Five men died instantly when a catastrophic decompression accident occurred on the Byford Dolphin oil rig in the North Sea, with nitrogen in their blood turning to bubbles
In one of the most horrific fatalities ever recorded, five men were essentially boiled alive from the inside due to a momentary error 1,000 feet below sea level.
Back in 1983, the Byford Dolphin, a semi-submersible oil drilling rig, was operational in various spots in the North Sea. The site was notorious for accidents, and the worst incident involved exploding organs, blood boiling, and a man fatally struck by a diving chamber.
A team of four British and Norwegian divers, Edwin Arthur Coward, 35, Roy P. Lucas, 38, Bjørn Giæver Bergersen, 29, and Truls Hellevik, 34, along with tenders William Crammond, 32, and Martin Saunders, 30, assembled to undertake a deep-sea diving mission on the rig.
To safely conduct deep-sea operations, the divers had to be confined to a series of compression chambers over a 28-day period. These highly sensitive chambers prevent an accumulation of nitrogen in the bloodstream, as reported by Lad Bible.
The pressurised living quarters could be accessed through a diving bell, a ring-shaped chamber, which was isolated from other parts of the underwater station, reports the Mirror.
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This method was known as saturation diving – it extended the time you could spend underwater and avoided the painful and often lethal build-up of nitrogen when resurfacing.
Ascending to the water’s surface causes nitrogen and helium to dissolve into divers’ bloodstream, which can be fatal.
That’s why in the chambers, divers breathe a specific mix of gases – typically helium and oxygen, adjusted according to the depth of the dive.
If divers ascend too quickly, the abrupt drop in pressure triggers decompression sickness. On the ill-fated day of 5 November 1983, Bergersen and Hellevik were returning to the chamber via the diving bell, assisted by tenders Crammond and Saunders.
To safely transition between chambers, the diving bell needed to be sealed to prevent the bends. However, a deadly mechanical malfunction meant the bell was released seconds before Hellevik had managed to shut the chamber door.
The internal crew chambers were supposed to be pressurised to nine atmospheres but in this case they plummeted to one within a fraction of a second.
Crammond was killed when he was struck by the rogue dive bell while the four divers died instantly as the nitrogen in their blood turned into bubbles, effectively boiling them from the inside.
Hellevik was propelled through a 60cm wide opening, the intense pressure causing his organs to be expelled from his body. Saunders was the sole survivor of the dreadful event, enduring collapsed lungs, back fractures and a broken neck.
An official inquiry concluded that human error was the cause of the fatalities. The incident continues to baffle as its precise cause remains unknown, but it underscored the pressing need for enhancements in diving safety measures.
