Another Transocean official, Miles Ezell, whose title is senior tool pusher, recalled a panicked phone call from an assistant driller moments before the explosion.
“ ‘We have a situation,’ ” he said he was warned. “ ‘The well has blown out.’ ”
Then the rig shook violently, and Mr. Ezell was sent 20 feet across the room, he said. He stood up, disoriented, to the smell of smoke and methane gas.
Crawling through the rig, Mr. Ezell said, he passed wounded, screaming victims and heard cries of “God, help me” and “Someone help me please.”
A pair of feet sticking out from the rubble turned out to belong to a senior Transocean official who was rescued and carried from the rig on a stretcher, he said. The rig’s highest-ranking official, Jimmy Harrell, the offshore installation manager, was wearing no shoes and struggling to open his eyes. Mr. Harrell, a Transocean employee, testified previously that he had been showering at the time of the explosion.
“It was just total chaos,” Mr. Ezell said.
Mr. Pleasant, the official who tried to activate the emergency system, testified that he had been initially instructed by the Transocean captain, Curt R. Kuchta, to wait. But only 30 seconds later, after the captain left the room, Mr. Pleasant said, he chose to use his own authority to attempt a disconnect.
“It was my equipment,” he said. “I had the authority.”
Indeed, Captain Kuchta testified Thursday, he had not been trained on the emergency system and believed that subsea engineers like Mr. Pleasant were authorized to activate it.
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