not as dangerous as the article says. at least not the diving part. most of the injuries are people mishandling high-pressure systems (valves, plumbing), electrical hazards (water+electricity), gas leaks, burns ... basically anything that can go wrong on construction sites, but only you're out at sea exposed to the elements. those few times that accidents do happen with divers in a saturation chambers / diving bell (aka "in the bin") it's cited for decades. people are naturally scared of darkness, deep water. so when accidents do happen it makes for a gripping story told over and over. how else to pass time when you're waiting on the weather to get better on a rocky boat.
what's pretty cool is the survival training, e.g. practice escaping from a sinking helicopter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0Z8sGRje90 I have seen big tough man in their 40ies panic and in tears trying to stay calm while the sinking helicopter fully floods, and you can't open the doors until the cabin is fully flooded.
Another good one: part of the course is simulation of a burning rig. they lock you into a warehouse heated to around 60-70°C breathing air with a gas-mask, full body safety clothes (the heat alone can make you panic), then you have to navigate through a metal maze with a buddy (you're linked to your sobbing partner over radio-comms), and it's pitch black. You are only allowed to get out together and if one of you it bucks up you start over. Fantastic character building and understanding your mental limits.
Sometimes I sit in front of my code thinking why did I get out of this job. I fought so hard to get there and gave it all up for computers & code. The truth is that most of the time offshore life is quite boring. Guess my boredom with software made me go into IoT since I get to mess with physical systems again.
He is 3 on, 2 off or 2 on, 3 off the rig. While I’m back in the office he can continue to sail indefinitely. You can accomplish so much with a job that gives you plenty of time off every month.
It depends on you benchmark, but people think of police officer as a dangerous job and they mostly die in car accidents.
Sounds... dangerous.
> [...] Hellevik, being exposed to the highest pressure gradient and in the process of moving to secure the inner door, was forced through the 60 centimetres (24 in) diameter opening created by the jammed interior trunk door by escaping air and violently dismembered, including bisection of his thoracoabdominal cavity, which further resulted in expulsion of all of the internal organs of his chest and abdomen, except the trachea and a section of small intestine, and of the thoracic spine. These were projected some distance, one section later being found 10 metres (30 ft) vertically above the exterior pressure door.
If someone mentions pressurized gas or liquid, someone will say pressurized gas is dangerous (duh, but it depends on the pressure and the volume), someone else linking the Wikipedia page on the Byford Dolphin accident, and/or someone will link a training video on pressure differential and/or someone will like a web-page on hydraulic injection and then it devolving into virtue signaling about safety around high pressure things.
(Former professional diver but I never did North Sea etc)
I was surprised on looking into it more that we're really just winging it algorithmically + safety margins, based on research done in the 60s. The empirical research basically consisted of the Navy et al. throwing people in at depth, and seeing what got them "bent".
Everybody's physiology is different though, and there are a large number of factors over-and-above that which affect whether you'll suffer Decompress Sickness (DCS).
Whilst there have been some iterations on Bühlmann[3] such as VPM-B[4] (which is based on bubble diameter vs. tissue compartment loading), the field is still lacking IMHO.
Not really through any fault of their own, it's just very difficult/expensive to peer into the body whilst they're down there to see what's going on, and it seems we'd need a large sample size due to individual physiology playing a part. Still, the algos seem to work... most of the time. Just don't drink too much alcohol, sleep well, hydrate. And do your stops! :)
Interestingly, saturation divers / Navy generally don't use a computer as the divemaster singularly plans the dives for the group with massive safety margins. As they're already saturated, they're generally not doing stops "outside" in the wet anyway. If they do have a computer, it will even have the tables/algos removed from it.
[1] https://heinrichsweikamp.com/
[2] https://bitbucket.org/heinrichsweikamp/ostc4/wiki/Home
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BChlmann_decompression_al...
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dive_computer#Algorithms
Edit: Formatting
So...it's a pretty good living, but it's not a good life unless you just really love diving. But, even then, I can't imagine this is the fun kind of diving. Then again, as with most high dollar specialist industries, someone ambitious could probably work in it for a few years and then start a company and become management/sales/support for a team of lower ranking folks who do the hard work of actually diving. That's common in a lot of jobs that are hard on your body, like construction.
My personal opinion is that if you’re going to make statements like this you should back them up.
As a counter example, being a police officer would I imagine not be considered the safest of jobs. But 30% of police officers in the UK are women, and the number is steadily rising:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/police-workforce-...
It also included being compressed in the "pot" down to 50m and getting narked to hell. Any UK bods fancy trying the experience lookup "York Diver Training".
