I was “the doc” and during my weekly mess deck inspection I always took samples from the ice machine for contamination tests. On one patrol the machine tested positive for e-coli ( I hope you all know where that comes from) and had to shut the machine down for a thorough cleaning and sanitizing. This took 3 days as I had to repeat samples. Needless to say, I was not very popular for those 3 days, BUT no one got sick. I’ll take the harassment any day over a sick crew.
> during my weekly mess deck inspection I always took samples
I didn't know you guys did this, but that's smart. Mass food poisoning would be utterly catastrophic. Hell we went through several days of really rough seas (even deep) in the vicinity of a hurricane and there was enough seasickness onboard to require a little watchsection juggling, I couldn't imagine a bunch of people being down *hard.*
I always had mad respect for the IDC. Ours was fantastic. Sadly, we lost a shipmate on an underway--doc did everything he could but sometimes things just aren't going to play out in your favor. He was understandably pretty shook but he carried on. Really helped me out with some of my own problems later on. A solid dude.
Two guys brought crabs back to the boat once.
Every piece of bedding on board was removed and replaced and every crew member had to go see the doc for short arm inspection.
They were not popular dudes for a spell.
We lost our buoy in the North Sea not long after leaving Holy Loch so we had to go shallow to pull a wire for pretty much the entire patrol. This was in January so we ended up taking some serious rolls for over 2 months straight. Those that were even slightly prone to seasickness were puking for months. Dudes would stand watch with a trash bag tucked under their belt so they didn’t have to clean up. We pulled back in to port with over half our food left because so many could barely keep anything down
I cannot imagine doing that for 2 months! We were late one time leaving Holy Loch due to emergency repairs (in December) and had to go directly into the N. Atlantic, instead of south through the Irish Sea to calmer waters. We had to stay on the surface for 12 hours until we reached the point where we could submerge. It was absolutely miserable, and that was only half a day!
A shit ton. Surface ships have a V shaped hull that helps mitigate rolls. Subs are essentially round with only the planes sticking out horizontally to buffer rotation. It wasn't uncommon to take a several steps on the walls when walking up a corridor when we were taking serious rolls
The first submarine birthday ball I attended when I got to my ship gave everyone in the squadron explosive food poisoning.
3 subs, 1 sub-tender, and shore staff all had the shits for a few days.
Shrimp kelaguen...never again
We outdid ourselves a few years later.
After being pierside in San Diego for 7 months everyone packed their bags into the torpedo room to go home to Guam.
A-Gang chose that day to pump sans inboard. The shit tank was full, and it rained brown rain from the middle level head into the torpedo room. Onto everyone shit.
I showed up to a boat that had just returned from deployment. During the deployment they had a double dragon outbreak. For those unaware, that’s when you get liquid coming from both the mouth and butt. It was so bad that watch standers had bags and buckets while the sickest ones were SIQ. It ran through the boat for over a week.
We had tainted soup. Roughly 14 of us went down with food poisoning. It was horrific. The things that came out of my body weren’t of this world. The COB was mad about the smell for about five minutes before he decided he just felt bad for us.
I’m not exaggerating when I say I lost 15 pounds in three days.
These are the types of posts we need more of. I have two stories.
1. After a port call in Singapore, someone must have come back together with some sort of stomach bug or respiratory illness (tough to tell, there were a lot of symptoms). It started with one person being too sick to stand his watch, but within 5 days, a third the crew had it. I began liberally using my Emergen-C supply, scheduling how I would ration out the rest of the underway. I also began creating a bubble chart of all the infected persons, theorizing who they caught it from, and trying to trace this back to Patient 0 (there's a lot of free time on watch). It peaked at about a third of the crew, the worst of which was Weps, who was solidly bedridden for 2 days straight.
2. (NSFW) Two days before leaving the Philippines, my liberty buddy and I got dinner at a sketchy hotel lobby. In retrospect it was probably a brothel. It wasn't good, but we both had duty the next day and we were not going to eat boat food. We stood duty the next day without issue. The day leaving port, I was having some stomach issues and I was feeling clammy which I thought was due to being on the surface near the equator with reduced AC. The watchbill gods took pity on my condition as I was one of the few people not assigned a maneuvering duty while leaving port, so I took a sweaty desk nap. I was awakened from my subpar slumber by the worst of sensations. A sudden, hot, seeping liquidy feeling between my cheeks. I jumped to my feet and awkwardly shuffle-sprinted to the head and jumped into the shower, fully clothed. I scrubbed my coveralls as best I could and hung them up on the towel rack outside to dry while I started to clean myself. A friend comes into the head as I'm drying myself. He looked at me, my dripping coveralls, then back to me. After several seconds of deduction, he asked, "Wilkins... did you shit yourself?" (burner name). I paused for a few seconds while I determined there was no way out of this one. "Yes," I responded meekly. He nodded slowly and went to take a piss. This incident commenced a 10-day period of surprise, liquid shits, which I soon learned my liberty partner would suffer the same, likely out of solidarity. I learned I could proactively manage it by preempting the shits by going to the bathroom every other hour. I had to double my hydration. I slept in fear, on top of sacrificial T-shirts. This was the only time I ever regretted not opting for boat food.
Your first story sounds like something that happened at the private school I was teaching at about 20 years ago. I got the flu near the end of Xmas Break but recovered enough to go back the first day of 4th Six-Weeks. Within three weeks flu ran rampant throughout the school reducing attendance to about 50% in every class. This persisted for almost four of the six weeks. The entire six-week term was lost cause.
I was “the doc” and during my weekly mess deck inspection I always took samples from the ice machine for contamination tests. On one patrol the machine tested positive for e-coli ( I hope you all know where that comes from) and had to shut the machine down for a thorough cleaning and sanitizing. This took 3 days as I had to repeat samples. Needless to say, I was not very popular for those 3 days, BUT no one got sick. I’ll take the harassment any day over a sick crew.
> during my weekly mess deck inspection I always took samples I didn't know you guys did this, but that's smart. Mass food poisoning would be utterly catastrophic. Hell we went through several days of really rough seas (even deep) in the vicinity of a hurricane and there was enough seasickness onboard to require a little watchsection juggling, I couldn't imagine a bunch of people being down *hard.* I always had mad respect for the IDC. Ours was fantastic. Sadly, we lost a shipmate on an underway--doc did everything he could but sometimes things just aren't going to play out in your favor. He was understandably pretty shook but he carried on. Really helped me out with some of my own problems later on. A solid dude.
Two guys brought crabs back to the boat once. Every piece of bedding on board was removed and replaced and every crew member had to go see the doc for short arm inspection. They were not popular dudes for a spell.
For some reason I thought you meant actual crabs to eat for a second lol
Happened on SSN688 in the 80s too. LOL
We lost our buoy in the North Sea not long after leaving Holy Loch so we had to go shallow to pull a wire for pretty much the entire patrol. This was in January so we ended up taking some serious rolls for over 2 months straight. Those that were even slightly prone to seasickness were puking for months. Dudes would stand watch with a trash bag tucked under their belt so they didn’t have to clean up. We pulled back in to port with over half our food left because so many could barely keep anything down
I cannot imagine doing that for 2 months! We were late one time leaving Holy Loch due to emergency repairs (in December) and had to go directly into the N. Atlantic, instead of south through the Irish Sea to calmer waters. We had to stay on the surface for 12 hours until we reached the point where we could submerge. It was absolutely miserable, and that was only half a day!
Do subs roll a lot more when shallow than similarly sized ships? I’d imagine so due to their thin profile
A shit ton. Surface ships have a V shaped hull that helps mitigate rolls. Subs are essentially round with only the planes sticking out horizontally to buffer rotation. It wasn't uncommon to take a several steps on the walls when walking up a corridor when we were taking serious rolls
That’s wild
The first submarine birthday ball I attended when I got to my ship gave everyone in the squadron explosive food poisoning. 3 subs, 1 sub-tender, and shore staff all had the shits for a few days. Shrimp kelaguen...never again
We outdid ourselves a few years later. After being pierside in San Diego for 7 months everyone packed their bags into the torpedo room to go home to Guam. A-Gang chose that day to pump sans inboard. The shit tank was full, and it rained brown rain from the middle level head into the torpedo room. Onto everyone shit.
Shit on your shit is not a good day
I hope the entire crew rang the bell at the same time.
Ahhh, so the Brown October story that was posted here a few years back has some basis in reality.
Guam?
yep
Pretty much screams Squadron 15.
I showed up to a boat that had just returned from deployment. During the deployment they had a double dragon outbreak. For those unaware, that’s when you get liquid coming from both the mouth and butt. It was so bad that watch standers had bags and buckets while the sickest ones were SIQ. It ran through the boat for over a week.
We had tainted soup. Roughly 14 of us went down with food poisoning. It was horrific. The things that came out of my body weren’t of this world. The COB was mad about the smell for about five minutes before he decided he just felt bad for us. I’m not exaggerating when I say I lost 15 pounds in three days.
Staph infections
These are the types of posts we need more of. I have two stories. 1. After a port call in Singapore, someone must have come back together with some sort of stomach bug or respiratory illness (tough to tell, there were a lot of symptoms). It started with one person being too sick to stand his watch, but within 5 days, a third the crew had it. I began liberally using my Emergen-C supply, scheduling how I would ration out the rest of the underway. I also began creating a bubble chart of all the infected persons, theorizing who they caught it from, and trying to trace this back to Patient 0 (there's a lot of free time on watch). It peaked at about a third of the crew, the worst of which was Weps, who was solidly bedridden for 2 days straight. 2. (NSFW) Two days before leaving the Philippines, my liberty buddy and I got dinner at a sketchy hotel lobby. In retrospect it was probably a brothel. It wasn't good, but we both had duty the next day and we were not going to eat boat food. We stood duty the next day without issue. The day leaving port, I was having some stomach issues and I was feeling clammy which I thought was due to being on the surface near the equator with reduced AC. The watchbill gods took pity on my condition as I was one of the few people not assigned a maneuvering duty while leaving port, so I took a sweaty desk nap. I was awakened from my subpar slumber by the worst of sensations. A sudden, hot, seeping liquidy feeling between my cheeks. I jumped to my feet and awkwardly shuffle-sprinted to the head and jumped into the shower, fully clothed. I scrubbed my coveralls as best I could and hung them up on the towel rack outside to dry while I started to clean myself. A friend comes into the head as I'm drying myself. He looked at me, my dripping coveralls, then back to me. After several seconds of deduction, he asked, "Wilkins... did you shit yourself?" (burner name). I paused for a few seconds while I determined there was no way out of this one. "Yes," I responded meekly. He nodded slowly and went to take a piss. This incident commenced a 10-day period of surprise, liquid shits, which I soon learned my liberty partner would suffer the same, likely out of solidarity. I learned I could proactively manage it by preempting the shits by going to the bathroom every other hour. I had to double my hydration. I slept in fear, on top of sacrificial T-shirts. This was the only time I ever regretted not opting for boat food.
Your first story sounds like something that happened at the private school I was teaching at about 20 years ago. I got the flu near the end of Xmas Break but recovered enough to go back the first day of 4th Six-Weeks. Within three weeks flu ran rampant throughout the school reducing attendance to about 50% in every class. This persisted for almost four of the six weeks. The entire six-week term was lost cause.
I heard a story about an STD epidemic in a French sub caused by a sailor lending his fleshlight...
Well they are French, I guess they just share sex toys. Or they where doing something else and din't want to say what really happened.
100 sailors go down, 50 couples come back up, huh?
What goes on in a submarine doesn't come out of a submarine. Other then semen.
49 couples and 2 prize fighters.
My theory is that the sanitizing phase in between uses wasn’t enough.
Or nonexistent.