Miami Herald

September 12, 1986

MIAMI RACER RECOVERING FROM NEAR-FATAL INJURIES

ERIC SHARP Herald Boating Writer

The voice is slurred, a bit like someone who has had a minor stroke, because several facial nerves were torn. And doctors say some residual midbrain swelling is probably affecting the area that controls speech.

He still gets headaches, the legacy of several fractured bones in his skull, including the delicate pan that supports the brain. Both of his ruptured eardrums are sore, but he can hear a lot better now, and the bleeding in his lungs has stopped.

Incredibly, Bob Saccenti is already talking about returning to offshore powerboat racing in time for the world championships in New Zealand in December. And his major regret is that he won't be well enough to throttle Apache when he and his partner, Ben Kramer, put on the season's biggest offshore boat race Sept. 27 in Miami.

"I understand Ben saved my life. He got me breathing and kept me from drowning," Saccenti said in a telephone interview from Rochester (N.Y.) General Hospital. "I've seen the videotape of the accident. I've got to admit, it's pretty gruesome."

Saccenti and Kramer, partners in Apache Boats of North Miami Beach, were leading the national point standings in the open class going into the next to last race of the offshore powerboat season on Lake Ontario, near Rochester, Sept. 6.

Conditions were rough at the start, six- to eight-foot rollers, and the 120 mile-per-hour boats crossed the starting line at a slow but brutally hard 55 to 60 mph. The three biggest classes -- superboat, open and modified -- were underway for only about five minutes when the 41-foot Apache catamaran shot off the crest of a wave, leaped about 20 feet into the air and dropped back onto the water stern first.

The next thing Saccenti remembers is waking up in the intensive care unit "with tubes coming out of me and bottles hanging over me and machines beeping and showing my pulse. You know, that's kind of scary."

The accident was a "stuffing" crash. When the stern hits the water, the bows are forced down, and a wave rolls over the deck. Dick Fulham and Mike Poppa died in a similar accident last November when they stuffed their 39-foot cat, Still Crazy, into a big, breaking wave at about 90 mph during the world championships at Key West.

Dr. Matthew Houghton says two things prevented a repetition of that fatal wreck. First, the speed was about 30 mph slower. Second, Still Crazy had a steeper angle built into its wing deck, which caused it to dive deeper when it stuffed. But Houghton says Saccenti's injuries appear to have been the result of the same physical forces that killed Fulham and Poppa.

"Looking at what happened to him, I would think that the mechanics of it were this: First, when the boat hit and started to drive under he was thrown forward against the cockpit. This caused the facial damage and the contusions in the lungs. But his lifejacket kept it from being worse. Then the wall of water hit him and he was thrown backward against the back of the cockpit. I think that's when the skull fractures occurred."

Houghton said Kramer "did a hell of a job. He really took charge of everything" under extremely difficult circumstances. "Ben's fast thinking helped everything out."

The accident has also taught some lessons about lifesaving under such difficult conditions, Houghton said. The medical rescue boats that reached the sinking Apache were too small for the conditions (about 20 feet), and the nurses on board were both frightened and unable to get a line onto Apache. Conditions were so rough that when the modified class race boat, Love-It- Again, stopped to help, and crewman Craig Billington managed to get a tow rope on Apache, the strain on the line from the breaking seas straightened out the stainless steel hook and it snapped back into Billington's side, badly bruising his ribs. His lifejacket saved him from serious injury.

Kramer, perhaps better protected by having the steering wheel to hold on to, came out of the crash with bruises and pulled muscles but no serious injuries. He crawled across the boat to Saccenti, and said his first reaction was horor. "Oh, God! He's dead. He wasn't breathing, and he had blood coming out of his mouth and ears. I worked on him and he started breathing again, but he still looked awful."

The first paramedic to leap from the medical helicopter radioed that Saccenti needed to be evacuated. Kramer then turned his attention to getting the sinking boat to shore, because it was becoming evident there was no way to get Saccenti off before it went down.

The second paramedic to jump in was caught in a powerful current and "was just swept away before he could get to the boat. He was on his way to Canada when the guys in Popeyes picked him up," Houghton says.

The third paramedic, Dr. Craig Dunham, a Ph.D. who is the paramedic coordinator for the University of Michigan, was then dropped upcurrent from Apache and managed to drift down to the boat and get aboard.

Houghton says trying to evacuate Saccenti by lifting him in a helicopter rescue basket had such a high risk of aggravating his injuries or causing new ones that he quickly rejected the idea, and the helicopter went to shore and landed nearby while Kramer took charge of the process of getting one of the small rescue craft to nudge the now half-filled Apache into the surf line.

"When we got into the surf, I had them slide Bobby over the side and we swam him in. There was a big plank on the beach, and we put him on it and about 12 people carried him up to the helicopter," Kramer said.

The Apache Offshore Gran Prix will decide the national championship, with any one of the top five in the standings in position to take the U.S. open class title. G.K. Systems leads at 1,996 points (Systems throttleman Earl Lanier of Hollywood bit through his tongue, broke his jaw and lost a tooth in the Rochester race and is still doubtful for the season-ender). Second is Apache at 1,950 points, Jesse James is third at 1,944, Molson Indy fourth at 1,780, and Seahawk 20 fifth at 1,724.

And while Saccenti will have to watch this one from shore, Kramer is looking for another boat and another throttleman even as his bruises heal.

"You're damned right we're going to run in the Apache," Kramer said. "We aren't finished yet. In fact, you better call this article 'Team Apache is Back.' "