Story by Tory van Dyke

I attended Second Class Divers School in San Diego, California, in August, 1975. I took leave for three weeks prior to the school commencement date and dedicated myself to physical training and conditioning in San Diego near my apartment. I ran seven continuous 7-minute miles every day in 49 minutes time at the local high school running track for two weeks. I also engaged in vigorous physical exercises, performing hundreds of push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups daily during this time. I reduced my bodyweight down from 200 pounds to 190 pounds of lean, solid muscle. I quit drinking beer and focused only on the best dietary eating practices, which included lots of beefsteak, eggs, milk and potatoes.

I was expecting a brutal physical training regimen like I had experienced in the fall of 1973, at the Coronado Silver Strand BUD/S UDT Camp at the Naval Amphibious Base on the other side of San Diego Bay. All of my physical training was way over the top, as the Second-Class Divers School was nothing like UNDERWATER DEMOLITION TRAINING. In Second-Class Divers School, the focus was on actual diving and not ultra-endurance physical conditioning to prepare for behind the enemy lines guerilla warfare tactic operations.

I breezed through the school and had a great time. Needless to say, I was already a well-experienced diver and had a good working diving knowledge equivalent to the instructor staff, so the course curriculum was easy for me. Most of the men in the class had zero diving experience prior to this course.

My Commanding Officer at the school was the Director, R. G. Brereton, who had been my Executive Officer at BUD/S Training at the Coronado Amphibious Base. He was also a certified N.A.U.I. Underwater SCUBA Instructor. We got along very well and he was instrumental in awarding me the Honor Graduate citation.

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SERVICE SCHOOL COMMAND

Naval Training Center

San Diego, California 92133

17 October, 1975

From:   Director, Naval School Diver Second Class

To:   SM3 Tory D. VAN DYKE, USN, XXX-XX-XXXX

Subj:   Honor Graduate;  designation of

1.       It is pleasure to inform you that you have been selected as the Honor

Graduate of Divers Second Class Training  ( A-433-0022 )  Class 7601 conducted

11 August 1975  —  17 October 1975.  Selection was highly competitive and was

based on your performance as follows.

a.      Assiduous application under continued stress resulting in outstanding

physical and academic achievement.

b.      Responsible, concerned and selfless dedication as a Diving student.

c.       Impressive military appearance with unbounded enthusiasm in action

           and reflection.

2.       Your personal record of motivation and military behavior was extraordinary

 and your action urged others on to notable accomplishments when they felt

further persistence impossible.  Your overall performance during a most rigorous

and demanding schedule has been impressive to others, and should be enduring

source of pride to yourself.

3.       Congratulations from your classmates and your instructor staff at the

Naval School Diver Second Class, San Diego, California.

R. G. Brereton

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Handout

Oct 74

                                         2^nd Class Diver Curriculum

1.       Introduction

2.       Physical examination and O2 tolerance test

3.       Swimming Qualification Test

4.       Tending the diver and communications

5.       Principles of Diving Physics

6.       Air Decompression Tables and Decompression Procedures

7.       The Recompression Chamber and Associated equipment

8.       Trainee participation in recompression chamber runs

9.       Divers diseases and injuries

10.   Treatment of divers’ diseases and injuries

11.   Anatomy and physiology related to diving

12.   Primary and secondary effects of pressure

13.   First aid for divers

14.   Toxic gases in enclosed spaces

15.   Effects of underwater blasts on the human body

16.   Scuba indoctrination

17.   Scuba accessories

18.   Scuba maintenance

19.   Charging Scuba

20.   Open-circuit Scuba swimming

21.   Open water swimming with Scuba

22.   Scuba descent, 130 feet

23.   Basic underwater work

24.   Indoctrination to lightweight diving

25.   Lightweight diving procedures and techniques

26.   Underwater work using Lightweight diving

27.   Lightweight diving mask repair

28.   Introduction to deep sea diving

29.   Deep sea diving outfits; function and nomenclature

30.   Dressing the diver

31.   Deep sea diving techniques and procedures

32.   Familiarization diving in deep sea diving equipment

33.   Formula application; pressure computation and air supply

34.   Underwater work advanced

35.   Use of tools underwater

36.   Practical application in the use of tools underwater

37.   Introduction to underwater cutting

38.   Oxygen Arc cutting techniques

39.   Practical application of oxygen-ARC method of underwater cutting

40.   Introduction to underwater welding

41.   Underwater welding equipment

42.   Practical underwater welding

43.   Marlinspike seamanship

44.   Practical application of marlinspike seamanship

45.   Fundamentals of salvage machinery

46.   Operation of machinery related to diving

47.   Diving dress repair

48.   Belt and shoe repair

49.   Lifeline and air hose repair

50.   Air helmet repair

51.   Qualification dive to 150 feet

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After graduation I received orders for service in the Pacific Seventh Fleet Salvors Navy at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. I served aboard two AUXILIARY RESCUE AND SALVAGE SHIPS (ARS) moored at the Alpha Docks adjacent to Hickam Air Force Base just outside of the Pearl Harbor Channel. The USS RECLAIMER ARS-42, and the USS GRAPPEL ARS-7. Both ships were 213 feet long, built during WORLD WAR TWO, and designed for heavy marine salvage and ocean towing operations. A full ship’s company consisted of 78 men, including the Captain and all Officers.

Salvage operations were always an all-hands-on-deck routine and quite difficult to manage in the tropical Hawaiian Island temperatures due to the nature of the heavy equipment involved. It was a tough job. Small ships and small crews mean lots of duty watches to stand underway and in port, so the Salvors Navy was very tough duty.

I reapplied and qualified again for the UDT BUD/S Training Camp at Coronado. I figured that once I made it through the 24-week program it would be good times and lots of great diving with UDT. I even extended my enlistment to go back to the Frog Farm and meet the huge physical challenge. Maybe I would run ten or twelve 7-minute miles every day in training to get in super shape for the course rigors. However, an unexpected set back occurred late one night when we hit a city bus returning from Honolulu, heading back to Pearl Harbor. I received some broken leg bones. It was dark thirty, and we were tired, and I had the duty watch in the early morning on board ship. Things that go bump in the night and being caught between a rock and a hard place usually really hurt.

After that accident, I opted out of continuing in the Navy diving program courses and got discharged from active duty to become a certified N.A.U.I. Underwater Diving Instructor. I worked for Tom Hemphill teaching diving for a number of years at his SCUBA Shop in Hazel Dell, Washington, called UNDERWATER SPORTS.

The primary reason I joined the Navy was to advance my diving career knowledge, because at that time, my age prohibited me from becoming a certified underwater instructor. Later, the age requirement changed from 21 years old to 18 years old for instructor certification.

I learned and experienced many things in the Navy during my almost four years of active duty. The Navy diving opportunities were excellent and I really enjoyed the classes and training dives, where I learned many new and interesting diving techniques. It was definitely a worthwhile experience in my life. “Eternal vigilance is the price of safety at sea.” It is also the price of liberty in the face of oppressive government usurping constitutional bounds under the pretext of a national emergency.

Or – Doing your homework

by Bruce Higgins

 

To qualify as a Sea Story – This ain’t no shit since truth is stranger than fiction.

The story begins in December 1998 with contact by Doug Foulds who had a tugboat hull to donate to the Edmonds Underwater Park.  He owned a marina in Washington Harbor, Bremerton and had a tenant who has failed to pay his moorage.  But that was not the issue as the Triumph had sunk and was refloated.  The Triumph had been a live aboard for about 5 years and was salvaged and currently floating again but it was obvious that this tug had become an issue as the Coast Guard was involved in the recovery.  The owner was now dodging all contact.  It had changed owners early in 1998 with the new owner being a flake.  I mentioned I was interested in the hull and he had found out about me via the City of Edmonds who was neutral about being involved unless I thought it was a good idea.  The City and I had discussed having some feature to replace the Fossil (the FOSS 16) which we had placed in 1982 which was long decayed.  This was a way to get divers farther north away from the ferry terminal and our efforts had stalled.

The City was completing the revised paperwork which had already been started for a Park hull replacement (which had begun in fall 1997) and Doug took over ownership as it sank again and was refloated; we visited the Triumph in Bremerton.  This time refloating ruining the dock and in this salvage the bow port cleat had damaged the deck during recovery so there was now a hole.  The hole was about three feet in diameter in the deck.  The hull was floating but was now covered with a blue tarp on top, on port side underwater and plastic sheeting underwater on the other to keep the leaking to a minimum.  What had happened was in both cases the rains had over come the plugged bilge pumps and just filled with water and sank.  Doug now had ownership and it had a much better bilge pump.  We were encouraged as it was well practiced at sinking.

In our discussions about placement we visited the hull a couple more times as Doug hired a crew to strip it and cart off the mildewing drywall, clothes, and just junk which was left behind.  We had made arrangements to make sure all the glass was out and had made a trip to help open the ship up for diver access.  More access was needed so we cut away.

We also had elected to make the hull a photo opportunity by leaving some portholes, running gear, and the propeller.  It still had the engine block in it which was why it was still heavy enough to sink but the engine head was off and someone had been seriously working on getting it going again but that effort had stalled but tools were everywhere.   We elected to let the clean up crew leave things like the two bow facing portholes and much of the brass but we removed doors, glass, and anything which would cause permitting issues.  Doug was handing the cost and labor for this which was a great gift to the City and the diving community.  We spent time just making sure every compartment had a separate way in and out.

To zoom headed the hull at about 70 feet was towed to the Park by the harbor tug the Little David which was only 25 feet long which took about 11 hours with the tide.  It was secured by the bow to the north which had a 750# navy style anchor and a 500# Danforth backed up with two 500# lamp post bases to make sure the anchors would not drag.  For the stern to the south we had tied that to a 101 ton block of concrete which was part of the Cathedrals.  We had issues with anchor drag during the Fossil placement so worked to avoid that this time.  Placement was just by removing the tarps that covered the hull.  The water rushed in through the seams like Niagara Falls   Filling the hull took about an hour as it settled lower and lower.  Sorry no explosions.  The City wanted no news coverage and we lucked out as Present Clinton came to town that AM, what timing.  The City of Edmonds Police Divers came to check it out and confirm it was as described.  It ended up resting on its’ port side just leaning offshore.

On the bottom I had hoped that the portholes and other nautical things we had left behind would be photo opportunities.  About month after placement I was graced with visit by Jerry Gray and Mark Schneider who came up to visit and see what I was up too.  That was nice and even with less than ideal visibility they had a great time.

We spent the summer adding ballast to the hull since we were concerned it would not do well in the winter storms and the summer showed the divers true colors with the theft of both portholes was well as many other smaller items.  But one still remained and that was an about 3-foot diameter propeller next to the rudder which still made for great photo opportunities.  Also, that summer Kirby who had not traveled to Bremerton decided to measure and document the ship using the techniques we had learned at an underwater archeology class hosted by the UASBC in Vancouver, BC.  Of course, not the easy way, but while it was on the bottom.  He followed up with a beautiful drawing of the Triumph.  We all pitched in on trying to help with the Triumph’s history.  The ship was built in Coos Bay in 1888 as a bar tug with the skipper standing in the open on the stern.  Some fire bricks from the original steam boiler were still on the inside of the hull.

To zoom ahead again to late spring of 2001, we were doing a Saturday inspection dive around the Triumph as things were decaying and we wanted to make sure all would be safe for the summer season.  We came across a 10-foot piece of 2-inch steel pipe which was bent resting on the bottom off the starboard side.  A few minutes later Kirby showed me a wrench looking thing resting to west on the port side.  It was metal homemade wrench painted yellow.  We signaled each other that we would discuss this later.  These parts were not from the Triumph.  After the dive we puzzled out what was going on so on Sunday we got out again and this time I took the wrench and bar which I hid nearby after confirming our suspicions as the propeller retaining nut was shiny.  We suspect that an effort was made to remove the nut holding the propeller to claim it.  Our guess was that the wrench was placed on the nut and the pipe used as an extension with a lift bag used to twist the nut.  The pipe was bent a lot, so they gave it what they had on hand.  More on this part later.

I approached the City about the attempted theft and they really just handed it back to me since they had no way to cope with the issue.  That led to the next weekend us getting a bag of premix concrete and placing it in a sandbag then placing this over the nut on the propeller labeled City of Edmonds Parks Dept secured it with rope.  We also had Ralph Sweet place a cable from the propeller to the rudder and lock that in place.  The premix would cure overnight.  We had hoped that would be the end of the issue and went about our business coping with buoys and trails.  I had contacted a salvage yard about what a brass propeller might be worth given the dimensions.  The answer I got was maybe about $700 to $800 as just metal but likely over $4,000 as a feature piece in a bar or hotel lobby.

A few weeks later we were passing by the Triumph again and as we approached the stern I saw what looked like cigarette butts lying on the bottom.  Maybe about a dozen or more scattered about.  I picked one up and remembered it looked like the cutting torch stubs left by my old dive buddy Jim McGinnis from my college days.  This led me to look closer and I could see someone had now resorted to a cutting touch to try to burn off the propeller shaft.  The lock had been hacked but put back in place to hide that and so we had to reconsider our efforts since they were not giving up.

Back on shore we needed to hatch a plan to deal with this.  Lots of ideas were floated but it all boiled down to us needing to be first.  During the week I accumulated a number of hacksaws, bunch of blades, and made up a deep throat hacksaw to be able to finish the job.  The shaft seemed to be at least 4 inches in diameter.  We also elected to dive in relay so we could start Saturday AM and cycle though everyone in like 30 minutes shifts both sawing and assisting as I suspected correctly arms would get tired as well as divers getting cold just using one arm for such a long time.  Some divers took two shifts.  We also had some ankle weights to substitute for the lower diver on the saw.  We had also puzzled out that the early effort had gotten about halfway (using ‘write in the rain’ paper as a template) and we suspected it was because the shaft looked brass but was actually a brass sleeve over a steel center.

With a plan in place we started the next Saturday AM and worked on it about seven and a half hours and made good progress but still no dice.  We had made great headway, but it was a lot of metal for our manual methods.  On Sunday Kirby and I returned to see if we could finish the effort.  I started with a 30 minute or so shift and then traded off to Kirby as I went to get the three lift drums (55 gal, 1,500# of lift) which we would use to relocate the propeller once it was free and to trade out cylinders.  As I returned to the Triumph, as if on cue, Kirby had finished, and it just fell away.  Next up was to rig it to get it out from under the hull which was not too big a chore since we had done that kind of lifting before.  We also had extra lift so we could slide and then lift it without re-rigging.  The propeller came in at about 700#.  Now with the propeller floating we headed to a secrete spot to place it and have it hidden from view.  The current was with us which was a nice change of pace.  We lined up a house on the beach and placed it shallow enough that it would not be accessible by boat as likely the other group would likely need that to get it off site.  The spot was so secret that Kirby could not find it the following weekend.  I knew it was safe.  We all wanted to see the surprise on their face to see that it was no longer where they had left it.  Sorry not for giveaway.

But there is a hitch to the story.  Back when we found the wrench, and everyone heard Kirby’s and my puzzling out what likely happen.  We had all bought into the wrench and extension bar with lift bag idea as to what had happened and that the pieces got left behind since that approach had failed.  The way the ship leaned to the port and the bar being on the starboard where there was clear access for a lift bag to stretch upward toward the surface.  They likely had spent a lot of time fooling around but the nut just did not budge.  In reality they had a great idea, but they had a fatal flaw which Kirby pointed out.  My take had been that after so many years the nut was really locked in place.  But Kirby reminded us all that this was to be a servable part.  In his research the Triumph was a special tug in that during its’ later years the direct drive diesel ran best in reverse due to old age and bearings, so it was outfitted with a left handed propeller.  This translated into the group spending all this time tightening the nut not loosening it.  The moral of the story is that it pays to do your homework.  Many thanks Kirby.

Since we were casting up anchors later that year, we placed the homemade wrench in one as a keepsake and project reminder.  The rudder is still proudly on display.

By Tory van Dyke

By all accounts, Tommy Amerman was a bold diver. He broke into the commercial diving field with a daring feat that no other diver at the time could accomplish. He penetrated a sunken dredge in the wave breakers zone of the Clatsop Spit on the Oregon side of the Columbia River Bar and extracted a dead body from the wreck. He achieved success on his second dive. The first attempt was unsuccessful because he was told to search in the wrong part of the ship. The second day, diving at slack water tide, he entered the sunken vessel, found the body of the drown crewman inside, and pulled his body from the wreckage, delivering it to the topside personnel standing by to receive it.

 

Hard Hat divers had spent weeks trying to do what Tommy had done in two dives. The constant wave action, tremendous currents, and shifting surges of sea water thwarted every effort made by the Hard Hat divers to recover the body. The access doors on the main deck superstructure violently crashed back and forth against the bulkheads making a tremendous racket. Their equipment was too heavy and cumbersome to deal with, and they were unable to even successfully approach the wreck, let alone penetrate it and recover the lost crewman’s body.

After Tommy’s tremendous accomplishment, the US Army Corps of Engineers felt obligated to reward his herculean effort with additional diving contract work whenever Tommy desired to pursue it.

Harold Maiken, the owner of Commercial Divers Incorporated, one of the two major construction diving contractors in Portland, Oregon, had Tommy under contract as a SCUBA diver doing commercial diving work. The Hard Hat divers did not like the SCUBA equipped diver infringing upon their once sacred employment ground. Tommy worked circles around the Hard Hat divers and they just couldn’t compete with him. He would dive in all different conditions and always get the job done quickly and completely. Very soon, all the working divers in the Pacific Northwest began using SCUBA equipment to perform their commercial diving jobs. The Mark V Deep Sea Diving Outfit was made obsolete overnight by Tommy Amerman and his heroic deed.

Other ambitious SCUBA equipped commercial divers began to join Harold Maiken’s team of divers. These included Paul Mark and Bud Sanders. Harold Maiken got the contract from the Corps for the diving work on the John Day Dam. Tommy, Bud and Paul did virtually all the diving work on the John Day Dam from beginning to end. The job lasted from 1959 to 1962.

In 1962, Paul Mark and Bud Sanders got the diving contract work for De Long Construction on the four year long project building the Astoria Bridge across the mighty Columbia from Oregon to Washington. The Hard Hat equipped divers could not function near the mouth of the Columbia River except during slack water tide, and then only for about 30 minutes, four times a day, two in daylight and two in darkness according to the tides. Colonel De Long was going bankrupt waiting for slack water, until Paul and Bud came down after a snag diving shift and showed him that they could do the job in the current with their SCUBA equipment. Again, the Hard Hat divers were superseded by working SCUBA equipped divers.

It was during the Astoria Bridge construction project, about 1965, that this story took place. Tommy Amerman and Ed Forsyth were assigned to complete a diving contract awarded to Harold Maiken of Commercial Divers Incorporated. The job appeared to be rather easy up front. Dive to the bottom of a high Cascade dam reservoir in the central Washington Cascades and set dynamite charges on four old growth timber trees to blow them off the bottom and send them floating to the surface.

For super diver Tommy Amerman, this was just another day at the office, in about 35 fathoms of water. Eddie Forsyth was Tommy’s diving tender. The two of them loaded all the equipment, demolition charges and accessories, air compressors, twin SCUBA bottle packs and other diving equipment, a single man recompression chamber, light weight diving skiff with outboard motor, and headed up to the high Cascades of Washington State to do the job.

Tommy had decided early on that he could do this easy dive job in one day instead of four days. What’s the big deal? Dive down a couple of hundred feet in this clear water mountain reservoir lake and set some charges at the base of four big old growth fir trees. Cakewalk!

Tommy and Ed arrived at the job site and set up a base camp for diving operations. They loaded all the dive gear in the boat and launched it at the convenient boat ramp not too far from the dive site. Tommy quickly suited up in his wet suit, while Ed got his diving equipment assembled and ready to go.

They got out over the big trees on the surface of the lake and Eddie anchored the boat with a long descending line leading straight down to the bottom. There was no current to speak of in this lake reservoir, and the conditions for diving were perfect. A beautiful early fall day with clear blue sky, lots of sunshine and no wind. What could be better than this?

Ed helped Tommy get his twin 65 cubic foot air tanks and back pack on and buckled up, along with his weight belt adjusted with very little lead on it because of the deep water diving assignment. At two hundred feet of depth, even in the less dense fresh water, the water pressure is so great that more than 100 pounds per square inch of pressure pushes in over the entire diver’s body. The ¼ inch thick neoprene wet suit material is compressed down to about the same thickness as a piece of newspaper. At that depth, the wet suit provides absolutely no additional buoyancy for the diver and the weight belt is no longer necessary. It also provides about zero insulating warmth for the diver. That’s why Tommy only had about ten pounds of lead on his weight belt.

Tommy was ready to go and made a seated back roll over the side of the small boat into the lake reservoir. The water temperature at the surface was quite pleasant, having been warmed up all season long by the hot summer sun. Descending rapidly down to the reservoir bottom, Tommy passed through more than four thermoclines of decreasing water temperature. The water temperature at the lake bottom in 200 feet of water was quite cold, less than 45 degrees.

As he descended, he could see the big trees below him, with their needle-less large branches and the massive tree trunks underneath. He continued to pop his ears and equalize air pressure as he swam down rapidly to the bottom using his swim fins and powerful leg muscles. Time underwater is very critical, and especially in deep diving. He did not want to waste even a minute making his first dive.

In the meanwhile, Eddie was up in the boat keeping track of Tommy’s bottom time with his Rolex Oyster Perpetual Diver wrist watch using the elapsed time ring rotating bezel. The no decompression limits end  at one hundred and ninety feet of depth. Beyond that, you are decompression diving, which means you must stop your ascent at 20 feet of depth for about ten minutes to decompress underwater before coming directly to the surface in order to prevent decompression sickness, also known as the bends. It is called the bends, because divers bend over in pain from the excruciating painful madness of nitrogen bubbles exploding inside their body tissues and blocking normal blood flow circulation. Not a pretty picture.

Ed didn’t really have to worry much about Tommy getting the bends, because Tommy was a superman and a super diver! The no decompression diving time limits, the decompression diving tables, and the repetitive diving tables for underwater divers breathing compressed air did not really apply to Tommy Amerman. They had been developed by the United States Navy long ago and were considered to be 95% accurate for the standard U.S. Navy Diver. Tommy was not bound to adhere to these diving tables and their prescribed limitations, because he was superior in all aspects to those lowly U.S. Navy Divers. He was a diver of no limits, and the Navy Diving Tables just didn’t apply to him.

Underwater diving to 200 feet of depth or deeper is considered to be an extreme exposure dive. High altitude diving is also more critical for decompression because of the reduction in surface atmospheric pressure. Extreme cold water, fatigue, physical stress and heavy work will also severely increase nitrogen absorption in divers which makes them more susceptible to the bends. The more volume of compressed air you breathe underwater, the greater the intake will be of absorbed nitrogen saturating into your body tissues and bloodstream. All of these conditions existed on this dive job and none of them were in Tommy’s favor. Tommy didn’t care!

Tommy reached the bottom and placed the pre-packed demolition charges around the base of the first old growth fir tree very quickly. “Take your time, do your best, but hurry every chance you get,” was the U.S. Navy Divers motto for working underwater with the conventional Mark V Deep Sea Diving Outfit. Tommy was on SCUBA, and he was a fast, hard worker underwater, and he had proven time after time that he was the diver that could get the job done, bar none!

He quickly headed back up to the surface to get the next demolition packs for the next tree. Eddie was there to assist him with his SCUBA gear. Tommy climbed aboard and quickly donned a fresh pair of SCUBA bottles, buckling up the back pack straps, and over the side he went.

He swam quickly back to the bottom and set the charges at the base of the next tree. He was feeling good and the time underwater had been pretty fast, so things appeared to be going according to plan.

He quickly returned directly to the surface and got another pair of tanks and loaded up with the demolition packs and returned to the bottom of the lake. As with the other two trees, he set the demolition packs around the tree base of the third tree and then quickly headed for the surface. On this third ascent, at about fifty feet of depth, Tommy began to discern that something was not quite right. As he got closer to the surface, much to his chagrin, he began to realize that he had developed a bad case of decompression sickness.

When he broke the surface of the lake at the side of the boat, he said to Eddie, “I’ve got ‘em and I’ve got ‘em bad!”

Eddie quickly flew into action. He got Tommy on board and headed for the beach. He got Tommy out of the boat and into the single man recompression chamber as fast as he could.

The single man recompression chamber was situated upon the trailer, and the air compressor that charged the system was located close by the trailer. Ed got Tommy inside the chamber and closed the heavy access door and dogged it down.

These small recompression chambers are called coffin chambers, because they are about the same size as and resemble a coffin. They are quite small. Once you are lying on your back inside one of these pressure vessels, it is a very tight fit with no extra room to spare. If you suffer from any claustrophobic feelings and fear of tight places, then you never want to crawl inside one of these contraptions. Once you are inside, it is nearly impossible to move and there is no way out unless your diving tender opens the door and lets you out!

Ed fired up the air compressor, opened the valves and started sending compressed air into the coffin chamber. Tommy was in a very bad condition, having omitted decompression from three back to back dives to 200 feet of depth. Even with his short bottom times and rapid work, he still neglected to decompress and the dissolved nitrogen in his tissues bubbled up, as the reduced ambient pressure at the surface allowed the compressed extra absorbed inert gas to be released from pressurized solution.

Think of a soda pop bottle slightly shaken on a warm day and then having the pop top unstopped rapidly. It usually makes a mess, as the soda pop overflows over the top of the bottle. Now think of Tommy’s body as that soda pop bottle overflowing with too much internalized pressure.

The air compressor fired right up and air pressure started flowing into the chamber to recompress Tommy and give him some very necessary instant relief from his pain. However, something was not right. The air compressor was running and the air was flowing into the chamber, but the inside chamber pressure was not increasing.

Eddie started looking around and listening over the roar of the air compressor engine and he realized that one of the through hull fittings on the chamber was missing. All the air that was being compressed and blown into the chamber with the main air line was bleeding right back out of the chamber through the missing valve hole.

Ed started scrambling around at a feverish pace trying to find something to plug that hole. He quickly located a wooden shovel handle, sawed off a short piece, whittled the dowel with his knife to fit the diameter of the hole, and pounded it into place with a hammer from the tool box.

Immediately, the chamber started to gain air pressure. Tommy popped his ears as the inside pressure rapidly increased. Eddie got the chamber atmosphere air pressure compressed to 190 feet of depth equivalent and Tommy got relief from his pain, torture and agony.

Now the long ordeal began to treat Tommy for his decompression sickness which resulted from his three repetitive 200 feet deep dives and the omitted decompression.

Recompression pressure squeezes the nitrogen bubbles back into solution form in the body tissues and restores normal circulation. Once this occurs, the pain disappears in the body of the affected diver. The air pressure is then gradually reduced inside the chamber and eventually the diver returns to topside atmospheric pressure, cured of his bends barotraumas. The process is quite lengthy and requires several hours to complete properly.

Ed was working steady as the dedicated tender taking care of his injured diver. He kept the air compressor fueled and running, gave Tommy mandatory fresh air ventilations for two out of every five minutes inside the recompression chamber, while always watching the clock and keeping track of the required pressure reductions and timed stops as prescribed by the treatment table requirements.

With Tommy’s extreme pressure exposure from the multiple deep dives, plus the high altitude factor, the treatment called for four hours of slow decompression. After about three hours of close quarter confinement within the dark coffin chamber, needless to say, Tommy was becoming quite agitated. Tommy was a very strong man. He stood about 5’9” tall, and weighed about 235 pounds of solid muscle. He was what one would call the original “Water Gorilla.’ Even his name implied that he was a Merman, one born to live and breathe underwater and accomplish heroic feats beyond the pale of mere mortals. Tommy started making it very clear to Eddie that he was at the end of his rope. Being confined to this little coffin chamber for decompression sickness treatment that he no longer had, and perhaps never really did have, he now wanted out! He started kicking at the chamber access door with his wet suit boot clad feet. Eddie wasn’t even thinking about letting him out of there until he had completed the full course of the decompression treatment table, no way!

Well, with Tommy Amerman, the rules of diving just didn’t really apply. He was a Merman, and those rules applied to mere mortals and basic humans, not to the Super Diver. So Tommy continued to kick at the access door on the chamber. He kicked and he kicked and the longer he thought about it, the madder he got. It was a disgrace to even think that Tommy would find himself entrapped and enslaved in a tiny iron coffin for so long just to treat a mild or even nonexistent case of the bends. Eventually he prevailed and he kicked the door off the chamber and escaped out of that miserable iron coffin! He did not complete his entire decompression treatment, but with Tommy, enough was enough and he just wanted out.

The sad ending to this story is that this event effectively ended Tommy Amerman’s commercial diving career.

This particular decompression sickness episode was not the first in his diving career. He worked with Paul Mark and Bud Sanders on the John Day Dam construction project. He would dive the first four hour shift while Paul and Bud tended him, and then Bud and Paul would split the next four hour shift, diving two hours each while the other one worked as the diver’s tender. Tommy was known to stop at the Bonneville Dam recompression chamber on his way back to Portland and soak out for a quick decompression treatment on more than one occasion. Even though Tommy ignored the limits and believed that he was not confined to them as other divers were, he still periodically got the bends.

The old growth subaquatic timber harvest turned out to be a test for the diving application and feasibility of such in this deep water task. Ed Forsyth told me that remote controlled surface operation technology had already been developed by the company that contracted with Harold Maiken. Tree removal via a remote controlled surface operation circumvented any requirement for divers. The decompression sickness episode that developed on this dive job made it clear that surface remote control operations in at least some applications were beginning to supersede divers.

The extreme depth and high altitude made this type of diving operation too dangerous to be profitable. .   Tommy and Ed did their best and tried to deliver a good show, but events and circumstances played out differently. Severe health issues and the result of living life in the fast lane took its toll on Tommy, and he died about ten years later.

Ed Forsyth continued diving and took over the ownership of Commercial Divers Incorporated from Harold Maiken. He had a long and illustrious diving career, performing many difficult jobs and completing many very challenging contracts. Ed, Paul Mark and Bud Sanders never got decompression sickness during their entire diving careers. Although they were all very strong men and excellent professional divers, they realized that there were limitations to physical diving exposures, and they all respected those limitations and took care to remain well within the recommended normal deep diving decompression requirements. During snag diving shifts that may last the entire six hour ebb tide, they used the three tank rule dive limit. When they had blown through three fully charges SCUBA 2500psi 65 cubic feet bottles, they ended their repetitive diving shift for that day. That was known as the three tank rule, and they never got the bends using that rule. Although they were all “Water Gorillas” in their own right, they never professed to be Mermen like Tommy Amerman.

“There are old divers and there are bold divers, but there ain’t no old bold divers.”

“Don’t let too much “Can Do!” do you in!”

© Tory the Diver, 2018.

Author’s Note: This story was told to me personally by Ed Forsyth more than 35 years ago. Some facts, figures and incidents may have been added to, changed and/or embellished in the interest of presenting a readable article with the reserved right and excuse of the author’s creative license. Suffice to say, this historical event occurred and the divers included were real flesh and blood, living men who walked upon planet earth for their joyous season of life.

Introduction by Tom Hemphill

Dick List is a Northwest diving pioneer and contributor to the development of NW diving education.  He is also a good friend of mine.  we’ve had some exciting diving experiences together from diving the north end of Vancouver Island, BC, Canada to many sites around Puget sound & the San Juan Islands to Grand Cayman in the Caribbean.