THE MOST BRUTAL PAINLESS DEATH IN HISTORY: The byford dolphin incident

On the bitterly cold night of Nvember 8, 1983, three corpses were wheeled into the Department of Forensic Science Morgue at the University of Bergen in Norway. Despite being dead for only three days, the bodies were already in a terrible state, but they were nothing compared to the horrors to come. The bodies - referred to in the autopsy report as numbers one to three - had all perished in a fraction of a second, but they bore the marks of unimaginable stress. According to the report, the state of rigor mortis was unusually strong for the amount of time they’d been dead. Blood had accumulated in the lower parts of their organs, and there was evidence of severe hemorrhaging in the major blood vessels as livor mortis also set in. Their lungs were dripping with edematous fluids, and every organ showed severe tissue damage as a result of gas buildups in their blood vessels. Their livers were enlarged, their stomachs had undergone the kind of damage you typically only see in advanced putrefaction. Their hearts were all in ruins - With destroyed blood vessels full of free-floating fat that had boiled under pressure, described by the doctors performing the autopsy as, quote, “like sizzling butter on a frying pan.” This same sizzling fat was found in other organs, too. Their brains and spinal cords weren’t in any better state. The autopsies revealed that the brain matter for each body was unusually pale, their blood vessels filled with more gasses and fats that had no business at all being there. Cysts had also arisen in multiple areas of the brain and spine. Some of their bones bore evidence of microscopic necrosis. In short, they were deader than dead. But then there was number 4. Where the first three bodies, in accordance with standard morgue procedure, were brought in on metal gurneys, number 4 was brought into the laboratory in four large plastic bags. When those bags were laid out on the dissection slab, the result wasn’t a human as you might recognize it - but an incomplete jigsaw puzzle that may have once been a human. Even for these seasoned doctors, each who had performed countless autopsies in their days, there was something deeply unsettling about the chaos laid out on the table in front of them. Perhaps most of all, it was number 4’s severed face - the soft tissue laying against the table like a Halloween mask, staring up eyelessly, skin torn and ruddy, bloated lips locked into a final grimace of confusion - that sent chills down the doctors’ spines. It was a parade of horrors. What had happened here? Who were these men, and what could possibly have been responsible for their deaths? A wild animal? The world’s most vicious and disturbed serial killer? The answer is almost more shocking than the question: This was all just the result of a mistake. A mistake that resulted in .12 seconds of what may have been one of the most brutal deaths in history. This is the story of the Byford Dolphin incident. From 1974 to 2019, the Byford Dolphin offshore drilling rig was operated out of the North Sea by Dolphin Drillings Holding Limited, performing drilling missions for a variety of different energy companies in the Norwegian, Danish, and British territories of the sea. It bore a 102-man crew, and was designed as a Deep Sea Driller in the Aker H-3 series of rigs - and like most offshore oil rigs, it was an extremely dangerous place to work. During its years of operation, the semi-submersible platform saw numerous deadly occurrences. In 1976, only two years after the facility was first christened, the rig ran aground in the North Sea on the way to Bergen, and six people died when falling from boats during the evacuation process. Decades later, in 2002, during an industrial accident, a 44-year-old Norwegian worker on the rig was struck on the head with a piece of equipment and killed. This raised questions once again about the lax safety regulations on the Byford Dolphin, leading to the voiding of its contract with state-owned Norwegian energy giant Equinor ASA, leading to the campaign losing millions in the process. But none of these incidents are more infamous than the Diving Bell incident of 1983, and it’s that incident - and its grisly, possibly corrupt aftermath - that we’ll be exploring in depth today. The use of diving bells in order to transport workers safely from the surface to submerged high-pressure environments and back makes the vessels essential to many of the functions of a rig. The bell is designed to descend from the surface to the target depth at a set rate, which allows the occupants time to adjust to the changes in pressure. For each atmosphere - which is the standard unit of measurement for air pressure - the occupants experience an additional amount of pressure equal to the average amount present at sea level during baseline climate conditions. At hundreds of feet below the surface of the ocean, the pressure reaches the level of 9 atmospheres - which are the conditions that the saturation divers on the Byford dolphin were working at when the November 5th incident occurred. The four divers whose grisly remains we described in the opening weren’t just any divers - They were saturation divers. First introduced by the US Navy in their 1960s Sealab Program, this is one of the most grueling jobs in the world, the kind of position that would be most people’s idea of Hell, but these literal high-pressure specialists are rewarded handsomely for their risky work. These days, saturation divers can make as much as $30,000 to $45,000 per month - if you’re willing to spend up to 28 solid days up to 1000 feet beneath the waves. So, how does saturation diving work, and how did following an incorrect procedure end up causing four dead divers and one dead dive tender? As we alluded to earlier, when divers reach the level of pressure you experience nine atmospheres beneath the surface, nitrogen starts to dissolve into the bloodstream and soft tissues. Without the proper exit procedures, this could result in decompression sickness and barotrauma - more on that later. In saturation diving, compared to normal scuba diving, equipment is used to have divers intentionally reach a point of saturation with the inert gases in their blood and tissue, at which point, they’ll be able to dive for extended periods before coming back up and undergoing a safe decompression process. Saturation divers are confined in a highly pressured called a “Diving Bell,” and they need to stay inside this diving bell for one day per 100 feet they descend into the depths. If you’re already feeling claustrophobic at hearing that, you probably aren’t cut out for this. It’s a job that takes extreme patience, as the divers allow the nitrogen levels in their body to reach a point of saturation. They’re made to breathe a gas concoction of helium and oxygen in most cases, which has the bizarre side effect of giving the saturation divers cartoonish high-pitched voices for weeks - referred to by some in the industry as a “Donald Duck Voice.” When the process is complete, they’re ready for a long stay underneath the waves to do whatever their employers wish - in this case, operate and maintain the rig’s drilling equipment. That is, of course, if everything goes well - if it doesn’t, there are a bevy of potential horrible consequences for the saturation divers to look forward to: Decompression sickness, high-pressure nervous syndrome, compression arthralgia, asceptic bone necrosis, and if you’re truly unlucky, the exact scenario we’re about to describe. While descending to the depths as a saturation diver can be hazardous, coming back up can be just as deadly - especially when your equipment lets you down. As a saturation diver, you’ll typically spend the last week of your mission in a hyperbaric chamber - meaning a chamber where a high-pressure environment is artificially created - in order to slowly and safely depressurize. Whether this goes well, all comes down to the Dive Tenders, the technicians who operate the “umbilical cord” between the rig and the diving bell. This is a series of bound tubes that regulate communication and also the gas flow and pressure inside the diving bell, and if things go wrong with the umbilical, things get real bad, real fast. That’s why it’s so vital for Tenders to know what they’re doing, and be in control of the situation at all times. During the Byford Dolphin Incident, the lead Dive Tender was an experienced man by the name of William Crammond, working with another Dive Tender, Martin Saunders. Their job was to disconnect a diving bell safely after two divers exited it through a trunk to join two other divers in a pair of hyperbaric depressurization chambers. The divers were Edwin Arthur Coward, Roy P. Lucas, Bjørn Giæver Bergersen, and Truls Hellevik. In Chamber One at 4 AM, Coward and Lucas were resting at an induced pressure of nine atmospheres. Bergersen and Hellevik were entering the second chamber via the diving bell, separated from the two chambers - and a third chamber that wasn’t in use - by a clamp that was being operated by the Dive Tenders, Crammond and Saunders. There’s a standard procedure for operations like this, and here is how it should have gone. The diving bell door, which would have been opened to the trunk connecting it to the hyperbaric chambers, would have first been closed. The pressure would have then been slightly increased in the diving bell in order to make sure that the door to the diving bell was sealed tightly. The door to the first chamber, now containing Hellevik and Bergersen, would then be closed and sealed, cutting it off from the trunk. The trunk would then have to be slowly depressurized until it reached one atmosphere, at which point, the clamp connecting the diving bell to the trunk could be released, and the diving bell could be removed entirely. It was just after step 2 that disaster struck. The general consensus was that Crammond mistakenly opened the clamp connecting the diving bell to the trunk before Hellevik had closed the door to the chamber, though a later report commissioned by the Norwegian government suggested it was more likely an equipment failure than human error from Crammond. But in any case, everyone involved would pay dearly. The second the clamp was opened at the same time as the chamber door, explosive decompression set in. The 9 atmospheres of pressure inside the chambers immediately equalized with the single atmosphere outside. The diving bell fired off like a bottle rocket, killing Crammond instantly and severely injuring Saunders. Meanwhile, on the inside, the horrific injuries we detailed at the start of this video were being set into motion in a fraction of a second. For Coward, Lucas, and Bergersen - also known as Divers one through three - the nitrogen in their blood enlarged into huge gas bubbles, essentially boiling them alive from the inside, and accounting for the sizzling fat deposits that appeared all over their organs in their autopsies. But Hellevik - who you’ll know better as Diver 4 - was unfortunately standing right next to the partially open chamber door. The rapid change in air pressure forced him through the barely open door in just 0.12 seconds. On the other side, there was basically nothing left of him to find but pieces, some of which were discovered over 30 feet away. The international community was so horrified by what occurred in the Byford Dolphin Incident that stricter safety regulations were subsequently enforced on Norwegian oil drilling, including enhanced risk assessment procedures and the implementation of hyperbaric lifeboats - Emergency evacuation vessels specifically designed to help divers escape a compromised depressurization chamber without further endangering them. The incident also led to the formation of the North Sea Divers Alliance, an advocacy group that campaigns for safety regulations on behalf of saturation divers operating in dangerous conditions in the North Sea. However, the aftermath of the incident was hardly a clean and straightforward response from the Norwegian government. In fact, there were inklings of conspiracy before the mutilated bodies were even cold. A report commissioned by the Norwegian government pointed the finger at Crammond for allegedly opening the clamp at the wrong time, ending his own life and the lives of all the others in the chambers. However, Crammond may have just been a convenient patsy for the system, as someone who was no longer alive to present his own side of the case. The people who lost their family members in the incident hadn’t been compensated for their loss, and it seemed as though the government was obfuscating the role they played in the tragedy - enabling the fatal accident by failing to update the outdated diving systems on the Byford Dolphin and not tightening the lax safety procedures on the boat sooner. The system, which was already almost a decade old before the incident occurred, didn’t have outboard pressure gauges, an interlocking mechanism, or a fail safe hatch - all of which would have gone a long way towards preventing the explosive decompression incident that happened in the trunk. Crew members of the Byford Dolphin as well as members of NOPEF, the Norwegian Oil and Petro-Chemical Union, claimed that the report pointing the finger at Crammond was an active cover up to avoid taking responsibility and paying the compensation owed to the grieving family members. It wasn’t until 26 years after the incident that a lawsuit in 2008 definitively proved the equipment was at fault, not Crammond, allowing the families to finally have some justice and compensation for their lost loved ones. In the aftermath of the suit, Clare Lucas, daughter of Roy Lucas, said: "I would go so far as to say that the Norwegian Government murdered my father because they knew that they were diving with an unsafe decompression chamber." After all this, we probably don’t need to tell you that uncontrolled decompression is extremely hazardous to human health, but let’s take a deeper look into the science of how these decompression events work. There are three different types of uncontrolled decompression - explosive decompression, rapid decompression, and slow or gradual decompression. Understanding each one is crucial for preventing other nightmarish tragedies like the Byford Dolphin Incident. Explosive decompression, such as the kind seen in the Byford Dolphin Incident, can occur both underwater and in aircraft. Put simply, explosive decompression is when the pressure changes faster than the lungs are able to decompress, a rapid process that typically takes between 0.1 to 0.5 seconds. The release of force is comparable to a bomb detonation, often causing severe, likely fatal damage to the lungs and other organs - as we saw with Divers one, two, and three - as well as the risk of any free-floating objects becoming deadly charged projectiles. Though no other recorded instance of explosive decompression has caused the body to be ripped apart like that of Diver 4. Then there’s rapid decompression. While still hazardous to the health of many pilots and divers, it’s not nearly as severe as explosive decompression. It takes longer than 0.1 to 0.5 seconds, causing the lungs to decompress quicker than the environment, and still potentially causing lung damage. And then there’s slow or gradual decompression - which, while less immediately dangerous than its two counterparts, can still have some pretty deadly effects in the right circumstances. More commonly experienced by planes with a loss of cabin pressure, a gradual decompression can result in the passengers and pilots experiencing hypoxia - a lack of oxygen - and its accompanying negative effects. This had a tragic effect in 2005 during the Helios Airways Flight 522 Incident, a passenger plane flying from Cyprus to the Czech Republic that lost cabin pressure, rendering the people on the plane unconscious. Air Traffic Control lost contact with the plane as it cruised on autopilot, before all attempts to save the plane failed, and it crashed into a mountain in Greece. All 121 people on board, including passengers and flight crew, were killed, making it the deadliest disaster in Greek aviation history. While the results are thankfully not often this spectacular, changes in pressure have taken many lives over the years - particularly divers - from the far more common result of decompression: The Bends, or decompression sickness. And unlike the far more violent and disgusting death of Truls Hellevik in the Byford Dolphin Incident, the general consensus is that it’s a pretty painful way to go. Now check out “Even More Evil Punishments Designed To Be Worse Than Death.” Or watch the video instead