Bus driver hero of sunken vessel survivors

LEGAZPI CITY , Philippines  â€“ A driver who had previous experiences in sea tragedies when he was still a fisherman is being credited by survivors of the sunken M/V Our Lady of Mt. Carmel as the hero who saved their lives while the roll on, roll off (RORO) vessel was quickly sinking last Friday.

Novelito Gomez, one of the drivers of the Isarog bus loaded on the ship, first woke up his fellow driver, Joey Lopez, as the ship was going down.

Gomez said he immediately thought of saving his friend Lopez, who does not know how to swim.

“I went to where he was sleeping and swiftly plucked him out of the bus that was already half-submerged in seawater. I did not know how I was able to pull him up since he was taller and heavier than me,” Gomez told Bombo Radyo-Legazpi yesterday.

Carol Tan, a passenger, said it was Gomez who told her to stay put and that everything would turn out fine.

“While I was already very frantic because the ship was sinking very fast, this man came to my rescue and told me to calm down. He asked me to follow him in climbing the still floating portion of the ship,” Tan said.

Gomez also quickly grabbed seven-month-old Kyle Toquero, who nearly drowned in the ship cabin. He handed the baby to a lady doctor who was aboard the ferry.

Sensing that the ship would soon totally sink, Gomez jumped into the hanging life jackets and lifeboats, quickly untied them then threw them to the passengers.

“He was so composed yet quick in doing what he had to do. He even assured us to stay relaxed and we will be all alive. That we will simply stay floating and the rescuers would soon arrive,” a survivor said.

Gomez said he herded the passengers to the rear portion of the ship because it would be the last to sink.

“The ship shook as if it hit a solid object, then we saw its front already sinking and tilting to the left,” Gomez said.

Two people died in the sea accident off Burias Island in Masbate last Friday morning, while seven remained missing.

Sixty-one were rescued, 39 of them passengers and 22 crewmembers.

Gomez admitted that his experiences while he was still a fisherman in Sorsogon guided him on what to do when he saw that the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel was about to go under.

“I was often placed in this kind of situation when I was still a fisherman. I learned that staying composed during emergencies will help you survive,” Gomez said.

A native of Bulan, Sorsogon, Gomez said he also frequently crosses the turbulent Ticao Pass, a famous dive site which is said to have strong currents, to visit the relatives of his mother in Ticao Island.

Meanwhile, rescuers had shifted their efforts from rescue to retrieval operations three days after they failed to locate the seven missing passengers.

Raffy Alejandro, director of the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) in Bicol, said that relatives of one Jocelyn Danao reported to them that she was also on the ferry when it sank.

Alejandro said that divers failed to get a view of the sunken vessel due to the very strong underwater current at Burias Pass.

“Our teams are now starting to search the surrounding coastal villages for the possible drifting of the missing passengers,” Alejandro told The STAR.