Key Takeaways
chroma diversare professional deep - ocean divers who descend to depths of 500 ft ( 152 meters ) or more to service equipment on offshore oil rig and undersea pipeline . But unlike most commercial-grade loon , who do a few hours of work underwater and render to the airfoil , saturation divers will spend up to28 dayson a single job , living in a cramped high-pitched - pressure chamber where they eat and sleep between shifts .
Pay is greatfor saturation loon — between $ 30,000 and $ 45,000 a month — but it ’s vivid oeuvre in an transcendental and claustrophobic environment . And it can be grave . In 1983 , four intensity diver and one crew penis were killed in a gruesome fortuity aboard a Norwegian - operated oil cheat called the Byford Dolphin .
The Byford Dolphin catastrophe was a wake - up call for the commercial-grade diving industry , which respond with tight base hit measures to secure no one else would meet such a terrible fate .
A Routine Procedure Gone Horribly Wrong
It takesa whole crewto make a saturation diving performance work .
Life support technician ensure the line mix in the hyperbaric bedroom matches the air that the divers breathe underwater . The dive control team is in bang of operate thediving chime — which raise and lower berth on a crane — and supervise the divers as they mould . There are even cooks who prepare and serve meal to the men cooped up in the subsist sleeping accommodation .
Workers visit " tenders " have a very authoritative support business . They assist unspool and retract the " umbilical , " the thick demarcation of air supply tube and communicating wires that connect the divers to the control surface . In the past , tenders had other responsibilities that admit docking the diving bell to the pressurized inhabit chambers .
" The saturation divers are completely at the mercy of the tender and of their supervisors on the dive mastery squad , " say Phillip Newsum , an experient commercial diver and executive director of theAssociation of Diving Contractors International .
On Nov. 5 , 1983 , an experienced tender make William Crammond was in the middle of a routine procedure aboard the Byford Dolphin , a semi - submersible crude oil rig control in the North Sea . The rig was equipped with two pressurized living chambers , each halt two loon . Crammond had just connected the diving bell to the living chambers and safely wedge a pair of divers in chamber one . The other two loon were already resting in chamber two .
That ’s when thing went dreadfully incorrect . Under normal circumstances , the diving bell would n’t be come off from the go bedroom until the chamber doors were safely seal shut . However , the diving bell detached before the sleeping accommodation doors were fold , create what ’s sleep together as an " volatile decompression . "
" It ’s a expiry conviction , " Newsum says . " You wo n’t outlast . "
The air pressure inside the Byford Dolphin aliveness bedroom straight off expire from9 atmospheres — the press experienced while 100 of feet below the piddle — to 1 standard pressure , the normal air pressure at the aerofoil . The explosive rush of air travel out of the chamber sent the heavy diving Alexander Bell fell , killing Crammond and critically wound his bloke tender , Martin Saunders .
The fate of the four saturation divers inside was far worse . According toautopsy paper , three of the man inside the chamber — Edwin Arthur Coward , Roy P. Lucas and Bjørn Giæver Bergersen — were fundamentally " boiled " from the interior when the nitrogen in their blood line violently erupted into gas bubbles . They break instantly .
The quaternary loon , Truls Hellevik , suffered the grizzliest demise . Hellevik was endure in front of the partially opened door to the living sleeping room when the pressing was released . His body was sucked out through an hatchway so narrow that it tore him unfastened and eject his home pipe organ onto the deck .
Why ‘The Bends’ Are Bad News
Since Aqua-Lung diving was first invented in the 1940s , divers have find out a muckle about how to safely float to great depths , sometimes the hard fashion . As a diver descends , the weight of the water around them apply imperativeness to every cell in their body . The press even compact corpuscle of gaseousnitrogentaken in by the lung , which causes the nitrogen gun to dissolve into the blood stream .
The absorption of nitrogen itself is n’t the yield . The problem take off if a frogman tries to ascend to the surface too chop-chop . Think of it like shake a 2 - cubic decimeter bottle of soda and opening the cap . The gasses that were contain under pressure instantly form bubble and expand .
That ’s pretty much what happens inside a diver ’s body when they suffer decompressing nausea or " the bends . " If they ascend too rapidly from the gamey pressure of the bass piddle to the much lower pressure at the surface , the N particle that had dissolved under pressure quickly expand and become gaseous again .
" Nitrogen bubbles will form in the blood stream and those can preclude the circulation of blood , including to the heart , " Newsum says . " That ’s when you start the risk of getting decompressing sickness . "
Decompression sickness or " the bends " is a painful and potentially fatal condition that can cause excruciating joint and muscle pain , delirium , paralysis , heart attacks and stroke . If caught apace enough , the bends can be treat by placing the individual back under pressure in a exceptional storage tank call a hyperbaric bedroom and slowly release the imperativeness over a topic of hours or day .
But the best strategy is to obviate decompression sickness altogether by lento ascending to the surface and assume frequent breaks to have your body by nature give forth or " off accelerator " the nitrogen . Certified scuba divers know how to interpret arecreational dive plannerthat tells them when to take refuge breaks during an rising and for how long .
commercial-grade divers , however , are asked to work at depth far beyond what any amateur aqualung loon would dare to set about . That expect a whole different type of decompressing , and it was a nonstarter in that system that led to the violent deaths of the Byford Dolphin divers .
How Saturation Divers Stay Under for So Long
The deeper you plunge and the longer you stay underwater , the more nitrogen gets dissolved in your blood stream . Eventually , a diver ’s body becomes " saturated " with break up N , which is how saturation diver get their name .
Saturation divers wreak at depthsas capital as 1,000 feet(304 metre ) . If they used the same proficiency as recreational diver to safely relax — slowly ascending with farseeing pauses — it would take them daylight to get to the surface .
Instead , intensity divers are shuttled to the surface in pressurized diving doorbell and then transferred into specialized decompressing chambers . For every 100 feet ( 30 metre ) that a intensity diver condescend , they require to spend approximately one day in the chamber , where they chill on cots , watch movies and receive solid food through pressurized slots .
The problem is that it ’s not frugal for an oil caller to pay saturation diver for a few hour of employment and several days of rest . And interestingly , once you reach impregnation level , your body ca n’t take in any more nitrogen no matter how long you stay put subaquatic . So instead of decompressing after each dive , saturation divers just detain at pressure .
For up to 28 days — the industry maximum — saturation underwater diver will exchange to the depth in those pressurized diving campana . But instead of entering a decompressing chamber on the open , they fly the coop up inside of a hyperbaric sleeping accommodation that maintain their body at the same press level as the deep water .
" We call that the warehousing depth , " says Newsum , whose organization helps to establish external safe standards for commercial-grade diving . " By staying squeeze , they can work out there for as long as they need to , and when you impart them back up , you do n’t need to worry about decompressing . "
That is , until the Book of Job is done . The last week of any saturation diving event job is reserved for obtuse and steady decompressing before finally leaving the cramped quarters and breathing fresh air again .
The Investigation and Its Lingering Effects
Norwegian officials impute the deadly incident to human wrongdoing , placing the incrimination on Crammond . However , it was afterwards bring out that the incident happened because of faulty equipment .
" The fact that there was no interlock on the locking mechanism was straight off seeming , and now the bearing of appropriate safety interlocks on model diving systems has perhaps the highest priority of all guard , " Bryan McGlinchy , diving director at theInternational Marine Contractors Association ( IMCA ) , tellsEnergy Voice . " What you ’ve get to do is consider the human being in the system and not put those persons in a place where an apprehensible human misplay could lead to very serious consequences . Our safe system must be contrive to be liberal of human error . ”
Unfortunately , the initial investigation did irreparable damage to Crammond ’s kinfolk . On top of dealing with the death of her hubby , Ruth Crammond also had to deal with the wake of the investigation .
" Billy ’s decease destroyed me , " she toldExpressin 2015 . " The fact he was blamed — and many website still take he made a mistake — was horrific . I could n’t talk about it . I never narrate our children their sire was to find fault . How cold I ? My son was only 8 and idolized his father . "
She also never believed the Norwegian government ’s determination because of the years of his year of diving experience . " He was accused of having made an amateur ’s fault by open a clamp before another doorway was safely close do the explosion , " she impart . " We met in Plymouth when he was a Navy diver … He left the service to try and give a better life story to his family and North Sea offer that opportunity . I used to say to him it was too unsafe , but his reply always was that crossing the route was dangerous . "
Hard Lessons Learned and Delayed Justice for the Families
Starting in the sixties , when oil was discovered off the coast of Norway , there was an oil thunder in the North Sea . condom was n’t always the top anteriority . By one counting , there were at least58 diving deathsin the North Sea from the 1960s through the other 2000s .
" The Byford Dolphin was one of the risky oil field disasters in chronicle , " Newsum say , " and it led to wholesale change in the North Sea and in commercial dive refuge worldwide . "
Today , Newsum says , every diving operation is required to make an extensive danger appraisal and hazard analysis . There are redundancy ramp up into every function to eliminate human error or faulty equipment . Some oil rigs are even equip with special hyperbaric lifeboats that can enthrall vividness divers away from a hurricane or fire without having to bring them back to aerofoil pressure first .
Sadly , it took decades for the Norse regime , which was operating the Byford Dolphin in 1983 , to take obligation for the fortuity and provide restitution to the families of the five men kill . It was n’t until 2009that the Norwegian government paid undisclosed sum of money to the families of all six victims of the 1983 accident , include the injured Saunders . The report suggested that faulty equipment , not human error was to blame for the accident . In 2016 , the Byford Dolphin rigwas put to rest .
