WTF ??? This is just too sad.....
CBS News, June 24, 2010
Allen Kruse had been a charter fishing boat captain for more than two decades -- long enough that people called him by his boat's name, Rookie, as if they were one and the same. But then, two months ago, the leaking BP oil well began pouring crude into the waters where he took families fishing for snapper and amberjack.
Two weeks and two days ago, with his fishing grounds closed, Kruse, 55, took a job working for BP's cleanup crew. For the very people who'd caused the mess.
Other boat captains said Kruse, like them, found the effort confusing, overly bureaucratic and frustrating. He told them to keep their heads down, not to worry about the hassles. But those close to him saw he was losing weight.
On Wednesday morning, Kruse drove to his boat as usual. As the deckhands prepared for the day's work, Kruse, as the captain, was supposed to turn on the generator. But after a few minutes, the crew members said, they didn't hear anything and went looking for him. A deckhand found him in the wheelhouse, shot in the head.
The Baldwin County, Ala., coroner's office
called his death an apparent suicide and said Kruse didn't leave a note. There's no way to be sure why he would have taken his life. But his friends see the tragedy as a clear sign of the BP spill's hidden psychological toll on the Gulf Coast, an awful feeling of helplessness that descends on people used to hard work and independence.
