For 25 years charter fishing captain Allen Kruse made a living doing
what he loved. But as he explained in an interview six weeks ago, the
oil spill took it all away, reports CBS News reports.
"The day that oil entered the Gulf, my phone quit ringing," said Kruse
on May 13. "We don't know what's going on, we can't plan, we don't know
what to tell our customers."
Kruse went to work for BP two weeks ago. Wednesday morning he reported
in, boarded his boat, then shot and killed himself in the captain's
bridge.
This is a man who was known to be very independent, self sufficient and
proud.
Frank Kruse is Allen's twin brother. He says Allen was stressed and
depressed, tangled in BP bureaucracy over claims and the cleanup.
"Tracy, his wife, estimated he'd lost 30 pounds since this started, he'd
not been sleeping, he was constantly worried about his livelihood and
what was happening to his Gulf," Frank Kruse said.
In the past two weeks calls to crisis hotlines in Louisiana have jumped
from 400 on June 7 to more than 2,400 today - they are anxious,
depressed, afraid.
People here pride themselves on being tough. In six years they've
survived a recession and two hurricanes. The spill is worse than any
storm.
"It comes, it passes, we start to rebuild, there's hope for the future,
but this continually drags on," said Ben Fairey, a friend of Allen
Kruse. "There's a shot of oil on the beach, it gets cleaned up and then
there's another one."
And the fear keeps spreading. Tarballs washed up in Destin, Fla., as
well as Pensacola, where cleanup crews replaced the tourists the local
economy relies on.
Fellow fishermen want the death of Allen Kruse to have meaning. to show
the rest of the world how much they're losing and hurting. Kruse left
behind a wife, two grown daughters, two young sons and a town full of
broken hearts.
BP has promised to pay for the funeral of Allen Kruse, and also for the
continued use of his boat. But like so many people here, the family is
skeptical of BP promises.
