhood somewhere. Whatever the reason, he doubted Austin or Houston would be asking Quincy for dibs on their slogan any time soon.

The reason for the tree in the street, along with several tree limbs and wildly rolling empty plastic rubbish barrels, was a vicious winter wind arriving the third week in December. This unwelcome Alberta Clipper was apparently an early Christmas gift from the northernmost nation of North America that Bob wished had stayed there.

As he crossed over the Eel Pond Bridge, he could see the sea spray actually arc into Water Street creating a sea-salt rainbow. Because of the holiday season most ships were back in port and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Research Ships RV Atlantis and Albatross III were taking the hardest pounding against the west winds and seas. NOAA’s Gloria Michelle was somewhat protected in the Great Harbor lee of Penzance Point while the Coast Guard’s medium-endurance cutter Alex Haley was equally protected in the tight inlet of Little Harbor.

Bob was the co-owner of the best and busiest safety-consulting firm in the country. His partner, and industrial hygiene nonpareil, Gene Wing, was quite likely chomping at his bit as Bob was already close to 45 minutes late for their 2:00 p.m. meeting at their Woods Hole headquarters. An ETA (estimated-time of arrival) off three-quarters of an hour wasn’t that out of line if you were factoring in summer traffic flows between the south of Boston and Cape Cod, but winter driving patterns in the area you could usually predict with stopwatch accuracy, sans fallen tree limbs, runaway trash cans, stalled cars, and other unanticipated road obstacles. Both partners were considerate of each other’s valuable time, and hang-time—effectively time spent waiting for a meeting to commence—was something they both tried hard to avoid. Hopefully, Bob thought as he pulled into the company parking lot, Gene had some other paperwork to stay occupied.

It was Wednesday, and that meant Heidi, one of their most junior consultants, and her Dalmatian, Fireplug, would likely be in the office, Plug serving as unpaid, but highly prized Director Dog of Security.

No sooner had Bob pulled open the inlaid stained-glass office front door, when Plug let out a yelp and bounded down the steps two at a time to greet the boss. Hey, that’s the kind of greeting I should get from everyone around here, said Bob, over Plug’s barking.

Oh you do, quipped Gene. "But when the employees yelp, they then bound down the back steps, two at a time just so you won’t give them another assignment in the Himalayas or on Greencheese, Mars."

Hell, Bob couldn’t resist, I hear the weather in Greencheese is quite nice this time of year, and our people live for major safety problems in obscure places. They’d never run off, he smirked.

Bob dumped his rain-soaked full length slicker with CAPE SAFETY, INC. in highly reflective Scotchlight emblazoned proudly across the shoulders.

Sorry I’m late, the weather is a bitch.

No problem, said Gene.

What’s first on the agenda? said Bob. Have we heard back from our friends in Toulouse, France, regarding our Airbus double-decker jet recommendations?

Glad you asked, answered Gene, in fact they have, and if they adopt them all, the Airbus A3XX should be the safest plane in the sky.

Bob grabbed a rope rescue device off the conference room bow window cushions and started playing with the descent mechanism. Well, it certainly needs to be with 650 passengers on a single plane, Bob responded with arched eyebrows that slightly furrowed his mid-forties forehead. What exactly did you and Mike come up with for recommendations anyway?

Bob was on top of every project in the company to the degree your average CEO/General Manager could ever be. Effectively, he maintained a cursory awareness of all things, but certainly not all details. It had to be so, because Bob and Gene were both hard-driving safety consultants like the rest of the Cape Safety, Inc. staff. Unlike most of their business contemporaries, Bob and Gene had no desire to run their firm like the Wizard of Oz from perches on high. Bob and Gene were committed to careers of never sitting behind desks for the bulk of their days, and both took every opportunity to jump on client health and safety problems, no matter where such problems might geographically take them. Most of their junior consultants were highly tenured by a wide variety of life and professional experience; plus in this electronic age no one was ever really more than a keystroke out of touch with the two bosses and Woods Hole. Thanks, of course, to satellite cell phone technology the staff had all but instant access to each other whether they were under a sand dune in an underground bunker in Provincetown, Massachusetts; or hovering in a helicopter over a sinking freighter off Cape Town, South Africa. Well, Airbus is really pushing the technology envelope with this plane, and some of the innovations are well beyond slick. Thanks to Mike’s suggestions, their cockpit instruments will display a graphic, hard-to-overlook picture of the minimum safe altitude during each phase of flight. On their own they came up with equipment that will precisely track hazardous deviations of in-flight engine thrust and give pilots a better sense of where they are when they’re taxiing the superjumbo jet around congested airports. We convinced them to scrap those bulky paper charts for a state-of-the-art electronic map library. I believe our studies, primarily Lars’ modeling efforts, have convinced their top management to go with a reinforced fuselage, anchored to super strong landing gear able to withstand any crushing impact of unusually hard touchdowns. Can you imagine, said Gene, using his right palm to demonstrate a conference table landing, that, fully loaded, this plane will weigh 1.2 million pounds!

I haven’t told you the best part, though. Where I think Mike and I really earned our money. Helping Airbus figure out a way to get close to 700 people including crew off of two decks in the event of an emergency.

Don’t tell me, barked Bob, breaking into a smile, the whole belly is a giant trap door and they all just fall to the tarmac.

No, but that idea does have potential, answered Gene, stroking his chin while looking skyward to go along with the joke as though Bob was actually on to something. Our solutions were a bit more traditional, but they still were a tough sell to those airline executives who would have preferred every spare inch to be filled with a seat that they could sell a ticket for. We finally got agreement for wider aisles and stairs connecting the two decks, extra exit doors—18 overall—more flame-resistant cabin interiors and upgraded evacuation slides. And I swear, these slides are better than a ride at Disney. Slide capacity is 140 passengers a minute and they’re stable in crosswinds of 25 miles per hour.

How do we know that passengers won’t panic on the stairways, though, long before they even reach the slides? asked Bob. He had been involved in studies of many of the 46 evacuations that had occurred and knew that in nearly 40% of the incidents in which slides were deployed, at least one slide failed to operate as intended and sometimes even ended up blocking exits. Well back in 1998 there was even an incident in Puerto Rico resulting in 28 injuries on an American Airlines Airbus A300, when three of its slides failed to work properly.

Good point and we don’t yet have a definitive answer, but we have Professor Helen Muir, from Cranfield University in Britain, working on a giant mockup for staging test evacuations. I love that school. Her results should tell us what we still need to learn about both design and human response.

Good, she’s tops in this field, said Bob, gulping down another mug of hot coffee, seemingly oblivious to temperature.

The staff was basically convinced that one of Bob’s legs was made of mirrored glass because he could hold more coffee than a dozen thermos bottles.

How about emergency equipment access to the plane if all or most of the slides are deployed. Any concerns?

Gene shook his head. Well the pilots union has raised this concern and it might be valid. Until these one-of-a-kind slides are actually constructed and they start mock-rescue drilling with the slides and real emergency responders, no one is really sure. But we’re all cognizant of the issue.

Well, sounds like so far so good, but I’m glad it won’t be up there flying tomorrow. We and Airbus still have some safety issues that need to be addressed.

A knock on the conference door brought discussion on this matter to a close, as Rocky, their senior statesman, ex-SEAL, and ex-Survivalist TV show runner-up, stuck his gray flat-top around the door and asked them for five minutes.

Absolutely, we’ll even give you ten, Rock, five from each of us at the same time, quipped Bob.

Doesn’t that still come out to five minutes? asked Rocky in his deliberate Maryland accent.

In unison, as though they had it pre-arranged, both bosses shot back, I don’t know, the phrase Rocky had made famous across the country after one particularly frustrating mental immunity challenge.

Shit, I walked right into that one, didn’t I? After a good guffaw, and a passing of the leftover morning Dunkin’ Donuts™ box, where the short lives of two, cruising toward stale, jelly sticks, and one French cruller came to a nasty end, Rocky proceeded to tell Gene and Bob that he was running into a little bit of a wall on a project he was working on for the Tokyo Police Department.

Motorcycle gangs called bosozoku were becoming the bane of Japanese Police. These irreverent motorcycle-riding youth race recklessly through the streets with an unmufflered roar that disturbs the country’s highly prized peace and quiet. Cape Safety had been contacted about a month earlier and Rocky had drawn the short straw at the time.

What’s the problem, international fishing restrictions on mesh size allowing your easy riders to get away? prodded Bob.

No, but they are using that technique at roadblocks in a couple of Tokyo suburbs with mixed results. Our problem is with the MAD devices they just started using.

I take it MAD is an acronym not a description, asked Gene while trying to remove a spot of jelly from his tie. Yup, stands for Motorcycle Arresting Device. They’re metallic boxes installed in select streets, which lie flat, almost unnoticeable, when not engaged. But when a motorcycle races over the plate, the lid flips up after the front wheel has passed exposing an adhesive that sticks to the motorcycle’s rear tire. The adhesive is attached to a wire, which is hooked to a rope that is drawn onto the axle. That snarls the wheel and halts the forward progress of the bike in a gradual manner so the rider isn’t thrown off and hurt. On foot, then, the local cops have no trouble catching the wiseass and confiscating his bike.

By now Lars, Gene’s primary junior assistant but accomplished consultant in his own right, had wormed his way into the conference room and become a third set of ears for Rocky’s story. What, then, is the issue? It sounds like a problem solved.

"Well, the problem is my system is working too safely according to Tokyo. During the past month they caught nine motorcycles but only one rider. Supposedly my system slowed them down so nice and gently that they then just stepped off their bikes and escaped into the Japanese crowds. Rocky read from the pink telephone message slip in his hand, Mr. Rocky, our criminals run away like spiders, Rocky read aloud in his own inimitable style. The note comes from a Lieutenant Kimono or something like that, I can’t quite make out the handwriting without my glasses."

If I were you, Rocky, suggested Bob, I’d politely inform Tokyo Lieutenant Gift-Horse-In-The-Mouth that his problem is out-of-shape cops who can’t satisfactorily chase down bad guys, rather than a flaw with your system. As safety specialists, your MAD device is exactly what they came to us for—a passive way to bring these troublemakers to justice.

"Hey, any idiot firm could have come up with a bazooka or a flamethrower device popping out of the pavement if hurting these guys was OK. Heck, the penalty of losing their hot rod bikes more than fits the crime of disturbing the peace, anyway. With Japan’s economy the way it is, if these average kids have to work to buy brand new bikes, they’ll be stuck on foot for years, arrested or not. That’s all they need to accomplish, when all is said and done. Send along a coupla pairs of Reebok’s new Pump Sneakers for their cops, Rock, and maybe they’ll get the hint that we consider this job mission accomplished."

Pretending to hang himself with the noose end of his rope rescue contraption, Bob pivoted his ergonomic conference chair toward the newest arrival and gagged, Lars, my friend, what’s hangin?

Lars was familiar with the informality of his boss’s inquiry and plunged ahead with the briefest of smiles. Native Norwegians were not world renowned for their exceptional senses of humor. Nothing too radical this morning. Although we just received a message from Ohio. It seems as if Citizen Action has called on OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) to launch an immediate investigation into four dental lab suppliers for their violations of the federal Hazard Communication Standard. They released a report showing dental lab employees are working presently with the deadly metal beryllium and likely have little knowledge of its toxicity. Their Citizen Action group says that some dental laboratory suppliers are knowingly withholding life-saving information from the workers handling beryllium.

Tell me, industrial hygiene savants, said Bob in the direction of Gene and Lars, how nasty is this exposure?

Gene responded, Beryllium exposure can cause beryllium disease and cancer, and beryllium disease is an incurable, often fatal, lung ailment. Physically it’s a hard but light-weight metal used in military hardware, cars and trucks, electronics, and dental work.

Lars handed the faxed message to Gene.

Gene continued, ‘Dental laboratory technicians are being lied to about the health hazards of beryllium and are not being shown MSDS information,’ says Amy Ryder, Cleveland Director of Ohio Citizen Action.

What else is new, scoffed Gene. "This safety & health misinformation between American management and labor has been going on for years even though Federal law requires companies to prepare and distribute Material Safety Data Sheets to employees and customers handling their dangerous materials. Plus, these Data Sheets provide just the minimum safety information like first aid and safe handling recommendations, not a warning of all known health hazards or whether the material is recognized as a carcinogen.

It says here that the Citizen Action's report reviewed Material Safety Data Sheets from five dental laboratory suppliers and surveyed 51 dental laboratories in the Cleveland area. Of the five Material Safety Data Sheets collected, four failed to mention beryllium disease or accurately warn of the cancer risks."

Lars interjected, If I remember correctly, and with a near photographic memory he almost always did, an article in the American Review of Respiratory Diseases estimated that approximately 2,200 dental laboratory technicians in the United States could potentially develop chronic beryllium disease if proper measures weren’t taken to minimize exposure."

Yup, said Gene, glancing further down the memo, this report found that 57% of the employees working in the Cleveland labs surveyed could have been exposed to beryllium dust or fumes and the U.S. Department of Labor estimated there were 44,000 dental lab technicians nationwide. This is no insignificant exposure.

Bob tapped a message to himself into his PalmPilot X4, a prototype with several features not yet available to the general public. To the group he said, This afternoon I’ll place a call to the CEO of Brush Wellman; I’ve met him several times. Brush Wellman is headquartered in Cleveland, too, and they’re the largest producer of beryllium in the country. I’ll gently remind him about both his legal and moral Right-To-Know obligations and maybe we can help establish a productive dialogue between these two.

A resounding Woof from just outside the conference room reminded them all that a large, black and white firedog was in need of attention and that it was a good time for this meeting to come to a close.

CHAPTER TWO

As Bob exited the meeting he couldn’t resist swinging past Heidi’s new office to tell her another blonde joke. Mr. Guard was notorious for cornering poor Heidi, a striking blonde herself, who had recently become a full-fledged consultant after several years as receptionist, to tell her his latest blonde joke. Although the rest of the staff pleaded with him on many occasions to give the stale jokes a rest, he was, frankly, incorrigible. The fact that Heidi actually enjoyed being a straight-man for his stand-up, probably meant that the old jokes would keep on coming for years ahead. Bob was always careful to stay correct, however, something certain prominent politicians never seemed to grasp.

Hey, Heidi, true story, which of course it never was. A policeman was interrogating three blondes who were training to become detectives. To test their skills in recognizing a suspect, he showed the first blonde a picture for five seconds and then hid it. He said, This is your suspect. How would you recognize him?"

The first blonde answered, That’s easy, and I’d catch him fast because he only has one eye.

The policeman said, Well . . . uh . . . that’s because the picture shows his profile.

Slightly flustered by this ridiculous response, he flashed the picture for five seconds at the second blonde and asked her the same question.

The second blond giggled, flipped her hair and said, Ha, he’d be real easy to catch because he has only one ear.

The policeman angrily responded, What’s the matter with you two! Of course only one eye and one ear are showing because it’s a picture of him in profile. Is that the best answer you two can come up with?

Extremely frustrated at this point, he showed the picture to the third blonde and in a very testy voice asked the same question. This is your suspect, now how would you recognize him? He quickly added . . . Think hard now before giving me a stupid answer.

The third woman looked at the picture intently for a moment and said, Hmmmm . . . The suspect wears contact lenses.

The policeman was surprised and somewhat speechless because, in truth, he didn’t know himself if the suspect did or did not wear contact lenses.

Interesting answer, he said. Let me check and I’ll get right back to you.

He came back with a beaming smile on his face after checking his computer file.

"Wow, I can’t believe it . . . you were right. The suspect does wear contact lenses! Good work, how did you make such an astute observation?"

It was easy, the blonde answered him. He can’t wear regular glasses because he has only one ear and one eye.

Bob never waited for his audience’s groan, he just delivered the punch line and ran. Probably not a bad safety strategy for a bad comedian.

Sandra Byrneski, or as Mike always referred to her, Sandra the Scientist, was working on a special project for the Apnea Academy in Santa Teresa, Italy. She had met the head of the Academy, Umberto Pellzzari, a cult hero among free divers while on a recent trip to St. Thomas.

Her merchant mariner brother Ron, a St. Thomas marine pilot, who almost single-handedly saved a freighter’s crew while on her vacation there, had introduced her to Umberto. Mr. Pellzzari, over a memorable Caribbean meal, had regaled her about the joys of deep diving without breathing equipment in his home waters off Sardinia. After her return to Woods Hole he had hired her to prepare a report that he could use in his marketing efforts to entice more people to the sport. Sandra knew he would be quite disappointed with her findings and recommendations, but she was a safety specialist not a brand manager or a travel agent, and in her view science, and scientists, always told the truth.

From the Cayman Islands to the coast of Canada, the travel industry was reportedly adding a new item to the usual parasailing and Jet-Ski rentals, deep sea diving without scuba gear. Although most people thought diving 50 feet to the bottom of the ocean without breathing gear was nuts, the sport was growing