Expecting the unexpected simply routine for WSF ferry crews

Washington State Fer-ries (WSF) Capt. Joel Michelson barely finished explaining how every Elliott Bay passage is a little different when he got a message proving his point. Down below, a passenger was unconscious and suffering a seizure.

- Casey Conley

Michelson increased Puyallup’s speed to about 19 knots to hasten its arrival into downtown Seattle. For 90 tense seconds, he coordinated the emergency response with the crew and made arrangements for paramedics to meet the ship at the dock. Finally, word came that the man was conscious and stable. Michelson gave a reassuring look to the wheelhouse personnel. “OK,” the captain said, “he’s awake.”

“We have medical emergencies often,” said Michelson, an 18-year ferry system employee. “When you move this many thousands of people, you are going to get heart attacks, seizures, you name it. I think I have seen everything except somebody giving birth, but other (crewmembers) have.”

WSF is the largest ferry operator in the United States. Its 22 passenger and vehicle ferries carried nearly 24 million people in 2019. The system’s 1,900 employees include hundreds of mariners working in the wheelhouse, on deck and below in the engine rooms.

Michelson led 15 crew aboard Puyallup on a brisk, breezy late February day. Morning fog nearly burned off by the 0935 departure from Colman Dock in downtown Seattle to Bainbridge Island. The roughly 6.5-mile run across Elliott Bay takes 35 minutes each way, and the ferries run almost 20 hours a day.

Puyallup is one of three Jumbo Mark II-class ferries. They are the largest in the WSF fleet and the second-largest double-ended ferries in the world. The 460-foot behemoths can hold 202 vehicles and 2,499 passengers. Tacoma and Wenatchee are the other two in the class. All three were built in the late 1990s.