Histoires d'un scaphandrier or the Stories of a Commercial Diver

1979, I was still working on the construction of the Rupel tunnel.

One of the huge element’s had been placed across the canal a few days earlier and now a small dredger was blowing sand under and around the element to fill all the free spans and so stabilize the construction on the bottom.

My job for that day was to install some measuring equipment at the bottom of a steel pile that was driven at about 30 meters from the quay wall where the diving plant was installed, so that meant that I had to swim to the pile and then go down to do my work at - 24 m.

The underwater installation had taken around 45’ and as I had no more work to do I told the surface that they could recover the diver’s slack to bring me back near the down line that was hanging along the quay.

After a few seconds, my tender informed me that my umbilical was probably fastened somewhere because he couldn’t recover it.  

Ok I said, I’ll have a look at it and so I started to follow my hose to see where it was hooked.

It didn’t take long to find the problem. My umbilical was not hooked but on the contrary was completely buried under the sand.

In fact, the sand blown by the dredger had the fucking tendency to spread into the water over a very wide area before it was deposit on the bottom... but also on my breathing hose which at that time was not yet a floating one.

Off course, I tried to pull at it with all my strength but without any success.

As I saw that it was unnecessary to insist, I explained the situation to the surface and told them what I was going to do.

I had decided to free myself from the bottom by disconnecting my umbilical and come up freely to the surface where the surface team would recover me with the zodiac.

Disconnecting our hoses was not difficult for us because in those days, we used a Belgian patented fitting that could easily be connected / disconnected under water or even in mud because the fitting had a self-cleaning device.

After a minute or two the surface informed me that the boat was ready I decided to first test my bail out bottle, so I open the bottle, unscrew the umbilical fitting and … SHIT NO GAS.

Off course, I reconnected my umbilical immediately and started bitching about the big idiot I was for not having checked the pressure of my bail out before the dive.

So again I informed the surface of the slight additional problem stating that this time I expected now be hauled on board as quickly as possible once I reached the surface.

Ok, this time I was ready.

 I first pulled out the communication plug, disconnected the karabiner clip from my harness, put a little more gas in my constant volume suit to be slightly positive and finally drop the umbilical.

One off the advantage of this type of suit was due to the fact that in case of gas failure, it was always possible to breathe inside the suit for one or two minutes without having a CO² intoxication, and that’s what I did during my ascent, inspire the expanding gas through the nose, and expire it through my mouth piece to deflate my suit and so avoid an uncontrolled ascent.

I came up only few meters from the zodiac and it took the guys only a few seconds to catch me and pull me in the boat.

"Nice to see you guys" I said.

As I had dived less than an hour on a 45/55 NITROX gas I knew that I had no stops to do, but once on the wall I nevertheless preferred go on pure oxygen for some time because I had probably not respected the prescribed ascent rate.

Finally, all ended well for me except that because of my stupidity I was now obliged to buy a new umbilical.

Conclusion:

-        Always test the pressure of your bailout before diving.

Papy One

One of the biggest underwater works made in Belgium in the seventies, was the construction of the Rupel tunnel which if we take into consideration the sole underwater operation’s lasted from 1977 to 1980.

The tunnel was made of several huge elements that had to be laid and connected together across the canal of Willebroeck and the Rupel River and therefore a lot of dives had to be made at a depth of 24 meters (80 feet) by a team of nearly 20 divers.

The tasks were extremely varied such as: cutting – welding – blasting – jetting – concrete pouring - and a bunch of other interesting operations.

One of the work's I had to do during several days was to install 8’’ obturators inside drain pipes. At first glance this did not appeared to be difficult except that to reach the drain pipes, I had to progress some 40 meters inside one of the elements of the tunnel which had been completely flooded due to a construction defect, then, I had to turn left pass a door, follow the bottom concrete floor for about 10 other meters to finally reach a small square opening (50 cm x 50 cm) present in the floor of the element.

This opening gave access to a small chamber (3 m high x 1 m x 1 m) and it was there that I had to install the plug inside a drain that passed at that bottom of the room.

So in fact, the most difficult part of my work was to pass through these small square openings, and this was really not easy due to my bailout bottle. Anyway, I managed to do it every time except on this particular day of 29 March 78.

That day I could enter the room and install my plug but when my job was completed I had the disagreeable surprise to see that I was trapped in the room and could not get out of it.

Every time I tried to pass the opening above my head, I felt that my back was hooked by something. At first it didn’t bother me; I just tried calmly for several times. But after 10 or 15 minutes unsuccessful trials I really started to get nervous and the more I tried the more I blocked.

Finally, after having made a real effort to calm down again, I decided to stay at the bottom of the chamber and ask for a stand by diver. Unfortunately in those years, it was not yet the policy of the diving companies to have a stand by diver ready and so I had to wait nearly 20 minutes more before my teammate arrived above the opening and helped me to come out of my grave.

In fact what had happened was that one of the straps of my bailout had come loose and hooked to a rebar each time I tried to come out.

Conclusion: 

Do not like the idiots we were at that time.

Have a standby diver ready in any circumstance.

Papy One

A few weeks after our bell incident, it was the turn to Tiny to have a big fright, as it was him now who was making the inspection dive.

As I explained earlier, these types of dives are mainly carrying out without any visibility but this didn’t bother us at all because we knew perfectly where to pass to join the different places we had to look for.

The check points were:

-    The width - depth - and shape of the trench behind the claw.

-    Control the position of the claw over the pipeline.

-    Verify the position of the sledge.

-    Give the angle of the pulling chain in front of the sledge.

So as you see a relatively easy job.

But as some of you know, the North Sea can be very rough, and this 19 September 76 there was again a very strong swell that could be felt in the bell.

Again, our bell went up and down several metres but since the incident, we had taken care to stay a little more away from the bottom, which allowed Tiny to start its inspection.

Everything went well until his arrival on the chain.

As you can imagine, the chain used to pull the 34 tons jet claw was not a common little chain, it was a good strong one with huge links.

So on this particular day, my mate Tiny decided for a reason only known by him, to move one of his hands through a link and what had to happen, happened.

His hand could pass it, but because of the movement caused by the swell he couldn't remove it back.

As I was the bellman, I could not hear what was said between him and the surface, but it was not difficult to imagine:

-    Tiny: Surface I got a problem.

-    Surf: What problem do you have Tiny?

-    Tiny: Uh! Uh! Well, uh! I've put my hand through the chain and now I can’t remove it.

-    Surf: WHAT! YOU STUPID BASTARD and can I ask you what we must do now?

-    Tiny: Uh... I think that you should inform the bellman and ……prepare the oxy-arc torch.

-    Surf: ARE YOU JOKING?

-    Tiny: I don't think so .... because it hurts.

So after a few more profanities the supervisor passed the communication on the bell and made me aware of the situation.

He informed me that they were preparing to send the cutting gear down and  asked me to prepare myself to intervene if necessary.

Fortunately, it wasn’t an emergency situation because the diver kept cool, but he just could not withdraw his fucking hand.

So I prepared myself, dropped the bellman's umbilical in the water and waited the order to leave the bell.

Then, fortunately for the diver, after one or two minutes, the pulling chain came up or went down a bit more and he could extract his hand without too much damage. She was just a bit scratched and swollen but that was it.

When he was back in the bell, we laughed a bit about the incident.

But when I told him (as seriously as I could) that if I had to intervene , the surface had decided for some economic reason to rather  cut his hand  than the chain, I could see in his eyes that he was not sure if I was joking or not.

Conclusion:

Be always cautions where you put your hands

Papy One