Squeeze
Another passage from Into the Deep (as quoted in the previous post) by Marx.
Background: The Royal George sank in 1782 and was a nuisance in Spithead, a southern England port, sitting there for 50 years. After the advent of the "standard helmet diving suit" (This was a "closed suit" where a tube with compressed air came in from the surface to the top of a brass helmet that entered and filled the entire canvas-covered leather suit with air. Exhaust air was fully regulated by a valve s0 the amount of air in the suit could be specifically controlled.) removal of the Royal George could finally be done by means demolitionists placing several metal-encased, watertight explosives around the ship that were electronically detonated from the surface. This made the ship turn into manageable pieces for removal from the port. The process took 5 years...
Miraculously, there had been no fatalities among the divers working on the wreck of the Royal George. But there were quite a few accidents. The most serious occurred when a diver's air hose broke and the air instantly rushed out of his helmet. He said afterward that he felt as though he were being crushed by the water. Luckily, those on the surface saw what had happened and pulled him up immediately. His face and neck were swollen, and he was bleeding from the ears, eyes, and mouth. That diver spent several weeks in the hospital. He never dived again.
Nevertheless, the diver was fortunate. He had survived the first recorded case of the "squeeze," a disaster feared more than any other because it's nearly always fatal. The squeeze occurs whenever there is a sudden drop in the air pressure inside a suit and helmet. If it happens in deep water, the enormous pressure pulls the diver's skin off his bones and jams it into his helmet. (Once the flesh of a Japanese diver was not only forced into his helmet but through his air hose as well.) Today the danger has been reduced considerably by installing a safety valve to prevent the diver's air from escaping.
You can kinda feel this if you don't put enough air into your dry suit as you descend.
I can only imagine what that guy's balls felt like.
That's where I remember feeling it the most.
Maybe if the closed system of my dry suit extended to my head I'd feel it pretty intensely there too.
I wonder which would trump the other. . . .
Background: The Royal George sank in 1782 and was a nuisance in Spithead, a southern England port, sitting there for 50 years. After the advent of the "standard helmet diving suit" (This was a "closed suit" where a tube with compressed air came in from the surface to the top of a brass helmet that entered and filled the entire canvas-covered leather suit with air. Exhaust air was fully regulated by a valve s0 the amount of air in the suit could be specifically controlled.) removal of the Royal George could finally be done by means demolitionists placing several metal-encased, watertight explosives around the ship that were electronically detonated from the surface. This made the ship turn into manageable pieces for removal from the port. The process took 5 years...
Miraculously, there had been no fatalities among the divers working on the wreck of the Royal George. But there were quite a few accidents. The most serious occurred when a diver's air hose broke and the air instantly rushed out of his helmet. He said afterward that he felt as though he were being crushed by the water. Luckily, those on the surface saw what had happened and pulled him up immediately. His face and neck were swollen, and he was bleeding from the ears, eyes, and mouth. That diver spent several weeks in the hospital. He never dived again.
Nevertheless, the diver was fortunate. He had survived the first recorded case of the "squeeze," a disaster feared more than any other because it's nearly always fatal. The squeeze occurs whenever there is a sudden drop in the air pressure inside a suit and helmet. If it happens in deep water, the enormous pressure pulls the diver's skin off his bones and jams it into his helmet. (Once the flesh of a Japanese diver was not only forced into his helmet but through his air hose as well.) Today the danger has been reduced considerably by installing a safety valve to prevent the diver's air from escaping.
You can kinda feel this if you don't put enough air into your dry suit as you descend.
I can only imagine what that guy's balls felt like.
That's where I remember feeling it the most.
Maybe if the closed system of my dry suit extended to my head I'd feel it pretty intensely there too.
I wonder which would trump the other. . . .
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