On the morning of October 2, 1958, Barometern reported that two people had died after a 30-ton excavator sank outside Bergkvara the night before.

The deceased were two municipal workers from the city of Kalmar: excavator operator Torsten Olsson and foreman Hilding Petersson, both in their fifties.

At the time of the accident, the two men were in the driver’s cab of the excavator while it was being transported on a barge towed by the M/S Djurön. The excavator was built at Kalmar shipyard in 1938 and had a 12-meter-long arm. It had been loaned by the port of Kalmar to Skånska Cementgjuteriet, which was carrying out port work in Bergkvara.

M/S Djurön I was a steel ship built in Gothenburg in 1915. She was originally designed for grain traffic and had over the years carried out hundreds of tows of grain barges along the east coast. CaptainFredriksson had extensive experience of this type of transport.

The accident outside Garpen lighthouse

The accident occurred at 7 p.m. on October 1 when the Djurön and the trailer were just outside the Garpen lighthouse.

Djurön was actually on its way to Karlshamn but had taken on the towing as an extra task since they would still have to pass Bergkvara. For this they were to receive 250 SEK.

At the time of the accident, a southeasterly wind of 10–12 m/s. It was probably the unlashed excavator that was pushed onto the barge. Witnesses at Garpen lighthouse saw the barge heel over. The lanterns then disappeared underwater as the barge capsized and the excavator sank to the bottom.

From Garpen lighthouse the pilot boat went out to search for the two missing men. Despite an intensive search, nothing was found. The capsized barge was then towed into Bergkvara harbor where Djurön was moored.

After Captain Fredriksson and his colleague were taken to the district nurse and given sedation due to the shock, he said that he had seen the illuminated driver’s cab of the excavator disappear into the depths. The captain was unsure whether the two men in the barge were in the excavator’s cab. They had previously been seen entering the cab, but it may have been only to drink coffee from their thermoses.

The search for the dead

The Karlskrona fire department was alerted immediately after the accident and sent a couple of divers to search for the two missing men. The search continued the next day, but without results.

The day after the accident, the pilots from Bergkvara were able to determine the position of the sunken excavator, about one nautical mile outside Garpen lighthouse. Skånska Cement AB, which had rented the excavator and was the contractor for the work in Bergkvara harbour, then sent out heavy divers who went down to the excavator to search for the deceased. The divers were able to determine that the excavator was lying on its side. The upper door was open but no one could be found. There was only a briefcase in the control cabin.

Based on prevailing wind and current conditions, the deceased were assessed to have drifted towards the Småland coast, somewhere between Djursvik and Värnanäs or to surrounding islands.

Two weeks later, Torsten Olsson was found by the brothers Ove and Roy Nilsson, sons of fisherman Artur Nilsson in Djursvik, while they were out hunting migratory birds. They found the deceased 47-year-old floating about four kilometers east of Djursvik and brought him to land. The county prosecutor Palmgren in Torsås was notified and was on site shortly afterwards together with police from Söderåkra. A representative from Torsten Olsson’s workplace in Kalmar also came to Djursvik and was able to identify him. He was then taken to Kalmar.

Sea inquiry

A sea inquiry was held on Wednesday, October 15, 1958, but nothing emerged that was not already known. It was stated that it was still not known whether the excavator had been secured in the manner it was used to when it was transported on a barge, with jacks (supports) against the sides of the barge. If it had been secured, it must have been done during the journey, since the machine was not secured when it left Långviken in Kalmar.

What caused the accident?

During the investigation into the accident, which was completed in 1960, it was found that the barge, which was built at Kalmar shipyard in 1938, was not seaworthy for coastal voyages as the ship’s deck was not equipped with a hatch arm and the deck opening could not be closed. When the barge was hit by the sea during the voyage, water splashed in and impaired stability. The cargo, the 30-ton excavator, was displaced and the barge capsized. The excavator then sank to the bottom.

The excavator remained at the bottom

On October 29, 1958, Barometern wrote that it had still not been decided whether the excavator would be salvaged. The newspaper also stated that the costs would probably be so high that salvage would not be worthwhile. We now know that the salvage never took place.

Almost seventy years later, the excavator still lies on the seabed outside Garpen Lighthouse. It was never salvaged and today constitutes an unusually well-preserved historical document of an accident that cost the lives of two people. Traces of that dramatic autumn evening in October 1958 still remain on the seabed.