DATE: Thursday, April 24, 1997              TAG: 9704240373

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B6   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   50 lines

TWO OF 5 INJURED SAILORS RELEASED FROM HOSPITAL PILOT CALLS RESCUE OF GRASP CREW A ``BIT OF A CHALLENGE'' BECAUSE OF WEATHER

Three of five injured sailors from the salvage ship Grasp remained hospitalized, but are improving, after an accident off Cape Hatteras Monday in which a mooring line snapped and knocked them down.

Meanwhile, one of two helicopter crews that brought the victims ashore described their rescue - in high winds and rough seas above the pitching ship's mast - as ``a bit of a challenge.''

``We were bucking 30-knot headwinds on the way down,'' said Lt. Cmdr. Neal Renvyle, one of the pilots manning an H-3 Sea King search and rescue helicopter out of Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach.

``I had to get my main rotor to within 10 feet of the ship's mast, with the ship rocking 10 degrees left to right,'' he said.

``I was so focused on not hitting anything that I didn't really realize how bad it was until they told me.''

Renvyle's helicopter took two of the injured to the Naval Medical Center in Portsmouth. A Marine Corps helicopter from Cherry Point, N.C., flew three others to medical facilities near its base.

The Grasp crew members were injured when a 10-inch mooring line, one of three that anchored the ship in place, slipped off a capstan and whipped across the deck.

The Grasp was operating about 25 miles off Cape Hatteras, attempting to recover the wreckage of an H-60 Seahawk helicopter that crashed March 13 during training and the bodies of its four-man crew.

Salvage crews had located the wreckage earlier this month and returned to the site this week to retrieve the wreckage.

One sailor, a second-class boatswain's mate, was released from the naval hospital in Portsmouth on Wednesday, after receiving treatment for cuts to her legs. The Navy initially reported her legs had been broken.

A second sailor was released after treatment of a head injury.

A third sailor, a first-class quartermaster, remains in good condition at Portsmouth with cracked vertebra and a torn spleen.

The fourth sailor, a second-class machinist's mate, is in good condition at Portsmouth with a broken lower leg. The fifth crew member, a first-class engineman, was in a Carteret County, N.C., hospital in fair condition, with abdominal injuries. His condition was improving and he was to have been transferred to a military hospital.

Renvyle, the helicopter pilot, identified his crew as Lt. Jerre Bauman, pilot; Petty Officer 3rd Class Ross Daniels, crew chief; Petty Officer 2nd Class Ralph Ortiz, rescue swimmer; and Petty Officer 3rd Class Jason Ashley, corpsman. KEYWORDS: U.S.S. GRASP ACCIDENT BOAT INJURIES U.S. NAVY

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