Sheriff honors Department's former dive team members
By Dustin Luca
From The Salem News
MIDDLETON — Did you know the Essex County Sheriff’s Department use to have a search and dive team?
Sheriff Kevin Coppinger, until recently, was among those oblivious to the albeit brief history of the team. But on Monday afternoon, he helped shine a spotlight on the team with a lunch with the surviving members of the volunteer squad and honoring them with gifts on the 45th anniversary of the Blizzard of ‘78 — a storm that brought the team to its most memorable dive.
“It wasn’t long,” said Steve Archer, today 71 years old, of the dive team’s roughly six-year history. In the 1970s, Archer was a guard at the old Salem Jail who also volunteered for a small team of divers working for the sheriff. “What made it memorable was the blizzard. That’s what brought it to the forefront. If it wasn’t for that, it would’ve just been dives.”
The story behind the team is closely tied to the loss of the Can Do, a pilot vessel that capsized during the infamous Blizzard of ‘78 (bit.ly/3Tvs00H). The loss of the Can Do, which claimed all five souls on board, is a story being retold as the crew responsible for finding the vessel — and recovered one remaining body from its decimated hull — themselves fade with time.
“Dugie (Norman Russell), myself, and Dick Peverada ... recently got together to go to a wake of one of the other fellas that was on the dive team,” Archer said. “He was our equipment manager, and he just passed away — Paul Lydon.”
After Lydon’s funeral services, a family member of one of the remaining men reached out to Coppinger’s staff, asking for a gift for this holiday — a shirt, basically — for each remaining member of the dive team as a way to say thanks.
“I remember the Can Do incident,” Coppinger said Monday. “Horrible storm, horrible tragedy, especially for the folks on the Can Do. But I didn’t know you folks had a dive team ... No. 1, that the sheriff had a dive team.”
Throughout the lunch, Archer and Russell frequently referred to Michael Tougias’ 2006 bestseller “Ten Hours Until Dawn: The True Story of Heroism and Tragedy Aboard the Can Do.” (bit.ly/3RrL7Gv)
“The most impressive thing I got out of reading the book is that you get a sense as to what fear really is,” Archer said. “They knew they were going to die. The seas were so horrific, and sure enough... they tumbled. They rolled all the way to Tinker’s Island.”
The Can Do’s emergency was triggered by another: The Global Hope, a tanker that was “dragging anchor” in Salem Harbor. A mayday call from Global Hope immediately resulted in two Coast Guard vessels dispatched out of Gloucester and Boston, but both failed to reach the scene in the storm.
“The pilot ship Can Do, a 49-foot steel hull, was in Gloucester at the time. A bunch of guys at the marina lounge were listening to what was going on,” Archer continued. “Frank Quirk (of Peabody), who was the captain of the Can Do, and four other fellas decided to go out and see if they could go out beyond the breakwater... to see if they could get to the tanker.”
The pilot vessel got past the breakwater and “went for a ways,” Archer said. “But at some point out around Baker’s Island, they lost power. Then, they were at the mercy of the sea.”
The ship soon vanished. Searches covered the area, and a couple days after the storm cleared, an oil slick was found in Salem Sound.
“Now they called the divers to go out and primarily identify it, mark it, put a buoy on it — which we did, on that cold February day,” Archer said. “We went in, did a circumference of the boat, and sure enough it was the Can Do. It was battered, in 40 feet of water, on its keel.”
“Less than that,” corrected Russell, suggesting it was closer to 30 feet of water the vessel was found in — just adding to the magnitude of the tragedy.
The remains of four of the ship’s five crew — Quirk, Norman Curley, Kenneth Fuller Jr., and Donald Wilkinson — were recovered as their bodies washed ashore after the storm. All were wearing life-jackets when they were found, but the fifth crew member — Charlie Bucko — would be found within the ship by the dive team, Archer explained.
“The only thing we could see was his foot,” Archer said. “He was face-down in the engine room.”
Throughout the lunch, Archer and Russell shared stories from other dives. Some stories were light-hearted, like that of the man who threatened to commit suicide, left all his clothes near the ocean, and when dive efforts to find him were unsuccessful, the man was later found alive and well drinking in a bar in Boston.
Others — most of them, in fact — didn’t end happily, and that wasn’t easy for the volunteer team, they explained.
“Dugie was a court officer, and I worked in Salem Jail,” Archer said. “You don’t think you’re going to get hurt, think you’re a little more infallible than you are. I wouldn’t do it today... and the things we did when I was younger, I was like, ‘Oh my god. I wouldn’t want my own kids doing what we did.’”
But despite that, they also noted that the dive team was able to provide closure to the families of victims, and that’s a very different feeling.
“It was a good feeling, especially if we got a card from people thanking us,” Russell said. “It just made you feel good that it gave them closure.”
Search-and-rescue divers could just as easily lose their lives as those they attempt to save or recover. But often, the men suggested, getting injured as a volunteer also meant the state didn’t provide assistance after the fact. Russell noted an injury he received that ended his volunteer service, which was then soon followed by Archer exiting as a new priority in his life emerged.
“Dugie got hurt, and my wife was pregnant. Now I’ve been married to this woman for 46 years, and I’ve never seen her nuttier in all those years than when I got home,” Archer said. “She was scared that I could get hurt, so I didn’t want to do it anymore.”
The team disbanded shortly thereafter, leading decades later to Monday’s lunch with Coppinger. Before leaving, the three men each received gifts including an official Essex County Sheriff Dive Team shirt — something specifically created this fall to honor the men.
“It was nice, the request for a shirt,” Coppinger said, extending his arms to the men eating sandwiches in his office, “and it’s opened up to a whole ‘nother thing.”
“For 45 years long, you guys have carried vivid memories of that,” Coppinger said. “On behalf of the Essex County Sheriff’s Department, and for the families too, thank you for what you did — not just for the Can Do, but your service on the dive team.”
Contact Dustin Luca at 978-338-2523 or DLuca@salemnews.com. Follow him at facebook.com/dustinluca or on Twitter @DustinLucaSN.