The Story Of Martin Saunders, Survivor Of The Byford Dolphin Accident 

Freaking greedy oil companies. Those poor families, being thrown into poverty without having done anything to deserve it. Like so often...

This is why I never loyal to any job. They don't gives a fuck about you.

Poor man. He seems like such a nice guy who only wanted to earn money to support his family, and the government hung him out to dry after this horrific disaster. Never mind the trauma he must have mentally endured and the grief for his dead colleagues, but the intense physical pain, too... so tragic, and like he says, avoidable if they hadn't been made to work to the point of exhausted incompetence.

Rest in peace. Working 14-18 hours in such extreme conditions, pressure, with little sleep , is not easy. Company is here to blame. They didn't prepare enough safety standards for their employee, that do hardest work. They were even under stress, as waves and storm were approaching and already hiting the platform. The human mistake is here expectable. To not making pressurized chamber safe way, and count, human error cannot occur under such conditions, is sin.

Just the fact that this diver even survived this was a miracle in itself... God Bless you Martin....

So horrible they didn't give him compensation straight away for having such a dangerous job. If robots are to ever take over employment, this would be a good candidate.

I’m not surprised these men were overworked and exhausted……on oil rigs you’re worked like a dog. My hubby has been in that industry for almost 20 years flying helicopter and doing medevac and he has some awful stories of men being gravely injured on the rigs. The worst one he saw was when a young man had his leg ripped off and the following day the young man’s supervisor committed suicide because he felt responsible for the accident. It’s sad that money trumps human health in the oil industry 😢

I can only imagine the survivor's guilt he felt. Couple that with not getting compensation for so long, lesser men wouldn't be able to handle it.

If he’s still alive he’s now about 71 years old. If he stumbles upon this video, I wish him well and hope he got better physically and mentally. Byford Dolphin is probably the most horrific accident I’ve ever heard. I also hope the family of others team members, especially Truls Hellevik, were able to find some closure.

Another industrial accident that happened because of pure greed and carelessness of the people in charge. And again its the innocent hard workers that paid the price. Poor men

It was proven later it was not human error but mechanical failure and families were compensated

Reminds me of the my military life. Do as you are told no matter how tired you are or face the consequences. I’m sick and tired of working for somebody. Would like to work for myself someday.

they failed them I hope the family gets every damn dime

Everyone makes mistakes, especially under such pressure. My part time job is at campbells snacks, which makes goldfishes. Ive worked there for a while and me and a coworker usually run production. The full time coworker was sick one day so it was just me and I forgot a step or two and put the goldfish stamper on incorrectly. Because of this it wasnt functional and only imprinted out 1/5 of what it should. I was so caught up in other things I didnt notice until an hour later when the person down stream from production and the ovens started to notice large uncut dough and hit the e-stop. They came up to me and saw what happened and it escalated to engineers. To managers. It was so embarrassing. I felt dumb and awful. It was an hour of production and effort wasted. The manager fixed the stamper and set someone up with me and brushed it off. I felt bad for days. And it was just wasted product. No one got hurt. It wasnt shipped to customers. Mistakes are unavoidable. I cant imagine a mistake that kills others. Just awful. I hope all heals.

The music is f----g awesome. Suits perfect for this horrific story.

Scary enough to think that if they would simply choose to work in a mcdonalds for minimum wage they and their families could have ended up much better.

If the door didn't have that weird mechanism they would likely have all survived

One of the most shocking and heinously corrupt stories I have ever heard...I don't know if how these men died is more shocking or how their families would have starved to death if it weren't for others around them who were just as bad off....our government has a helluva alot more to answer for then we will ever know...rest in peace and many blessings to all those who were left behind 😔

How terrible companies do not have humanity!

Dr. Raugstad must be one hell of a doc to piece a man together from something like this. I'm sure he's had a bit of reconstructive plastic surgery down the line, but you look at Saunders in the pictures here without the context, and you would never guess he had been in a catastrophic decompression accident where the other guys all exploded, it's impressive that he could eventually stand and walk again. Great medicinal work from the doctor, and great resilience and dedication from the patient.

Amazing vid… I always wondered what happened to him.

What is the voiceover near the end that says "killing neighborhood dogs and cats and cutting off their heads and paws" about?!!!!!!!

If bill crammond survived, he would feel very guilty for the reason his colleagues got killed. But he had no idea due to exhaustion, winds being louder than orders, and waves

do you have a link to the article online at all? i've never seen that photo of truls hellevik alive

Sad, grisly story

I had no idea someone survived that gruesome incident.

and so the Titan sub incident brings me here

less than 8 hours to rest. worse still, their job is safety critical. I read some write something like "do not work with heavy machinery after discussing with your wife, else will be you last day". All they had to do for a fatal accident was being in a bad mood not doing things with the proper temperament, someone forgetting something, a lapse of judgement, being too tired to do it properly, being too slow to notice something, or just falling sleep "at the wheel". All things lack of a good rest causes. They were asked to not fail, else someone lose their job or dies, while being setup for complete failure.

Doing great! Good luck!

thanks for this video. do you know how they got him from the 100 m deph to the helicopter? and how long it took from the accident to be on the helicopter? i mean cuz of the decompression, they just couldnt lift him in 10 minutes to the top. and did they fly another decompression chamber + team to get them out or they had a emergency team + chamber allready on board? thank you

Hello Antarath, thank you for the interesting video. What is the source of this information? Did Martin Saunders do an interview? Please share! Thanks again.

The fact that they cheaped out on safety equipment and left Martin Saunders to rot... and the government waited 26 years and all that negative shit... Working 14-18 hours in such crammed spaces even. This makes me furious.

I wish i had more time to read the script, at least 30 seconds more📖

3:06 😢

Damn when he talked about how they grew up in poverty and he had to beg his parents for money. I thought they deep sea oil divers made a lot of money? I cannot believe that company didn’t pay the families. This wouldn’t have happened if it was in the US.

I guess I always assume people who survive things like this, including the surviving relations, live in as much comfort as mere wealth can provide. That they should be allowed by anyone of us to live in ongoing poverty shames me deeply, but I’m not less lost for what to do about it than I ever was. I do pray for them, and I know it’s God who sustains us all and takes our lives whenever He does, so it’s not nothing to pray for someone. He’s also the only one who can help with that which wealth won’t matter to, so I think it’s good that some of us are still standing that watch for them. 🙏🏻

Wait- he never sued the owners of that Rig😮😮😞😞😞

i dont understand , i thought i had read they made good $$ because of the danger, so how come theres no $?$ PLUS A LAWSUIT HERE???

26 years to wait for any kind of relief is absurd. I guess it's profits over people.

so far who is still alive?

What's... what's with the commentary about gas chambers and murder of dogs in the background music...?

Is Martin still alive?

Todo esta en otro idioma no entiendo nada :(

assuming stuff is closed without asking in that type of environment? you triple check or more.. everyones life is at risk.. hindsight is 20/20 .. Trust but verify period.. nomatter how long

So basically the company couldn't/didn't help the families because that could be viewed as tacit admission-of-fault Goooood stuff. There's nothing wrong

I thought no one survived it all the cases said everyone died

Honestly Saunders seems a little too protective of Crammond. They knew the obvious dangers, making the need for caution everyone's responsibility. If there was noise making things unclear, then that would be a sign to stop and reconsider. The decision to not implement the new upgraded security measures is both the company's and the Norwegian government's fault. However, that doesn't excuse the clear error in judgement that happened. Maybe a lack of training could be an excuse if they didn't know the dangers. However, they clearly were aware and Saunders seems to assume way too much about Crammond here. A wrong signal from a supervisor or from Hellevik would be a better way to excuse him. Still a sad accident and shows the need to always have enough security systems to make human error having minimal consequences. Companies should also definitely be fined much harsher, so that security measures are always prioritized. So many workplace accidents using older equipment or trying to save money.