Oil Rig Explosion Survivors Were Held Captive for 40 Hours & Denied Contact with Outside World

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig Transocean exploded on April 20 in the Gulf of Mexico. 11 people died in the blast, and survivors were held captive for nearly two days with no outside contact at all.

The Guardian interviewed one of the survivors, Stephen Davis, whow as working on the rig in the Gulf of Mexico last month during the explosure. Davis says that he and other workers were taken to a support ship where they were then held for 40 hours. During this time, they were not allowed any outside contact. They could not even call their families to let the know that they were alright.

When the support ship finally moved, Davis says it didn't head directly for shore. It first stopped at two more rigs to collect and drop off engineers and coast guard crew, before finally arriving at Port Fourchon, Louisana.

Finally on land, the men were greeted by a line of portable toilets to be used for drug tests. Then, they were loaded on to buses, given a change of clothes and boxes of sandwiches, and taken to a hotel in Kenner, LA, when they were finally reunited with their families.

Lawyers are now arguing that the isolation was intentional, and that Transocean was attempting to wear the men down so that they would sign statements denying that they'd been hurt or that they had even witnessed the explosion. At this point Davis says he had been awake for nearly 50 hours. He signed the papers, as did most of the other men.

Despite having signed the statements, lawsuits are beginning to pile up. Davis and nine other survivors are seeking $5.5 million in damages from Transocean.

So now not only do we know how much oil is really spilling out into the ocean each day, we also learn that those who witnessed the explosion were forced to deny being witnesses and were coerced into silence.