November 5th 1983 saw an "incident" at the North Sea oil rig Byford Dolphin the resulted in 5 men losing their lives.
I was debating whether this falls under my "Scottish" remit as such, but two of the divers were british, and the North Sea is by and large part of our territories, as well as Scandinavia, who also drill out there. The manner of their deaths is quite gruesome
The Byford Dolphin Decompression Incident was The worst diving accident In History, well until the Titan submersible implosion last year equalled the death toll.
On a normal day at work, two divers climbed into the rig’s diving bell, a transportation chamber to take them down to depth before heading down to the chamber system far below the surface. At first, all seemed to go well, with the divers taking turns resting and heading out to work on the rig.
During their time underwater, however, two divers were resting in their decompression chamber while another two divers made their way to the chambers in the diving bell. Everything was going as planned as the two tenders—the “drivers”—secured the bell to the chambers. The two divers on board would soon proceed to their own compression chamber. However, as the tenders were preparing to depart, they failed to seal off the diving bell properly from the chambers before beginning their ascent.
What ensued was that the chambers were suddenly decompressed from nine atmospheres to one atmosphere, and the air rushed out of the chambers. Tragically, three of the divers inside the chambers at the time were killed in a horrible way—through explosive decompression. Essentially, the nitrogen bubbles in their blood expanded, causing them to boil from the inside out. The fourth was sucked out of a very narrow opening, ejecting his internal organs, spraying the deck with gory torrent.One of the divers in the bell was also killed in the accident The only consolation is that their demise would have ben mercifully fast.
The North Sea Divers Alliance, formed by early North Sea divers and the relatives of those killed, continued to press for further investigation and,it wasn't until February 2008 that they obtained a report that indicated the cause was faulty equipment. The families of the divers eventually received compensation for the damages from the Norwegian government, 26 years after the incident.
The rig was the site of several serious incidents, and was only decommisioned in 2019, the pic shows the rig at Invergordon.
