In a quaint little home on a hill in St. Vincent’s overlooking Holyrood Pond and the Atlantic Ocean on the Cape Shore, Pat Stamp often admires the view from his front window.
“We like it here,” Stamp said, shielding his sensitive eyes from the sunshine. “I built it and we moved back about seven years ago. … You can see our cabin across the pond there.”
His days are looking brighter now.
He’s had many dark ones in the past 13 years.
On April 8, 2006, Stamp was doing welding work in the oil tanker MV Kometik while it was anchored in Conception Bay when a flash fire caused an explosion.
In his desperation to escape, Stamp, then 50, got stuck in the exit hole, but managed to make it out.
Due to the intense heat, he suffered severe injuries to much of his body, and his face was burnt and disfigured.
Wayne Dalton, 38, the deckhand who was helping Stamp with the maintenance work, was trapped inside and died of smoke inhalation.
Stamp still has nightmares about that day.
“It’s always there, every day. It never leaves me,” he said. “There are always constant reminders.”
Dalton was Stamp’s good friend for years.
Stamp lived with survivor’s guilt, beating himself up over why he — a man who had four grown children — lived, and Dalton, who had a young son, Nicholas, not quite a year old — didn’t.
“I felt my family was in a position where they would’ve been OK. Wayne’s family was just starting,” said Stamp, adding that his psychologist helped him cope.
He has many fond memories of Dalton, who he’d met years before when the two worked with the Canadian Coast Guard.
“Wayne was a great guy, a real jokester. He was so comical,” said Stamp, recalling how he and Dalton had been watching a movie together the night before the accident.
“He was always asking if there was anything you need or anything he could get you. … Wayne had a heart of gold.”
Some reminders bring Stamp comfort, like the plaque that Wayne’s widow, Colleen, gave him during his three-month stay in hospital. It has Dalton’s picture on it with the poem, “Remember me,” etched on it.
“Remember me when flowers bloom …,” Stamp says, recalling the verses from memory.
He has recited the poem every night at bedtime since he received it.
“Sometimes I fall asleep because of medication and I wake up and I know I’m not after finishing it and I’ll finish it,” he said.
Stamp slept with the plaque under his pillow for years, but now it has a prominent spot on his dresser.
“It makes me feel like he’s still close to me,” Stamp said.
But Stamp feels closest to Dalton by staying close to his family.
He’s developed a deep bond with Colleen and Nicholas, now 13.
Besides joining them for various memorials throughout the year, Stamp visits them often at their home in Cape Broyle — his latest visit was just a few weeks ago — and calls and exchanges messages on Facebook with them regularly.
He has taken Nicholas on rides on his motorcycle and has gone to watch some of Nicholas’s sports games.
“He’s a goaltender, and a good one,” said Stamp, adding that he can see many of Dalton’s features in the teen.
“He’s getting a little moustache now. He’s grown so much. He doesn’t have that baby look to him anymore. … He likes the outdoors, like his father did.”
The connection was almost instant — from the first time he and Nicholas met.
It was shortly after Stamp was discharged from the hospital. He said he got the courage up to go visit the Daltons, including many of Wayne’s siblings. Nicholas was 15 or 16 months old.
“I wasn’t there very long and Nicholas came over to me and put up his arms for me to lift him up,” Stamp said, smiling. “I struggled to lift him up at that time because I didn’t have much strength, but I got him up on my lap.
“Colleen was amazed. She looked at Wayne’s siblings and said, ‘He doesn’t do that. He doesn’t go to anyone.’
“So, whatever happened with me and Nicholas at that point, it never left me. I think Nicholas didn’t see me. I think he saw his dad.”
That day, Stamp said, Nicholas hardly left his side, taking him by the hand, leading him to their garage, showing him his father’s lawn tractor.
“At that point, a lot of children were just looking at me and just staying away from me,” he said. “But he didn’t see none of that.”
Colleen remembers that day well.
“To see the expression on Pat’s face was just unbelievable – knowing that all that Nicholas saw was this man,” she said.
“The connection was there from the very beginning and it’s great. It’s good therapy for Pat, and Nicholas loves talking with him. … I came out of the room the other day and Nicholas was Facetiming with Pat. It’s wonderful.”
Colleen said Nicholas has heard all the stories about his father and understands how Stamp came into their lives, but he doesn’t ask about it much. He’s just glad Stamp is a family friend.
“To Nicholas, Pat is another person, not a burn victim,” she said. “He’s just a family friend he can pick up the phone and chat with.”
Colleen said she also finds comfort in staying in touch with Stamp.
“It’s so nice to have that closeness with him, just to pick up the phone if I’m feeling down. Hearing Pat’s voice on the other end really makes me feel a lot better,” she said.
Stamp said the bond he’s formed with the Daltons is one of the good things that has come out of the heartache they’ve all suffered.
He still gets emotional, especially when he talks to groups. He and his wife, Madonna, are often invited to present safety talks to company employees. Those talks have taken him all the way to Ottawa.
He says it’s an important way to remember Wayne, but also to help try to prevent such tragedies from happening to anyone else.
“If we can save one person, it’s all worth it,” he said.
Stamp and his wife travelled to Virginia in 2011, where Stamp was fitted with a prosthetic nose and ears. But when some of his 12 grandchildren expressed their displeasure with Poppy’s new face, he quickly realized he didn’t need to change.
Little by little, Stamp is healing inside and out.
“We wouldn’t have met the people we did or helped other victims if this had never happened,” said Stamp, who attends burn conferences and kids’ burn camps every year with Madonna.
He still has pain, but says with Madonna by his side and friends like the Daltons, he’s able to get through the hard times.
He keeps busy working on one of his projects in his garage. While things take him a lot longer than they used to, he’s just glad to be able to live day by day.
And while he’ll never forget that horrible day he lost his good friend, he says Dalton’s memory will live on forever in his son.
“He’s a nice young fellow,” Stamp said. “I’m always going to keep in touch with him.”
Twitter: TelyRosie
