This is Viewpoints Explained…
When most of us think of diving, it’s an excursion you do on vacation. You go down, see some beautiful sights and swim back up to the surface. But for a small segment of people known as saturation divers, it’s a dangerous job that can last for days or even weeks.
Saturation divers are commercial divers who are brought in when something far below the surface needs to be built, inspected or repaired. This can include offshore oil and gas equipment, pipelines, underwater cables, ships and other large construction projects. The water’s often freezing, there’s low visibility and no easy way out. Here’s the basic science: When a diver goes deep, pressure forces gases into the body’s tissues. Come back up too fast and those gases can form bubbles. This is called decompression sickness, or what many people know as the bends, and it can be very painful and sometimes even fatal.
So instead of going through a long decompression after every dive, saturation divers stay under pressure the entire time. They live in an isolated, pressurized chamber on a ship, ride down in a diving bell, work their shift out in the water and then return to the chamber. The real transition back to normal can take days and only happens once the jobs fully done.
There’s also a small margin for error. A diver’s connected line carries their air, heat, power and communication. If something goes wrong, they can’t just swim back up. Their body has to come back slowly or the rescue can become its own emergency.
At the end of the day, it’s lonely and hard work in dangerous conditions but the pay is part of the draw. Experienced divers can pull in about two hundred to three hundred thousand a year. So, for some, the risk is worth the reward.
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