Diver Explains 'Netflix' Last Breath!

Chris lemon's umbilical is severed on a dive at 265 feet in The Frigid Waters of the North Sea and he survives for almost 40 minutes without breathing gas or hot water because of two competing forces [Music] on the 18th of September 2012 Chris lemons is working in the North Sea on the diving support vessel the BB topaz he's diving with his colleague Dave Wassa and Bellman Duncan allcock the mission for the day is to pressure test an oil pipe and they're working on a drilling template a template is an underwater structure constructed from drilling pipe and set up as a temporary structure in advance of the permanent drilling platform as saturation divers Chris Dave and Duncan are under pressure for a period of 28 days at a time they live in a saturation habitat on the dive support vessel they then descend to their work depth of around 265 feet tall a six hour work shift the diet Bell and habitats are kept at the same pressure as the working depth which means the divers don't need to decompress after each work shift which would take days to complete instead they decompress at the end of their 28 day working tour the dive build descends to around 250 feet this is slightly higher than the highest points of the template it's a depth that gets the divers close enough to the templates while the Bell remains out of the way and above the structure so there's no risk it could collide with the structure Chris and Dave Don their dive helmets which are connected to the Bell by an umbilical cord they're breathing a gas mixture called heliox helium and oxygen saturation divers typically work with oxygen at a partial pressure that's about twice as rich as the air we normally breed when we're sitting on the beach the air you and I breed has around 20 oxygen which is not exact but for Simplicity let's stick with 20 they replace nitrogen with helium because helium is not as dense as nitrogen in the air we typically breathe this helps to alleviate effects of nitrogen Narcosis which divers would feel like drinking martinis the deeper they go but it's got two side effects it raises the pitch of their voice because the sound waves travel faster through the thinner gas conducts heat away from their body through their breathing faster than we experience breathing nitrogen at the surface the umbilical supplies breathing gas two-way communication and hot water to prevent them becoming hypothermic working in the near freezing water temperature which is around 38 degrees Fahrenheit or 3 degrees Celsius the hot water also warms the helium before they breathe it which helps to alleviate the rapid cooling effects of breathing helium at these depths for today's dive the umbilical is around 50 meters long or 165 feet Chris and Dave reach the templates evaluate the work sites as they always do locate the pipe their pressure testing and begin their work the divers are joined remotely by ROV Pilot John Burgess in the Bell Bellman Duncan Alcock monitors the diver's supply lines the dive support vessel Bibi topaz is under the control of chief officer Eric strand in order to survive at such extreme depths these divers are breathing a mixture that's got less oxygen let me explain technically this has less to do with the percentage of oxygen and more to do with the way pressure affects oxygen at depth at sea level the partial pressure of oxygen in the air is 0.2 this comes from one atmosphere of pressure is equal to 0.2 partial pressure of Oxygen Plus 0.8 partial pressure of nitrogen at their depth of 80 meters or 265 feet the atmospheric pressure is nine atmospheres and that is made up of 1.8 partial pressure of Oxygen Plus 7.2 partial pressure of helium the 0.2 partial pressure of oxygen multiplied by the nine atmospheres that level of oxygen would be toxic and kill you so they reduce the percentage of oxygen to around 4.5 percent then at nine times the pressure the partial pressure of oxygen is around 0.4 which is 2 twice as rich as the oxygen in the air we normally breathe so even though the percentage of oxygen is lower than normal air the effect it has on the body is greatly increased on the bridge or the command center of the BB topaz chief officer Eric strand notifies dive supervisor Craig Frederick that the DPS is intermittently losing signal to enable the dive crew and a remote operated vehicle or ROV to work at a depth of 265 feet below the ship the ship needs to maintain its position with extreme accuracy the ship uses a positioning system called a DPS or dynamic positioning system the DPS is constantly monitoring a number of points of reference data everything from GPS satellite data to the depth of the ocean floor the ocean currents wind speed even the position relative to sensors located on the ocean floor the DPS makes constant adjustments to hold the position of the ship in a way that a person would never be able to maintain for very long it's common for a positioning system to lose some points of reference and rely on fewer points while it re-establishes connection to the larger data set the GPS in your phone can lock a position with as few as four satellites but often has signal from as many as 20 satellites the higher the number of reference points the more accurate the position the bridge uses a three-color traffic light system to communicate with the dive supervisor green means go Amber means be aware of a possible problem and red means abort right now the warning is Amber that's not alarming for the dive supervisor or the divers and Amber Alerts is common but now it's followed up by a call from the bridge there's a problem that goes beyond losing some reference points the dive supervisor orders the divers back into the Bell Chris and Dave in the water can sense the urgency from Craig's tone he's telling them to leave everything and get back to the stage the dive Bell is referred to as the stage because it acts as a staging platform for the divers to work from just in the amber light switches to red and almost immediately Duncan in the Bell can feel the Bell list or tilt slacking the ship's lost its position and is starting to drift Dave and Chris have to get back to the Bell but they're on the side of the templates and so they have to climb the template first the template is an 11 meter or 36 foot tall stretcher Dave is the first to the roof followed by Chris as Chris gets up onto the roof he notices his umbilical his trail behind him and is looped around a metal post Dave can see that Chris's umbilical is starting to straighten out and become taught Chris turns to unloop the umbilical the ship is drifting quickly off course and he can't manage to unhook the umbilical before it tightens onto the strike culture he's fighting as quickly as he can but now the umbilical is pulling him into the structure Dave is trying to help Chris but he's been dragged Away by the Bell and can't reach him inside the Bell Duncan is trying to remain calm he's feared as much of the umbilical as he can to Chris but the umbilical is now bending the umbilical rack that it coils around during storage the umbilical is now pulling the Bell which is causing it to list even further if you hold a glass upside down underwater and then turn it slowly there's a point where it no longer holds the air bubble and as it tips further the water rushes in and pushes the air out the Bell is becoming dangerously close to flooding Chris's umbilical is now stretching under the tension the gas supply is pinched and Chris loses breathing gas he turns on the gas supply from his bailout bottle which is the equivalent of a scuba diver's tank on his back the regulations allow for an amount of gas relative to the length of the umbilical one minutes of gas per 10 10 meters of umbilical the umbilical is 50 meters long and so he has around 5 minutes of breathing gas in the tank the umbilical continues to tighten and then like a gunshots it snaps Dave is pulled off the structure the tether holding the Bell and the ship to the structure is no longer there and so the ship drifts quickly away Chris falls back off the template to the sea floor in complete darkness he no longer has a gas supply power for his head lamp or hot water to circulate through his suit now Chris has a choice to make if he stays on the sea floor he's not sure if Dave will reach him he fairly certain the dive Bell won't be able to get down to the sea floor without a major risk of getting snagged on the templates even if Dave can get to him on the sea floor he's pretty sure it'll be too difficult for Dave to carry him up to the structure and then back into the Bell so his best chance of survival is to get up onto the roof of the structure but in order to do that he'll have to climb the structure that's going to cost him energy and energy means breathing gas as soon as he starts to climb he's speeding up his own demise he has to make a quick decision if he waits too long he might run out of gas before he can get to the top of the templates and then it's all for nothing he knows he's got to get back on the structure but in complete darkness he doesn't know which way it is luckily he hits it in the first Direction he tries he slowly climbs the side and when he gets to the top he sits down on the structure and waits at first he waits for the ship then he waits for his breathing gas to run out then he waits for the cold to numb his senses without the hot water from the umbilical to warm his body and to preheat the helium in his breathing gas his body rapidly cools the carbon dioxide that he's breathing out is filling his helmet as the gas in his bailout bottle runs out it becomes harder to breathe eventually he loses consciousness Dave Wassa is now being dragged behind the dive Bell he pulls himself back to the Bell one hand over the next along the umbilical while he fights the water currents he makes it back to the bell and slumps over exhausted he and Duncan now have to wait for the ship to stop drifting and return to the drill templates on the bridge of the ship chief officer Eric strands and his team are working to restart this Dynamic positioning system after three attempts they realize they're fighting a losing battle and so they take manual control of the ship they turn and make their way back to the template as they approach the location they send the ROV to scout the area and locate Chris's body almost 30 minutes has passed and so they have it in the back of their mind that this is the body recovery the ROV Pilot John Burgess scans the site and locates Chris on top of the structure to surprise and relief Chris's body still shows signs of Life the dark support crew can tell from the video feed that Chris is unconscious because he doesn't respond to any of the light from the ROV his body is twitching and his muscles are tensing which is a central nervous system responds to the buildup of carbon dioxide they can also tell that cold water has entered his suit because they can see the water line inside his helmet all they can do now is wait for the ship and the bell to catch up they watch Chris's body rather than twitch until even those movements slow chief officer Eric strands and his team are maneuvering the vessel as best they can without the dynamic positioning system once they're in position they hold the ship steady using a joystick to constantly correct the movement of the ship which is being pushed by water currents and wind then dive supervisor Craig Frederick orders the belts below to within a few meters of the templates ordinarily this would be too dangerous but they need to give Dave in the water and Duncan in the Bell the best chance possible to recover Chris who's now a dead weight that has to be carried up into the bow the dive team and the bridge watch on their monitor as the ROV tracks Dave's progress first Dave connects a gas supply to Chris's helmet then he connects a rescue lanyard to his harness Dave scans Chris's severed umbilical to make sure it's not still wedged in the templates Duncan takes up the slack from Dave's umbilical and Dave hoists himself and Chris up pulling his way along the umbilical Dave struggles to get Chris's body over the grate at the bottom of the belt once he clears the great he attaches the diver recovery hoist and Duncan winches Chris up into the trunking of the belt the trunking is the short tunnel leading up into the bell with Chris halfway up the trunking and his head in the Bell Duncan removes his helmet Chris is bright blue from lack of oxygen Duncan gives him two rescue breaths and breeds a sigh of relief because Chris starts to breathe on his own almost immediately both Dave and Duncan are surprised that Chris regains some composure as quickly as he does he climbs up into the Bell himself takes his normal seats Duncan plugs a warm water supply into Chris's suit so they can warm him up Dave joins them they seal the bell and Ascend to the ship I don't believe it'll ever be precisely clear how Chris survived so long without oxygen but there are two possible Clues while not common there are recorded cases of people who submerge into cold water and go into a form of hibernation where circulation in the body slows this means the body uses less oxygen Chris was in near freezing water and the helium in his breathing Supply helped to cool his body temperature even more rapidly the other contributing factor is that his breathing gas has a higher partial pressure of oxygen than we normally breathe at the surface these two competing forces the coal temperature which slows his circulation enough that he needs less oxygen coupled with the breathing gas that's richer in oxygen extended his survival time to almost 40 minutes at the bottom of the North Sea [Music]

Channel: Waterline Stories

Views: 1,401,671

Keywords: scuba diving, scuba diving accidents, decompression sickness, accidents, commercial diving, saturation diving, sailing, freediving, Chris Lemons, Chris Lemons Diver, Last Breath, Netflix, Last Breath Movie, Last Breath Netflix

Id: 39AmZbgDgH8

Length: 14min 34sec (874 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 19 2022