Lessons In Life

Joe Carpenter, Boots & Coots, Inc.; Kuwait 1991. Photo by Dave Wilson

In the late summer of 1991 the firefighting campaign in Kuwait was winding down, some of the last remaining, most difficult fires were getting attended to, primarily by Boots and Coots. Inc. and The Red Adair Company, both from Houston.

In Burgan Field, just outside Kuwait City, Boots and Coots was on a well that had been blown to bits with Iraqi explosives, below the tubing head. Where these wells were blown up in the well configuration played a primary role in how fast they could be capped and controlled. Below the tubing hanger and things got very complicated.

This well in Burgan was was blowing in different directions and nasty. Larry Flak gave it to Boots and Coots.

The entire tubing head and B-section casing head was cut off with a jet cutter and a V-tube placed over the fire to get it going straight up. A track hoe dug a deep hole around the casing stub some 40 feet deep, a ramp was built down in the bottom of the hole and the plan was to cut the 9 5/8ths surface casing with a cutting torch, peel it back to expose the 7 inch production casing so that a new well well head could be jacked up to the 7 inch with inverted slip rams and a capping stack set, flange to flange. A pickup truck was backed down in the hole and Joe Carpenter went to blow a hole in the 9 5/8ths with a torch before starting his peel back, all the fire safely above him and the rest of the boys down in the hole watching his back.

Standing on the rim of the hole, Boots, clean and far left in this photograph on the left, was pissed. Nobody in Kuwait had been seriously hurt since the campagn started in March and nobody had lost any equipment to fire and dumb mistakes.

Boots said to David and Joe that he was goddman go to hell NOT going back to camp that night with other well control companies laughing about Boot and Coot burning up a pickup truck.

Joe ran down in the hole full of fire, the pickup engulfed, somehow started it up and drove it up the ramp, out the hole, dragging acetylene hoses and the cutting torch with him. The steering wheel in the pickup was so hot it singed his gloves. When he got above ground and bailed out the pickup the plastic gasoline tank under the pickup fell out and spillled gasoline everywhere. The boys went back to camp that night downplaying the entire incident when it got brought up.

The well was capped by Boots & Coots personel, branded or not.

In 1995, in eastern Syria, the well that Martin Kelly, Joe Carpenter and Danny Stong were working on was finally capped above the BOP stack and put on diverter. It was blowing 35,000 BOPD into earthen pits under a great deal or pressure and the entire stack had to be braced with a substructure Joe built. Guy lines were anchored in the ground for additional stability. Thirty feet in the air the stack was vibrating like crazy.

After day six the well seemed static and Shell, the operator, turned Boot and Coots lose.

Their last morning before heading home, Martin, Joe and Danny when down to the well one more time to check everything and when they were under the substructure and BOP stack the well blew up, burning them to death, instantly.

When James Tuppen and Boots went to Syria a few days later to recover the bodies, it appeared that the first move Joe made when the well blew up was toward the pickup, to drive it out of the fire.

These were my friends, whom I am had worked with before. I still have bad dreams about this 30 years later.

And whenver I see this film of Kuwait I always think of David Thompson, seen loading a shot canister to blow a fire out in this film, and Big Joe. And Martin, who for whatever reason seem to have faith in me, and Danny. And James for having to do what he did.

Life is hard. Then you die. Some of us sooner than others. In the end its not what you have, or where you have been, it is who you did it all with that you remember the most. That is the lesson I learned in my years of well control. The film is called Lessons Of Darkness; I prefer lessons in life.

This is a good film, from German producers. On IMAX it was awesome. There are a lot of versions of this film, this is my favorite. Remember, Boots and Coots wore white. No weired hard hats from Canada, no showboating, none of that stuff. To watch this will require two cups of coffee in the morning, or two scotches in the evening. It is worth it. This was a historic moment in world history. You can google the film and see other parts of it, I think something like 12 sections all toll.

My deepest, deepest admiration and respect for the families of Martin, Joe and Danny. One of the greatest honors of my life was to work along side your loved ones.