About a year and a half ago, I almost lost my life.

My girlfriend and I were driving home from a camping trip when we hit a thick fog bank just outside Hope. Our vehicle rolled three times and I was partially ejected. I woke up two days later from an induced coma, concussed with more than two dozen broken bones including my neck and spine, internal injuries, partial paralysis and severe internal bleeding.

That experience changed everything.

Today, I’m back on deck, and every time I check emergency equipment or take part in training, I know exactly why it matters. I don’t want anyone to ever end up like me.

I joined BC Ferries 10 years ago after trying to become a firefighter. It’s a very competitive career, and a friend who had recently been hired at BC Ferries suggested I give the marine industry a try. I sold my car to pay for my marine emergency training courses and rode my bike everywhere until I finished them. Luckily, I got an interview, and I started with BC Ferries in April 2016.

I began on Salt Spring Island, where I learned the ropes aboard the Queen of Nanaimo, the Howe Sound Queen and the Skeena Queen. Looking back, those years taught me skills that I still use today.

One thing I wish the public knew is that deckhands do much more than load cars. People see us directing traffic on the vehicle deck, but behind the scenes we’re constantly training, maintaining emergency equipment and ensuring that the ship is ready to respond if something goes wrong.

One lesson has always stayed with me. You don’t rise to the level of your adrenaline. You fall to the level of your training. It’s important to do the work before an emergency happens. We train so we can respond quickly, and we maintain the ship’s emergency systems so they’ll work when people need them most.

About a year and a half ago, that lesson became deeply personal.

Recovering from the accident was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I spent months rebuilding my strength and learning to walk again. I pushed myself in the gym for hours every day because I had one goal in mind: Doing right by the people who count on me.

When things got difficult, I pictured the ship I work on and the people I work with. I imagined what I would do if the ship was on fire or someone needed help. That helped me push one more mile on a run or lift and drag 10 more pounds than I thought I could.

Today, I’m in even better physical shape than I was before the accident. I don’t think I would have made it without my girlfriend – who had my back while recovering from her own serious nervous and physical injuries, and her mother – who opened her home to us when we had nowhere else to go. They both also work for BC Ferries, and the love and support they gave me made all the difference. I decided not to give up on myself, but more importantly, not to give up on them because they weren’t going to give up on me.

Coming back to work has been emotional. Physically, I was ready. Mentally, it took longer.

A lot of people don’t know how to respond when someone has been through something like that. I understand it comes from a good place. I’m always happy to talk about what happened because I think it helps remove some of the stigma around asking those questions.

More than anything, my experience has reinforced why this work matters. I don’t want anyone to go through what I went through. If something happens on board, I want us to be ready. It’s easy to become complacent, but emergencies don’t happen because of one big mistake. They happen when lots of little mistakes stack up.

If somebody doesn’t stow a fire hose properly and there’s a fire, those lost minutes matter.

That’s why I tell people to take care of the vessel. If you take care of your vessel, it’ll take care of you.

Take care of the ship. Take care of your body. Take care of your mind. Take care of each other. If you see someone struggling, don’t be afraid to ask how they’re doing. Instead of gossiping, try to connect. Have each other’s backs.

That’s the kind of crew I want to be part of, and it’s why I’m proud to be back on deck.

Yegor Ludmilin, Local 3 – Tsawwassen

I was booted out of my home by the war. That’s not how I imagined my story would begin, or how I imagined I’d end up in Canada.

Before coming here, I spent 16 years working on container ships. When it was time to start over with my family, I had options. I received job offers from multiple marine employers across Canada, but BC Ferries was always at the top of my list. I wanted work that would let me be close to my family, help them settle, and be present while we built a new life.

What I found here was something different from deep-sea shipping. The work is different, the pace is different, and the cargo is different too. I always joke that passengers are cargo that talks. People can have bad days. They can be frustrated, upset, or angry about things that are completely outside our control. But I’ve found that when I take the time to really talk to them, most situations change quickly. When I can calm someone down, comfort them, help them feel heard and respected and then see them walk away smiling or shaking my hand, it gives me real joy. That’s something I look forward to every day.

One of the biggest reasons I keep coming back is the crew. We had a perfect crew in Tsawwassen, and we have a wonderful crew up north. When you live and work together for two weeks at a time, those relationships matter. People become more than coworkers, they become friends. Sometimes they feel like family. And when things go wrong, that bond matters even more.

Last January we had a young passenger go overboard. It was freezing and she spent around 40 minutes in the water before we got to her. That day, our crew had to think beyond the training manual. Emergency situations never go by the book. We acted creatively, we worked together. I was standing on the side of the vessel, using a boat hook to keep her away from the spinning propeller while the crew got the rescue boat ready and we managed to save her. I’ve heard she’s doing well. That’s something I’ll always be proud of.

My journey here hasn’t just been about work. It’s been about building a life. My family is safe here. My kids are happy here. Recently, we completed our immigration process and became permanent residents of Canada. I’m deeply grateful for being welcomed and given that opportunity.

I’m grateful also to the people who believed in me when I was struggling, including SOC Vice President Andrew Conley, who pushed me to take my shop steward course and get involved in the union. He saw something in me before I saw it myself. And there were captains who stood by me when I needed support most. I’m here. I’m successful at my work. I’m successful in my immigration journey. My family is safe. A lot of that happened because people gave me a chance when I needed one. I’ll never forget that.

Ihor Usenko, first vice-president Local 15.

A friend of mine had worked at BC Ferries for years as a deckhand. He told me they were always looking for people and said I should apply. So I went out and took all the courses I needed. I went to a job fair and told the BC Ferries staff there I wanted to be a deckhand. They started listing all the certificates I’d need, and I slid mine across the table and said, “I’ve taken them already.”

They gave me a recruiter’s number and told me to call the next day. When I did, they said they could probably get me into the terminal. It wasn’t exactly what I had planned, but I really enjoyed my time working terminal. It was a great group of people and every day was different. You got to interact with the public and work with a strong team. The only reason I moved to the boats was because I was only getting a shift or two a month at the time and I had a mortgage to pay.

These days I work in the engine room.

One thing people might not know is how much happens behind the scenes to keep the ferries running. When people ask what we do on graveyard shifts, they’re often surprised. They assume the boat is just sitting there, but that’s when a lot of the work happens.

We’re bringing fuel on board, pumping sewage ashore and doing maintenance on engines that have been running all day and finally get a chance to be shut down. A lot of that work has to be done in a five or six-hour window while the vessel is docked. When the crew arrives in the morning, the boat is ready to go. Most people never see what it took overnight to make that happen.

When people do get the chance to walk through the engine room, they’re shocked by the size of everything. The engines are the size of a small school bus. From upstairs, it’s easy to forget what’s underneath you.

This job teaches you how important it is to stay alert. I remember a situation where one of the guys doing his rounds noticed a small fuel spill that hadn’t been there earlier. It’s the kind of thing you only catch if you’re paying attention, if you know the space and what’s normal. We dealt with it right away, but it’s a good example of why our checks matter. There are a lot of systems running on board and catching things early is a big part of keeping passengers safe.

One of the challenges of the job is working with a constantly changing crew. I change start times every couple of days and often work with newer employees, so a big part of the job becomes teaching. If someone hasn’t done a task before, then it’s a learning day. I’ll show them how to do it so next time they can handle it themselves. Eventually, they can teach the next person.

That’s how I learned when I started. On my very first shift, Eric McNeely walked me around the engine room and showed me what he did and how everything worked. He basically went through it piece by piece and said, “This is what I do.”

At the time you’re just trying to take it all in. Later, once you’ve been doing the job for a while, you realize the order he showed things in makes sense. Eric’s our president now, but back then he was the one showing the new guy around the engine room on day one.

Now that I’ve been here longer, I try to pass that knowledge along whenever I can.

I stay involved in the union as a shop steward and the second vice-president of Local 2. I also sit on several site safety committees and our local grievance and convention resolution committees.

Last year I also helped organize the Golf for Graeme tournament, in memory of Second Officer Graeme Barnes, which supports a scholarship in his name to help students pursuing marine careers. We raised nearly $13,500 in under two years. In a close-knit industry like ours, losses are felt deeply. Events like Golf for Graeme are also about reminding each other that mental health matters and that none of us are alone.

Long shifts, changing schedules and time away from family can take a toll. It’s not always something people talk about but sometimes people are going through a lot and nobody realizes it. That’s why it’s important to look out for each other.

Alex Yates, ERR on Watch 9, Nanaimo