Five divers and tenders died in one of the most horrific accidents ever recorded when explosive decompression boiled their blood from inside during an oil rig disaster
In one of the most horrific incidents ever documented, five men were effectively boiled alive from within following a split-second mistake 1,000 feet beneath the ocean’s surface.
In 1983, the Byford Dolphin, a semi-submersible oil drilling platform, was operating at various locations across the North Sea.
The facility had gained a grim reputation for accidents, with the most devastating episode involving ruptured organs, boiling blood, and one man killed by a diving chamber.
A group of four British and Norwegian divers – Edwin Arthur Coward, 35, Roy P. Lucas, 38, Bjørn Giæver Bergersen, 29, and Truls Hellevik, 34 – alongside tenders William Crammond, 32, and Martin Saunders, 30, gathered to carry out a deep-sea diving operation on the rig.
For safe deep-sea work, the divers needed to be contained within a sequence of compression chambers throughout a 28-day stretch.
These highly delicate chambers stop nitrogen building up in the bloodstream, according to Lad Bible.
The pressurised living quarters were accessible via a diving bell, a ring-shaped compartment, which remained sealed off from other sections of the underwater facility.
This technique was referred to as saturation diving – it allowed divers to remain submerged for longer periods while preventing the agonising and frequently deadly accumulation of nitrogen during ascent.
Rising to the water’s surface causes nitrogen and helium to dissolve into divers’ bloodstreams, which can prove fatal.
That’s precisely why divers within the chambers inhale a carefully calibrated blend of gases – usually helium combined with oxygen, tailored to match the diving depth.
Should divers surface too rapidly, the sudden pressure reduction can spark decompression sickness.
On that fateful 5 November 1983, Bergersen and Hellevik were making their way back to the chamber through the diving bell, with the help of tenders Crammond and Saunders.
For a secure transfer between chambers, the diving bell required proper sealing to ward off the bends. Yet a catastrophic mechanical failure meant the bell detached moments before Hellevik could secure the chamber door.
The crew chambers inside ought to have maintained pressure at nine atmospheres, but instead dropped to one in mere fractions of a second.
Crammond lost his life after being hit by the wayward dive bell, while the four divers died immediately as nitrogen within their bloodstream transformed into bubbles, essentially causing them to boil internally.
Hellevik was forced through a 60cm aperture, with the extreme pressure causing his internal organs to be ejected from his body.
Saunders emerged as the only survivor from the horrific incident, suffering collapsed lungs, spinal fractures and a broken neck.
An official investigation determined that human error led to the deaths. The incident remains puzzling as its exact cause stays unclear, yet it highlighted the urgent requirement for improvements in diving safety protocols.
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