Injured at Sea

A couple of other times there were exercises where, you know, casualties and stuff where it was “No duff.” When there was an actual casualty on board the ship there would be a pipe, “Casualty, casualty, casualty!” But if there was a real casualty or a real emergency, you know, they would say, “No duff” and when we’d hear that the ship’s crew would fan out, we’d get to our stations and all that. There was one gal on board our ship. She was down in the locker, like down below the galley, they have all these lockers, like the milk and dairy, the meat locker, dry stores and all that stuff. Well, there are these big heavy hatches. She had opened the hatch and the ship did a bit of a roll and her fingers were severed so she lost three fingers during a roll at sea. I, myself got injured when I was at sea too. I was sitting on a chair. I was off duty and I was watching a movie in the ships laundry and the ship had taken a heavy roll and I was sitting on, it was like a wooden office chair and the chair flipped on its back and I was sliding so I was sliding to the bulk head. So it slid for about fifteen feet and I didn’t know what was behind me but I just curled my head in and my shoulders and my neck took the brunt of the hit from the bulk head but I didn’t…the guys around me were like, “Are you okay, are you okay?” and it was like, “Oh yeah, I’m good, I’m good.” I never reported it or anything like that. But years later now I have neck problems. I have bulging discs in my neck. So it’s a dangerous job too, like I said there’s unexpected things that happen at sea. It can be a dangerous job for sure. But my knees were also shot. I had no cartilage left in my left knee so I was told, I’d had arthroscopic surgery and I was told that no, that I would have to be released because I had nothing, no cartilage left and so I was released 2009.

Ms. Bate speaks about her experiences of being injured while off duty on board the HMCS Huron.

Sandy Bate

Ms. Sandy Bate was born July 11, 1960 in Chatham, New Brunswick. Prior to joining the military, she was employed with DND for ten years. At the age of 28 she chose to join the military and with her clerical skills and sports background saw fit to join the air force. Throughout Ms. Bate’s career she had several postings across Canada and because of family connection in Comox, BC made a big decision to switch over to the navy as junior clerk and become part of the crew of the HMCS Huron. Eventually, due to declining health, Ms. Bate was medically discharged in 2009. Being part of the Invictus Games 2017 has been instrumental in providing a positive outlook to her retired life. She represented Canada as part of the Team Canada Golf team, an initiative she is most proud of. Ms. Bate now resides in Victoria, BC with her family.