On the night of July 27, 1972, Leo Bullen helped save a life, but lost his own.
Headed from Merasheen Island home to Arnold’s Cove, Bullen was one of five crew and 10 passengers aboard the schooner Delroy. With a fast-spreading fire, all hands were forced into a dory. Almost immediately, the smaller boat overturned and they were dumped into the water of Placentia Bay.
Bullen was the only crew member with a life-jacket. The Canadian Red Cross says survivors report him taking off that life-jacket and securing it on a child, who was among those rescued hours later.
Bullen was one of nine people who perished in the tragedy.
On Tuesday, the Canadian Red Cross posthumously awarded him a Rescuer Award. It’s meant to acknowledge non-professional rescuers and off-duty first responders, when their actions save a life, prevent further injury, or notably treat and comfort the injured.
Hazel Bullen accepted the award on her husband’s behalf. Speaking with The Telegram, she remembered her first thought the day after the Delroy went down, when it was suggested to her that her husband might have been aboard.
“It can’t be,” she said, recalling it clearly, 46 years later.
There were no home phones in her area at that time.
“I had to go to the post office. And … it was right,” she said, forcing the words out almost at a whisper.
The couple had lived in Dartmouth, N.S., until the previous year, 1971. Bullen’s father had had a heart attack, prompting a move back to Newfoundland, where he worked mainly as a fisherman, but sometimes went on transport runs.
“(He was) a very quiet man. And he was always at sea,” Hazel said.
She never remarried after his death, and chose to remain in the community.
For years after the tragedy, she was nervous around the water and nervous of her children being around the water, she said.
Her son, Howard Bullen, turned seven years old that September. Today, he is a fisherman like his father.
“I still think about it,” he said. “When I’m on the water.”
Howard doesn’t remember any details from the time of the Delroy tragedy, but he thinks a lot about what he’s learned, and about the loss.
“I know, people around home, they said I got his ways. I got his walk and everything,” he said, tears coming to his eyes momentarily. “They say I look a lot like my father.”
Chris Bullen was 3 ½ years old at the time. He is now a truck driver living in Bishop’s Falls and generally avoids being on the water.
“Even going across on the ferry, I hates it,” he said, acknowledging it’s something he still thinks about no matter how many times he makes the trip.
He was just back and is scheduled to head out again this week, for a run to Alberta.
His uncle guided him in a lot of ways as he grew up, he said. He offered his uncle a kidney later in life. But when his uncle died last year, he said, a lot of history started to sink in. That included the story of his father’s death.
The family learned about the detail of the life-jacket from the girl who survived by wearing it, Carmel Pitcher. She now lives in British Columbia, Chris said, but came back to Placentia to visit, where she encountered his mother-in-law. Chris has spoken with her directly since. He also went researching, reading books and articles, gathering what details he could about the sinking of the Delroy.
“(My uncle) told me, he said, ‘Christopher, work on this (award) and get it done,’” Bullen said.
The Canadian Red Cross previously issued a rescuer award to Loyola Pomroy, who was 24 at the time of the ship’s sinking and a passenger. He lost his mother, two sisters, a brother and an aunt that night, but managed to help save another sister and cousin, and kept them clinging to the overturned dory until they were rescued. An award was also issued at the same 2013 event to Capt. Ray Berkshire, who worked with the crew of the vessel Bertha Joyce in rescuing survivors.
“I can’t remember Dad or anything. I was only a couple of years old. But the thing is I know he was a hero and everybody that Dad grew up with (said) he was a great man. Quiet. When he took his life-jacket off, he tried to go to shore and didn’t make it,” Chris Bullen said, after joining his family in accepting his father’s award.
Chris plans to go out on the water of the bay later this summer, to put a cross overboard where his father was last seen. But his copy of the rescuer award will go on a wall at home.
“I’m 49,” he said, his face suddenly crunching with emotion with thoughts of a man he never had a chance to know. “You can’t get over it.”
