By Gerardo R. Partido
Variety News Staff

The five sailors who suffered burns during the Dec. 1 accident involving the USS Frank Cable are on the road to recovery.
The Navy Times, quoting an Army surgeon treating the victims, reported that only one sailor remains in intensive care at the Burn Center at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio.
Two other seriously injured sailors were transferred out of intensive care during the week before Christmas, while another has been discharged and placed in an outpatient status joining a sailor similarly discharged Dec. 5, the Navy Times quotes Col. Dave Barillo, a burn specialist, as saying.
According to the public affairs office of the Commander Submarine Force of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Hawaii, the USS Frank Cable personnel were conducting routine preventive maintenance checks of steam safety valves when the #1 Boiler experienced a major steam leak into the fire box, rupturing an exhaust plenum and sending pressurized steam into the Fire Room.
Eight crewmembers were initially taken to Naval Hospital Guam. Two were treated and released in Guam, while the remaining six were flown the next day to Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu.
They were met by the Burn Special Medical Augmentation Response Team, a nine-member team composed of the military’s leading burn trauma experts. After initial treatment and evaluation, the six sailors were escorted to Brooke Army Medical Center for specialized burn trauma care.
Machinery Repairman Fireman Jack B. Valentine, 20, of Zion, Ill., who was a fireman assigned to the ship’s engineering division, died Dec. 7 at Brooke Army Medical Center in Fort Sam Houston, Texas.
The Navy has still not identified any of the surviving sailors and the Navy continues to investigate the cause of the mishap.
Accident investigation teams from Japan and Philadelphia are helping out Navy personnel on island in probing the incident and determining the cause of the boiler steam leak.
According to Barillo, the sailors suffered burns over between 20 to 70 percent of their bodies.