Diver Breaks Down: Lost Bell The Wildrake Disaster 

I was a Sat diver in the gulf of Mexico and have done plenty of bell dives but being certified in underwater welding I wood go tack weld the shackle from the Crain to the bell and never had the Crain line detach from the Bell. I did have a few dive supervisors tell me what are you doing that for it's going to make it harder to replace when we need to replace it and I would tell them well if you are replacing it then it doesn't matter when you cut it off you will put a new one on.

@@TBdown70 As someone that was never a dive professional, much LESS a saturation diver.. I breeze through all the OW "learners permit" for tourists, and quickly maxed out.. NEVER went padi (etc) pro.. I was diving for ME and could afford.. It.. From Wreck, Cave..Full Tech on both and then some.. I actually studied Sat diving quite a bit after I spent OC or eCCR mix levels.. I have always honestly been curious about commercial Sat Divers.. My truly ex military tech instructor told me.. And, I mean VERBATIM: "If you fawk up, you will wish you died on the bottom than popping to the surface"... That is with my deco obligation on Trimix and (I can't recall, other depths with heliox and a few other additives).. The last thing he played for me was a saturation "mistake' (overlook) where they got vented (didn't know that was possible - but I was new)... I dove 3-4 times a day, mostly not with any significant obligation, and only a few fk ups that made me expedite getting topside and thinking I might need a chamber.. LONG WINDED me aside.. Bro... Blue water diving is touristy, or life changing.. ("Whatever")... Saturation commercial (is there another?) diving is more extreme than most people know.. Side note: This may sound awesome, scary, or clueless.. FAVORITE BOOK = "Without Remorse"... Having a deco "recompression chamber" would be so cool.. :p Again, apologies for the long windedness.. I just have serious respect for you sat guys... And, someone stabbed their poor little toe... ;)

@@TBdown70 Well said.

@@TBdown70 that should be standard procedure. I am sure the HR would completely approve comparing the OHSA costs vs the tiny outlay of grinding off a few tacks (I assume the whole thing is going to be x-rayed anyway).

@@markiobook8639 HR that's funny, no HR on a rig when you're diving. You have dive supervisor, divers, diver tenders, tenders. As far as x-ray on a dive bell never seen that, I have seen them do visual inspection of welds and hatches and gas systems. I have also seen stupid dive supervisors that should of never been supervisor so what ever we could do to save our own ass we did and didn't give a fuck what they had to say about it.

Now that's a story 'd love to tell

@@waterlinestories Rite! Alternative ending perhaps..🤷🏻‍♂️🤣😝

@@fahhcue850 Its a deep dark hole. So magical. I could see a RU-vid Channel dedicated to alternate endings.

@@waterlinestories That would be a cool idea actually!!

@@fahhcue850 Yeah it would. hm 🤔

Wow. The 80's was like the wild West for sat diving. I'm sure he's got plenty to say.

@@waterlinestories Yeah, his diving supervisor logs made fascinating reading as a child.

🤣 Bedtime stories. Those are the kind of logs I'd love you read. Morbid curiosities

@@waterlinestories wasn't just the diving industry, the whole industry was the same, it was only after Piper Alpha that health and safety was taken seriously, worked for 20+ years in the oil industry and many a head shaken moments experienced.

Would love to hear some of his stories!

Wow. Well done for walking away. What line of work if you don't mind me asking?

I believe you're right. Please tell us your story.

This isn't so much about diving but what you said about walking away. I saw a movie once where a teen was kidnapped by some other teens, the kidnapped didnt know that was the situation he thought he was just partying with some new friends. They go to dig a hole in the desert to deal with his body when they kill him because the kidnappers didnt realize the penalty for kidnapping a minor when they did it. The person whos watching the victim has a change of heart while the others are digging and tries to get the victim to leave with him before the diggers get back. He didn't just come out and say" if we don't leave now you'll die" I think about that scene all the time. It mostly reminds me to listen to the little voice and listen for clues I might be in danger where I am.

@@robert48044 Gotta listen to your gut. So often we want to believe in people but we also want to see how it plays out. We need to know and the only way to know is to stay.

ALWAYS listen to your gut, can't be said enough times. glad you're still here, brother.

Hats off. Life at sea is hard and to stay at it that long is an accomplishment. I don't suppose you know the names of the guys that died from wrong gas mixture? Or the vessel and rough dates? I've been looking for a story about that. I know it's pretty morbid. I'm a diving instructor and the reason I started this channel was to tell stories that in some way educate on how these things work.

I thought being a woman was the most difficult job on the planet

I have a buddy that was in an oil rig fire,on of the rare few that survived massive surface burns on most of his body

A little luck helps too lol

Use the newspapers to do a search or us govt documents from OSHA or ntsb all public records. Library could help.

Interesting

They still are

Rather disgusting how Britain treats the incident as well one man’s family got just under half a million American Dollars the other got under $8000. Not to mention in 2000 the records went “missing”.

Completely agree. My father worked to collate the workplace accidents for the UK OHSA equivalent for the Crown (I guess the US Attorney general office) to prosecute in cases of negligence and more often than not utter disregard for well-established procedure, protocol, common sense and precaution. His work was often brought home and I saw many files of horrific workplace deaths that never made it to the media- like the remains of guys who were unjamming the wood shredders in paper mills without doing the proper full electrical lockout- which other uninformed operators would then power up. So many preventable deaths.

@@zacharyradford5552 cannot agree more.

@TyaxComp who knows what can happen if an over-worked mother distracted by a backseat of toddlers was to have a toy thrown under her brake pedal.

Thanks. It seems like there were lots of loopholes back then that allowed companies to get away with murder. Thanks for watching

I agree calandarpage

I had many friends who I went to school with that went up o the North Slope in Alaska when they started the Alaska pipeline. When I see what has been going on in the oil rig business after the 70's I think guys were just excited to be mAKING SOME GOOD MONEY and they paid with their lives because it was a hands on learning experience job. New regulations made it safer as the years went by......I hope!

Being an ex commercial diver in the oilfields of South East Asia in the eighties I could not agree with you more. The companies considered you as disposables. It was wild for sure. Working offshore for 8 week long stretches and most of us in the mid twenties, it was wild west. Speargun attached to the outside of the bell. Waterskiing between the rigs! Or a bellman leaving the bell after the diver had returned, holding his breath, to clear the diver's umbilical being stucked on the outside of the bell. At 70m depth! Most guys quit after 2-3 yrs, or after their first major incident. But damn, being semi retired now, I still miss those days.

Thanks, I hope so

Thanks. Yes it’s one that sticks with you

Thanks for saying so.

It's equivalent to third world slave laborers dying to make your computer. Computers over people?

The cigarrette and alcohol industries exist.

@@charlesfaure1189not really that’s different people want to buy them but this men didn’t want to do this

Thanks

Right, I guess not surprising. I think this was one where many lessons were learned.

I should have said. It was floated as an idea but dismissed. It was then used as a technique successfully in subsequent rescues. It hasn't been done before so I think they were nervous to try.

So Ive heard. Makes for a one sided arrangement

That's crazy. OHSA must be being paid off.

I cant really comment on this. But I can see there is certainly a big influence from headquarters to keep things moving at the lowest possible cost. There will always be pressure that makes people do stupid things. Day to day, there arent major problems but when you deal with complex and dangerous systems, something is bound to line up to go wrong. As far as I can tell, the contracts are awarded as paid on completion and penalised for lost time. They wont be paid if it doesnt get done and if it gets done late then theres a loss. Thats after the contract was sold to the lowest bidder. Just stacking up against safety.

@@waterlinestories Yes especially with drilling operations, down time costs the contractor a fortune, even taking an hour or 2 a week to keep the equipment correctly maintained is avoided.

@@asc.445 The last rig I worked on, downtime cost the company $17,000 per minute so yeah.. downtime can be a big pressure and cause you to do stupid things.

That’s why the oil/gas industry needs to die..,

@@drew2364 No. It just needs competent personnel.

Thanks. And thanks for watching

I think the North Sea is a rough place to be at the best of times. Taking that into Sat Diving and adding crazy profit driven systems is just an incredible mix of risk.

So true

Your picture is of an SBM, not a SALM. The drop weights could not be released because they were tied off either rope. The bell did not have a stage so the trunking was buried in the seabed. The givers could not have exited the bell even if they wanted to.

And due to mistakes or negligence that arent your fault at all. Im not afraid of dying if the way I die is due to something I did. What I am afraid of is dying because of something someone else did or didnt do, especially if that person is incapable of understanding the gravity of causing someone's death

Thanks for that feedback. Ive wondered if its the right way to go. So often if I do talk about the people its limited info and often I have to infer what I think it is rather than what I can confirm with information on the internet.

@@waterlinestories This is very subjective but I really appreciate the closure that you added to your longer format recent episodes as opposed to some of the earlier 5 minute clips that typically end when the disaster concludes.

Thanks for your thoughts. I prefer the longer format where there is more info. The shorter format ones I tried but there is so little info to go on and almost no info about the people involved which is why they end so abruptly. We live and learn

Thanks

Thanks that’s really great to hear.

More coming next year. I'm away at the moment

These guys are the ones who should be on the million a year salaries. Not the Boards of Directors.

Thanks. I appreciate that

​@@waterlinestories may I ask, do you use much stock footage? I was wondering if you use video footage from the incidents? Thank you for shining a light on these incredible stories. I have always been fascinated by diving & saturation diving but know little about it before I discovered your channel. ✌️

Well thanks for subscribing and watching. I hope you enjoy the channel. Welcome aboard

Amazing, I'd love to pick your brain

Thanks for saying so. I appreciate that

Thanks for joining in

Ye, it used to be a lot like that in Australia and UK. Finally even conservatives got sick of men dying at work and the versions of the US OHSA were put in place. OHSA goes a bit over the top- but compared to the years when Ozzie carpenters would work all summer shirtless then in the retirement years have awful skin cancer- at the coal mine dad was HR manager- there was a 3 strike rule the Unions agreed to if the company provided adequate PPE (Company wrote this off as tax break)- didn't have to be fancy German or Scandinavian this that and the other- merely compliant- (there were boxes of ear-plugs, £1 safety specs- always a few hi-viz vests and hard-hats lying about) if an employee was not with full PPE 3 times- you're sacked. Don't go running to union because they spent a lot of effort and money in arbitration. The worst thing was so many preventable accidents and fatalities.

@@markiobook8639 I know its not the same but I think the whole world has shifted their thinking about safety. When I was old enough to sit in the front seat of the car we didnt wear seat belts. My mom would just shove her arm out and stop me flying through the window if she had to brake suddenly. By the time I go my drivers licence the cops were starting to think about handing out fines for not wearing a seatbelt. Now I cant think of anyone who doesnt strap their kids in properly and wear their own seatbelt. OK I grew up in South Africa so maybe we were behind the curve but Im sure the process is similar the world over.

@@waterlinestories No, you're not behind- it's the same all over. I was in Indonesia a decade- 1995-2005- I saw on the skyscrapers men in flip flops and sunglasses welding (superb welders, bricklayers, tilers, masons etc btw), everyworker in flip flops at most, somtimes bare feet- then progress to workplace signs demanding full PPE in Indonesian and how to register with the safety officer, with mandatory basic first aid (like how to knock an eletrocuted man to safety with brooms, or dress a severe wound), how to fight small fires, hard hats, hi-viz vests, and most important- harnesses for working at heights- it used to be common to have a couple of fatal falls a day putting up skyscrapers. The government just got sick of it all (not that it pays benefits- it just was pssed off at fewer taxpayers). It's a better place all round I think.

Thanks, I try and read everything and respond to as much as I can. Particulary if it's directed my way. Welcome aboard

You would expect, wouldn't you? Sadly idiots and bean counters run the world.

Brilliant. That's made my day. Thanks so much for sharing. I've always been fascinated by stories about the ocean. What's the draw for you guys to boats and water?

Ha ha. Used sparingly and appropriately its a great word.

Geez. Imagine planning for that. Its like having a cyanide pill ready. I wonder if anyone ever used it.

Scary.

This job is for nutjobs

Thanks for watching

Unbelievable. Ive spent time sailing and diving recreationally. I can see how easy it is for things to go wrong in the ocean. Its an industry that should be hypervigilant.

As a decade long commercial Diver I can tell you that there is ALOT MORE dive operations that are well managed and safely done than UNSAFE ones. We have been hypervigilint about safety since I got wet in 2001.... I've been on several unsafe jobs though, the last job I worked as several companies...ad we generally have a 1 strike your out policy for negligent companies..at least I did

That's good to hear. I'm sure everyone wants safe. Safe is relative though and in the ocean things can go wrong.

@@waterlinestories That is good to hear, but the reason why these companies are so safe is because, in the past, people have died. Its never voluntary, its through financial penalties.

I believe that diver was the uncle of an apprentice that served his time with me back in the nineties, absolute tragedy…….

Thanks for watching

I literally thought up the same thing. So the 2 trapped drivers could exit the bell, to as told cut the cords.. But if they could exit, WHY the fuck wouldnt they let the sick divers go up first while the fit divers either waited in the other Bell or just continued working on retrieving it.

Sometimes, was it close calls where a diver came close to dying?

@@kevinmalone3210 no it was more along the lines of getting the calculations wrong because the charts were slightly off. so all the planned decompression stops are off, and then you get bent, and have to spend an incredible amount of time in a decompression chamber. i never seen any one die on my dive trips, but seen some gnarly injuries. got a few myself, but i never got the bendz i still dive, though not as much any more. two trips a year if im lucky

Interesting. That's the impression I get but I've had others divers tell me the blacklists disappear as soon as the companies need divers.

The cigarrette industry actually kills over a million people a year in the USA alone, and continues to sell to children in many parts of the world. Where regulation doesn't prevent them, owners and their executive minions leave a trail of dead behind them.

Ive seen lots of long term divers with little ticks.

@@waterlinestories yep. A lot of soldiers who do BUDS are never quite the same after a service- no matter the force.

Thanks. Welcome aboard

Ah thanks for the detail

It was Hypothermia. If I understand correctly, the last divers to see them said they looked alive but barely. It took around 1- 1.5 hours for the crane to bring them up so they would have been dead for no more than 1.5hrs. If any one of all the things that went wrong, had actually gone right, then they probably would have survived. In one scenario which they decided against, they talked about taking the divers over to the other bell. They decided not to do that. In subsequent rescues they have done that successfully. I think these were still the early wild west days and they just didnt know if that would work.

@@waterlinestories A

I think IF it was in fact hypothermia it was because they got out to cut the clump weights...they might have lasted long enough in their life support bags w/sodasorb...but I bet it was either hypoxia or hypercapnia and liability was cheaper to claim it was hypothermia and not related to breathing gas

@@norml.hugh-mann The Autopsy was conducted by the sheriffs department in Aberdeen Scotland and declared Hypothermia.

Yeah that's probably a big factor. Three thing that was not clear for me. Nobody saw them come out. It was assumed they did because a clump weight was cut but that could also have been severed when they got dragged. I'm not entirely sure. But yeah it's all about extending there timeframes. Sit tight and conserve heat and gas.

RIP

That’s what I’m aiming for

A small comfort.

That sounds about right

It's interesting to hear you say you never thought about the dangers. I guess this is a combination of focus and nothing to compare it to. If there aren't major instances to think about that's one thing but also I imagine those type of work requires a certain mental fortitude and if you spend your time thinking of what can go wrong it would be debilitating and you wouldn't be cut out for the work.

@waterlinestories exactly that. If you thought about it you wouldn't do it. There was a time I was working at 600ft on a wellhead in the North Sea on the Glomar Grand Isle for Ocean Systems when I had my gas ct off. The surface said I has plenty of gas, I managed to get back to the bell over 20mtrs away and with a strength I never knew I had, maybe it was the adrenaline, I managed to push the bell weight out the way and get into the bell, I had breathed out and still had no gas, it still took another minute, although it felt longer, to get my helmet off. What had happened was my umbilical had gotten caught on a 1/4 turn gas valve and turned it off. The bellman had not noticed it. After a few minutes, he stuck my helmet helmet back on and kicked me back out. I finished the job. If he hadn't done that, I might have lost my nerve. After that they changed all the valves to needle valves so it couldn't happen again.

@@nrw34260 I understand- as a doldier we get used to handling grenades that would explode if but the pin was pulled or the guy behind us negligently discharged (one of the most common disciplinary offenses other than AWOL- (funnily enough they go AWOL to negligently discharge in another manner)

I would be bored out of my mind being in SAT for a month.

@@bluewaters3100 we were doing bell runs for up to 14 hours daily when weather permitted. The days not diving were spent counting the cash we were earning. 😁

Very sad. Thanks for saying so

Thanks. In writing on it now

Happy endings are only for dodgy massage parlours.

🫣 yeah it’s nuts.

Damn lucky though. If you hadn't pulled yourself over the side...

Same as me mate.

They would have been taking orders from topside management who would be coordinating. I think management would have been trying to get things done quickly and with the lowest loss of equipment which would have to be replaced at a cost. Im reading between the lines though. Also, no transponder means they might not have found it at the surface. The sea is a big place and the bell would not have floated high out the surface.

Interesting. Were you topside or under water?

Underwater,sat diver for Wharton Williams that changed to Rockwater for 20 yrs

I couldn't agree more

Speed, profits and BONUSES! Rotten system, through and through.

Thanks

That it was

I think they start to use ROV's more in deeper diving but still use men for the shallower stuff thats more accessible. It will be down to a cost tradeoff.

I know what you mean but I think its probably cost prohibitive. I can imagine the cost is in the $millions per annum. Then there are only a handful of sites engaged in an area. So you are probably splitting the cost between only a few companies. These guys are already trying to cut costs where they can. Im not saying its not worth it from my perspective, Im just saying they would never do it.

@@waterlinestories well the costs could probably be made actually profitable if the rescue ships were used for survey and exploratory drilling. Just kit ships in the fleet tgat dont do saturation diving with a bare minimum of gear to engage in rescue missions as a standby role.

Interesting. That's not a bad idea

Well, it could be written off if the rescue team were subcontractors. I'm sure you know, but to clarify for others the general rule is if you pay someone's fees/salary, you can declare that as a cost- or "deduction"- meaning you are not taxed on that amount- and tax bill goes down and earnings up. That's the way big power stations deal with all the myriad specialist jobs (turbine balancing, flu de calcifying, mercury clean-up etc)- because it wouldn't be cost effective to have it all in-house.

Agreed.

It's Even worse, he started in business for years to come.

@@waterlinestories that's so sad... People like this are so awful!

Hope you enjoyed it

Not that I’m aware of. If they needed they would put a doctor in the chamber with a patient and decompress them before getting to a hospital.

I found it when I was researching this. Excellent read. Thanks for sharing

Yes, shows that he missed some stuff in the video, definitely a must read for any diver. Made me realize why we do things the way we do to this day

Gotta have a pad