Mike of Boots and Coots trudges along a dike surrounding an oil gusher and pond after getting covered with oil running a backhoe. The gusher was capped two hours later using a "stinger," a tapered pipe on the end of a long steel boom controlled by a bulldozer. Drilling mud, under high pressure, is pumped through the stinger into the well, stopping the flow of oil and gas. The Rumaila field is one of Iraq's biggest oil fields with five billion barrels in reserve. Rumaila is also spelled Rumeilah.
