Oil spill ‘too much’ for skipper who committed suicide — ‘We're helping cover up the lie’
(June 24) — Two weeks after he was hired by BP to help with the oil spill cleanup, William Allen Kruse killed himself. The 55-year-old charter boat captain shot himself in the head Wednesday morning as he prepared to spend another day skimming oil off the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, clearing the spill that threatened to destroy his livelihood and community. Kruse left no note, so it’s impossible to know why he took his life. But those who knew him say the veteran fisherman and father of four was almost certainly the latest casualty in the gulf oil crisis, and a symbol of the spill’s exacting human toll. “There’s not a doubt in my mind, the oil spill was the cause of this,” Tom Ard, who fished alongside Kruse for 25 years, told AOL News this morning. “It was just too much for him.” In a phone interview, Ard, 39, the president of the Orange Beach Fishing Association, said Kruse was in his prime when he killed himself and had been enjoying taking his 13-year-old son out on his boat to teach him how to fish. “He had everything going for him. He was at the top of his game,” Ard said. “He was the kind of guy that made everyone smile, and he was one heck of a fisherman.” … Bell said Kruse had planned on retiring soon. He declined comment this morning. A deckhand who worked for Kruse said working as one of BP’s “vessels of opportunity” was a stressful and confusing experience. “We’re helping cover up the lie,” the 27-year-old told The Washington Post anonymously. “We’re burying ourselves. We’re helping them cover up the [expletive] that’s putting us out of work.” …
