Sammy Richmond (1956-2004)

Martin Kelly, Joe Carpenter and Danny Strong, top row, were killed in eastern Syria three weeks after this photograph was taken. They were on a big well for Shell, skidded the rig, took the old BOP off the well, capped it and put it diverter to large earthen pits. The flow rates were estimated to be 18 K BOPD and the capping stack vibrated excessively. They braced it and guided out with cables from the top of the stack to anchors in the ground. It still shook, sometimes violently. The day they were released the went down to look at the well one last time before leaving for the airport and the well blew up burning them to death instantly. They were my friends.

That is Sammy Richmond on my left. Sammy worked for WellCat and was as good as any oilfield hand I ever met. Better, actually. He provided capping and snubbing assemblies to all the world's primary well control companies, was likely one of the most important fellas in all of Kuwait in 1991 and otherwise had been around the world more times than I've been to Flatonia. If it was his iron on a job he was always in the thick of the most dangerous part of it.

Everybody in the worldwide well control industry admired Sammy; he was a hoot. He always, always had your back. Everybody, EVERYBODY, relished working with him. Sammy was my friend.

Coots mowed his big-ass yard in Humble until he was in his 80's. He'd send the blades off his mower to WellCat every month or so and Sammy would have them hard sharpened back in the shop, sent to Coot's house and put back on the mower.

Sammy died last week on his ranch in East Texas. He was 67.

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"It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live."

Marcus Aurelius