Diver’s organs ‘expelled from his body’ in ‘most gruesome death of all time’ | UK | News

In a harrowing tale, a catastrophic error beneath the ocean’s surface resulted in what have been described as some of the ‘most horrific deaths’ in history, claiming the lives of five of the six people involved.

The horrific incident occurred on a semi-submersible oil rig where divers were tasked with completing a deep-sea diving operation.

Although the platform looks ordinary, it was tragically the site of numerous accidents involving the workforce throughout its years of service.

Such a terrible accident occurred on the drilling rig in 1983.

The terrible tragedy of 1983

Byford Dolphin, a semi-submersible oil rig, has operated in the British, Norwegian and Danish sectors in the North Sea, carrying out seasonal drilling for different companies.

In November 1983, a team of two British and two Norwegian divers (Roy P Lucas, 38, Edwin Arthur Coward, 35, Truls Hellevik, 34, and Bjørn Giaever Bergersen, 29) and the dive boats William Crammond (32) and Martin Saunders (30) were deployed on the drilling platform to conduct a deep-sea diving operation.

At the time of the incident, all six men were fulfilling their responsibilities underwater, performing routine maintenance on the drilling platform at a remarkable depth of 295 feet.

The team was kept in special pressure chambers for the planned 28-day period in order to complete their work safely and prevent excessive nitrogen build-up in their bloodstreams.

Inside these chambers, divers would breathe a precisely calibrated mixture of gases, usually oxygen and helium, modified according to the depth of their dive.

The team used a technique called ‘saturation diving’, which allowed them to stay at significant depths below the surface for long periods of time.

This approach was used to ensure that crews could avoid decompression sickness, often referred to as ‘the bend’, when they surfaced.

The men used a diving bell, a specialized transport vessel, to travel safely between their living quarters and underwater work areas.

On November 5, 1983, divers Hellevik and Bergersen were completing a 12-hour shift with the assistance of dive boats Saunders and Crammond. They would return to their sleeping quarters using the diving bell.

For the diving bell to operate safely, it was vital that the crew ensured that the transport vessel was sealed and properly reattached before returning to the high-pressure sleeping chambers. This procedure was necessary to prevent rapid decompression of the body, which could be fatal.

Once inside, divers had to close the door and adjust the pressure in the sleeping chambers to create an airtight seal. This action will then isolate the chamber and connect it to the diving bell, which will gradually reduce the pressure for the safety of the divers.

However, on that fateful day, the pressure in interior crew rooms 1 and 2 (typically pressurized to nine atmospheres) dropped to one atmosphere in a split second.

This was because one of the external divers made a human error and released the dive bell before full pressure release occurred.

This mistake caused the clamp that sealed the chambers to open before Hellevik closed the chamber’s door completely.

As a result, the pressure in the sleeping chamber suddenly shifted from the pressure felt 295 feet underwater to surface air pressure, the Mirror reported.

Coward and Lucas were reportedly resting in room 2 under 9 atmospheres of pressure when the devastating incident occurred.

The sudden, powerful flow of air escaping from the chamber caused the diving bell to be pushed forcefully, striking Crammond and killing him outright.

The three divers in their sleeping chambers are thought to have died instantly as the nitrogen in their blood turned into bubbles, boiling them from the inside and shattering their bodies into countless pieces.

Hellevik, who was closest to the partially closed room door, was pulled into a narrow 60-centimeter opening, causing his organs to be expelled from his body.

The autopsy report stated: “The scalp with long, blond hair was present, but the upper part of the skull and the brain were missing. However, the soft tissues of the face were found completely separated from the bones.”

The abdominal and thoracic organs were thrown out.

Hellevik’s remains were reportedly transferred to four separate bags taken from different areas of the drilling platform for autopsy. It was reported that traces of trauma were seen in every part of his body inside the bone and tissue bags.

Saunders, the sole survivor of the catastrophic event, suffered serious injuries including a punctured lung, a fractured spine and a broken neck.

The fatal incident was also caused by engineering shortcomings. The Byford Dolphin oil rig operated an outdated diving system from 1975 that lacked fail-safe covers, external pressure gauges or locking mechanism.

This vital feature would prevent the divers’ sleeping chambers from being opened while the system was pressurized. Despite these deficiencies, the Byford Dolphin oil rig remained operational with modifications and transfer of ownership until it was decommissioned in 2019.

It was later sold for scrap in the 2020s.