Blood boils, brains bubble, and internal organs are scattered across the deck... This disaster brought about the most terrifying death in the history of diving.
At four o'clock in the early morning of November 5, 1983, on the offshore drilling platform "Byford Dolphin", diving support worker William Crammond made the most fatal mistake of his life.
Just because he accidentally loosened a fixing device, Crammond was hit by the diving bell that shot out like a cannonball and died on the spot.
He not only lost his own life but also caused the tragic deaths of four divers. In the accident, one diver's body was completely torn apart. Almost all of his internal organs were scattered across the deck, and some fragments even flew up to 10 meters high.
To this day, this remains one of the most serious diving accidents in history. It left a painful safety lesson and also brought about earth - shattering changes in commercial diving.
The offshore drilling platform "Byford Dolphin". When the accident occurred in 1983, it was conducting oil exploration in the Norwegian waters of the North Sea. | Wikipedia
Air Pressure Disaster
The terrifying power of this disaster originated from the pressure difference. To explain what happened at that time, we first need to understand "saturation diving", a special diving operation.
Divers conducting saturation diving operations | Wikipedia
Saturation diving is a technology specifically used for long - term deep dives. It saves more time than conventional methods and helps people complete equipment maintenance work hundreds of meters underwater. This type of diving is completed under pressurized conditions throughout: Divers first enter a sealed chamber to adapt to a high - pressure environment similar to that on the seabed. Then they take a pressurized diving bell to dive underwater. They return to the pressurized chamber to rest in the middle and then carry out the next round of diving work. Saturation divers often have to live in a high - pressure environment for several weeks and then gradually return to normal through a decompression procedure.
Saturation diving is a special technology for long - term deep dives. During the mission, divers often need to live in a closed high - pressure chamber for several weeks. | The Times
When the accident occurred, four divers were in such a pressurized chamber. Crammond and another colleague were doing support work outside the chamber. The pressure inside the chamber was as high as nine times the standard atmospheric pressure. The pressurized chamber must be strictly sealed to ensure safety, but Crammond accidentally damaged the seal: Before the divers closed the chamber door, he prematurely loosened the fixing device connecting the chamber door and the diving bell.
A schematic diagram of the Byford Dolphin accident. At the time of the accident, the diving bell (the circular part at the bottom of the picture) used to transport divers was connected to the high - pressure chamber. Four divers were inside the chamber, and the chamber door was not yet closed. The staff outside the chamber suddenly loosened the fixing device of the diving bell, causing the diving bell to break off and the high - pressure chamber to connect with the outside world. | Wikipedia
The inside and outside of the high - pressure chamber were instantly connected. High - pressure air gushed out from the opening, and the air pressure inside the chamber dropped sharply. The huge pressure difference pushed the diving bell to shoot out like a cannonball, and Truls Hellevik, a diver standing near the chamber door, was also pushed by the high - pressure air towards the narrow exit.
The half - open chamber door was only 60 centimeters wide. Hellevik was squeezed outward by the powerful pressure here. His chest and abdominal cavities were completely torn at the chamber door, and even his spine was broken. Almost all of his internal organs were ejected from the chamber door and scattered on the drilling platform. The top of his skull and his brain were nowhere to be found.
When the accident occurred, the high - pressure chamber door was stuck in a half - open state. Diver Hellevik near the chamber door was violently pushed by the high - pressure air, and his body was torn apart at the narrow chamber door. | J C Giertsen et al.
Boiling Blood
After the accident, the other three divers farther from the exit inside the chamber fell to the ground.
Their bodies remained intact, but subsequent autopsy investigations found that they also suffered extremely tragic deaths. The cause of death was extremely severe decompression sickness - a disease caused by bubbles in the human body.
The solubility of gas changes with pressure. When working in a high - pressure environment, more of the gas that divers breathe will dissolve in their body fluids. If the environmental pressure suddenly decreases, the solubility of the gas will also decrease rapidly, and the excess gas in the divers' bodies will turn into bubbles and escape from their blood and tissues - just like opening a bottle of soda.
Decompression sickness is an injury caused by bubbles. Its pathogenesis is like suddenly opening a bottle of soda. | pixabay
These bubbles pose a serious threat to health. They block blood flow, induce blood clotting, and cause a series of symptoms such as joint pain, nerve numbness, and difficulty breathing. In severe cases, they can even cause death. To avoid the formation of bubbles, the normal decompression procedure for divers must be carried out very slowly, sometimes taking several days.
In this accident, the pressure inside the high - pressure chamber dropped from nine times the atmospheric pressure to normal pressure almost instantaneously. Under the violent pressure change, the tissues and organs throughout the divers' bodies were completely disrupted by the rapidly emerging bubbles.
The autopsy showed that the divers' hearts and main blood vessels were filled with a large number of air bubbles. Moreover, a layer of separated fat was floating in their blood. The fat mixed with the bubbles looked "like bubbling butter in a frying pan".
These fats indicate that the victims' blood had boiled violently. The disturbance of the bubbles was enough to denature lipoproteins and separate blood lipids originally bound to proteins from the blood.
Tissue sections showed that the victims' brains and spinal cords were also destroyed by a large number of bubbles.
Bubbles in the brain tissue of the victim diver (110x magnification) | J C Giertsen et al.
Who Is the Culprit?
On the surface, this accident was all due to the operator William Crammond's mistake.
According to the procedure, he was supposed to communicate fully with the divers inside the chamber and confirm that the chamber door was tightly closed before separating the diving bell, and he must operate together with another colleague. Crammond had rich work experience. Logically, he should have been very clear about the consequences of violating the operating procedure.
Crammond himself died on the spot in the accident, and the on - site walkie - talkie did not retain the call records. No one knows exactly why he suddenly loosened the fixing device. People speculated that perhaps the noise on the drilling platform was too loud, causing problems in the communication between the inside and outside of the chamber.
A photo of accident victims Roy Lucas (left) and William Crammond (right). No one knows the real reason for Crammond's wrong operation. | thoughtnova.com
However, no matter what the reason for Crammond's mistake was, it is unfair to simply blame him. Behind personal negligence, loopholes in work processes and safety protection are actually the root causes of the accident.
At that time, divers lacked a reasonable shift system. Their rest was not guaranteed, and they had to work for extremely long hours. When the accident occurred, Crammond had been working continuously for more than 12 hours. This state of fatigue could easily affect people's judgment.
More importantly, the high - pressure chamber used by the divers lacked a key safety protection device. If there was a device to ensure that the connection could not be opened under pressure or to automatically close the chamber door, everyone in this accident could have been saved. In fact, this kind of safety interlock device had already begun to be promoted at that time, and the installation cost was not high.
“Blaming individuals is not the way to improve safety. Our safety systems must be designed to tolerate human error.” Bryan McGlinchy of the International Marine Contractors Association commented on the Byford Dolphin diving accident. | Wikipedia
The tragic lesson of this accident completely changed the commercial diving industry. Today, every diving operation requires a comprehensive risk assessment, and safety measures need to be set up in every link to prevent the impact of human errors. Safety interlock devices to avoid uncontrolled decompression are now standard equipment for high - pressure diving equipment. According to the "International Diving Operations Safety Rules", they are not only used at the connection between the diving bell and the high - pressure chamber but also for toilets and transfer tubes to ensure that all exits connected to the outside world will not open accidentally.
More than forty years later, saturation diving is still a dangerous job that challenges the limits of the human body. However, the progress of safety technology and systems can prevent past tragedies from happening again.
References
[1] Giertsen JC, Sandstad E, Morild I, Bang G, Bjersand AJ, Eidsvik S. An explosive decompression accident. Am J Forensic Med Pathol. 1988 Jun;9(2):94 - 101. doi: 10.1097/00000433 - 198806000 - 00002. PMID: 3381801.
[2] https://www.iflscience.com/the - 1983 - byford - dolphin - decompression - incident - is - the - worst - diving - accident - in - history - 76507
[3] https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/norway/540650/byford - dolphin - diving - incident - casts - long - shadow - 40 - years - on/
[4] https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/119099/1/2.1_Balestra%20Haldane%202009.pdf
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Byford_Dolphin_accident_of_1983
[6] https://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2021/08/the - most - gruesome - death - the - byford - dolphin - accident/
This article is from the WeChat public account "Guokr" (ID: Guokr42), author: Chuang Qiaoyu, editor: Luna, published by 36Kr with authorization.