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It was, says Chris Lemons, “very a lot a standard day on the workplace”. Till issues went mistaken. However once they went mistaken, they went mistaken very badly, in a short time. The “workplace” was truly the underside of the North Sea, the place Lemons was left with out air for nearly half an hour.
Lemons was working as a saturation diver, residing in a pressurised chamber onboard a specialised ship for stints of as much as a month, and being lowered to the seabed in a diving bell to work on offshore constructions. “It’s a severe enterprise, however it’s routine for us. That bell happening is just like the taxi to work. I all the time felt snug down there.”
On 18 September 2012, Lemons, together with colleagues Duncan Allcock and Dave Yuasa, took their diving-bell “taxi” to work at a depth of 90 metres (295ft). Allcock, probably the most skilled of the three and one thing of a mentor to Lemons, was to remain within the bell whereas Lemons and Yuasa dropped out of their diving fits to restore a pipe on a manifold, an enormous yellow drilling construction utilized by the oil business, in regards to the measurement of a home. Saturation divers are hooked up to the bell with umbilicals, cables that present them with communication, energy and lightweight, in addition to a combination of oxygen and helium to breathe, scorching water to maintain them heat, and a way to search out their route again to the security of the bell. “Our umbilicals are precisely what they sound like: givers of life,” says Lemons, 45, on a video name from the south of France the place he now lives.
The bell in flip was related to the ship, the dive assist vessel Topaz, which had a crew of 120 and was positioned 103km (64 miles) north-east of Aberdeen. The ship held its place over the dive space with out an anchor, guided by a “dynamic positioning” laptop system.
On that day, the climate was dangerous – 35 knots of wind and a 5.5-metre (18ft) swell – however common for the North Sea, nor prohibitive to diving. “We don’t actually discover that on the underside,” says Lemons. The truth is, although it was darkish, visibility wasn’t too dangerous. “Usually within the North Sea you possibly can’t see a lot. That’s half the battle, with the ability to orient your self. However on that event, we might see the bell from the place we had been.”
They’d been working for about an hour when issues went mistaken. There was an open line of communication to the ship and so they heard alarms going off. Commonplace, however then got here a message from the ship on to Lemons and Yuasa: “Go away all the pieces there – get out of the construction, boys.”
They dropped off the manifold to the seabed. “That’s when the confusion began,” says Lemons. “Going as much as the floor is rarely an possibility – you’ll die from explosive decompression fairly shortly. There is just one secure place: the diving bell.”
However the diving bell, which had been 10 metres (33ft) above them, wasn’t there. The Topaz’s dynamic positioning system had failed and the ship was drifting off within the gale, pulling the bell with it. However the bell was nonetheless hooked up to the opposite finish of their umbilicals, in order that they started to climb the cables. “I don’t bear in mind processing what was happening. You’re simply making an attempt to get again to that secure place, climbing hand over hand, as did Dave subsequent to me.”
However, abruptly, Lemons couldn’t climb any extra. A loop of his umbilical had snagged on the manifold they’d been engaged on. The ship pulled on the bell, which pulled on the umbilical. “I instantly knew it was caught. You’ve acquired this 8,000-tonne vessel pulling that umbilical tight – there was nothing I might do to launch it.”
The truth is, as a result of the cable was caught on a part of the manifold, Lemons initially discovered himself being pulled again into it. “I used to be thrashing round like a fish making an attempt to get out of there, shouting for slack. My subsequent thought was that if it continued to slide, there was a small hole within the construction I used to be going to get pulled by, like being pulled by a cheese grater. That’s not going to be a pleasant approach to go. The primary actual dose of luck I had was that it stopped slipping.” It’s a testomony to Lemons’s expertise for understatement, and the completely determined state of affairs, that he sees this as luck.
Quickly, Yuasa observed that Lemons was in bother: “He realised there was an issue and turned to get again to me. We couldn’t converse to one another, however I bear in mind our eyes assembly. I’m imploring him to assist me, however he’s being dragged away. I overpassed him, however I might nonetheless see his mild. Then I overpassed that.”
In the meantime, the ship continued to tug on Lemons’s umbilical. He doesn’t bear in mind listening to the cable break; it occurred in phases, comms first, “like a jack being pulled from a speaker. I misplaced all communication, which places you in a really lonely place. Then [I lost] the hose which supplies an infinite quantity of fuel – abruptly I had nothing to breathe in any respect.”
Yuasa made it again to the bell, exhausted. On the ship, they desperately tried to get the dynamic positioning system operating once more. In the meantime, Lemons did what saturation divers are skilled to do. “We feature these emergency provides. You by no means count on to have to make use of them, however while you’ve abruptly acquired nothing to breathe it’s an instinctual factor to show the knob on the aspect of the helmet to open the availability. That places you in a really completely different world: the second that you simply open that, you’ve moved from a spot the place you will have this infinite provide to at least one the place you very a lot have a finite one – about eight or 9 minutes’ price.”
When the umbilical broke, Lemons had fallen again on to the seabed. His first process was to search out the manifold, which is the place a rescue try, if there was one, would happen. However that wasn’t simple with no mild. “It was probably the most infinite darkness. I couldn’t see my hand in entrance of my face. It’s simple to get disoriented at the very best of occasions, with a compass and a light-weight and somebody telling you the place to go. I knew this monumental yellow construction was in all probability solely a few metres away, however I had no thought which path. Once more, I used to be very fortunate – I bumped straight into it.”
He climbed up the manifold, scared of letting go and shedding it once more, and acquired to the highest. “For some motive, I anticipated to see Dave on his method again to me, or the diving bell. However once I acquired there and seemed up, there was nothing however probably the most absolute blackness within the sea above me.”
It was chilly, about 3C (37F), and Lemons had misplaced his scorching water provide. “I’d have been hypothermically chilly in a short time, however I don’t have a reminiscence of that. Perhaps your physique has a capability to close out pointless info. Or maybe my reminiscence is inferior to I assumed. I really feel I’ve acquired this pretty lucid recollection of all the pieces as much as the purpose the place I fall unconscious.”
He reckons that of the eight or 9 minutes of fuel he had, he’d in all probability used 4 or 5. “I gained’t fake I wasn’t scared and respiration arduous. I realised that even when Dave had been there, the probabilities of him getting me again to a breathable setting earlier than I ran out of fuel had been minimal. With no person there, I made a decision this was in all probability going to be it. In a wierd method, that had a chilled impact; the worry, the panic drained out of me – there was nothing I might do. I assumed a type of foetal place and was overtaken by grief. An awesome disappointment took over at that time.”
What was he pondering of in that second? “I used to be at an thrilling level in my life: early 30s, getting married the next 12 months, we had been within the means of constructing a home … I had all of the hopes and goals you will have at that stage – of kids, journey – and it felt as if all of that was about to be ripped away on this unusual, lonely, ethereal place. I grew up in a middle-class household on the outskirts of Cambridge, and I bear in mind pondering: ‘How is that this darkish, lonely place the place I finish my days?’”
He additionally tells me he was frightened what they had been going to search out on his cell phone, however then says he’s joking. Lemons could be very humorous – that doesn’t come throughout within the documentary that was made about his accident.
Within the 2019 documentary Final Breath, interviews with Lemons, Yuasa, Allcock and others are interwoven with footage from the day and a few reconstructed scenes. Probably the most highly effective, haunting footage is taken from a remotely operated car (ROV), like a mini, unmanned submarine, which was launched from the Topaz. Lemons is mendacity on prime of the construction, within the foetal place, and his arm is shifting, twitching. A number of the ship’s crew take it to be an indication that he’s waving on the ROV, letting them know he’s nonetheless alive and they should get a transfer on. In the present day, Lemons dismisses this. “I’m positively unconscious on the level the place the ROV finds me. We’ve acquired a number of theories as to what that was.” To place it one other method: he was not waving however drowning.
He doesn’t bear in mind the second he misplaced consciousness. He thinks it was the carbon dioxide that put him underneath, and that’s why the “precise second was peaceable. I really feel like a little bit of a charlatan. I nonetheless get contacted on a regular basis by individuals who’ve misplaced family members, however I don’t have the correct to let you know what it’s like – I didn’t die.”
By some means, they acquired the dynamic positioning system going once more and relocated the manifold. Allcock and Yuasa had been nonetheless within the bell. Yuasa left the bell once more to get Lemons, presumably anticipating to convey again a physique. It had been 35 minutes since his umbilical snapped, and Lemons had simply eight or 9 minutes of emergency fuel.
They dragged him again into the bell and took off his helmet. He was vivid blue. Allcock gave him mouth-to-mouth, a few massive puffs … and miraculously, he got here spherical. Lemons doesn’t bear in mind it, however there’s a stunning second of footage the place Yuasa reaches out and holds Lemons, who reaches out and grabs on to him and Allcock. “They’re the actual heroes on this story,” Lemons says, “and everybody on the boat. I’m only a damsel in misery.”
How Lemons survived – and with out mind harm – for greater than 25 minutes is one thing of a thriller. He has been to medical conferences and spoken to many consultants in his seek for solutions, however the professionals are as perplexed as he’s. He thought it was the chilly that had saved him, since there are tales of individuals falling by ice and surviving for a very long time. “However I’ve discovered that if my physique had been so chilly that I’d gone into some type of hibernation or stasis, there isn’t a method Duncan would have been capable of resuscitate me that shortly.”
He nonetheless thinks the chilly was an element. And that, due to the stress, his tissue was saturated with oxygen. He’s additionally been advised {that a} buildup of CO2 within the blood – hypercapnia – might be neurologically protecting. If medical checks had been carried out on him instantly after he was rescued, he may need the empirical information that might present solutions; however he needed to stay locked away in a pressurised chamber after he arrived again in Aberdeen.
By some means, he was superb afterwards – bodily and mentally. And three weeks, later he was saturation diving once more, again on the seabed in precisely the identical spot.
Lemons and his fiancee acquired married and completed constructing their home. They’re not collectively however he has a brand new companion, and two children – the hopes and goals he had weren’t misplaced on the backside of the North Sea. The enormity of what he had been by took some time to sink in. It has given him a extra acute consciousness of mortality, and of the preciousness and fragility of life. But it surely’s additionally underlined the facility of human resilience. “We generally underestimate what we’re able to. It’s given me braveness and confidence, slightly than knocked it out of me.”
Lemons nonetheless works within the business, however as a diving supervisor on the ship, not on the seabed. He’s additionally dialling down the day job and doing extra public talking. It’s humorous that by knocking so loudly on loss of life’s door, he has ended up opening a load of others.
And now his story’s being advised in a thriller, additionally referred to as Final Breath, directed by Alex Parkinson. Allcock, from Chesterfield, is performed by Woody Harrelson, from Texas. Simu Liu, who performed one of many Kens within the Barbie film, performs Yuasa. And Lemons? Finn Cole, from Peaky Blinders. “Lush head of hair, handsome lad – makes full sense,” says Lemons, who’s – and was on the time – bald.
Proper, the taxi’s ready. He’s acquired to go to the airport. A correct taxi, on dry land. Lemons, Allcock and Yuasa are off to New York, for the premiere of Final Breath.
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