Divers and Forklifts and Trainings and Accidents

As I wrote to you earlier, we have some divers on board who regularly go under the yucky water to clean some filters or other "fun" things. I also told you that none of them are here as a diver per se - they all have a day job. Tim Benson (from Australia/New Zealand, see photo) is a purser during the day and a diver at... well, not at night, but whenever it's needed. He wrote this short note on facebook and gave me permission so that I can re-post it. Enjoy! :)

"As most of you know I am one of the lucky people that get to dive underneath the ship and help to clean out and maintain the intake vents for the ships salt water cooling system that keep the generators and air conditioning running. A few weeks ago we had a drill to practice what would happen in case of an emergency with a diver been injured under the ship and how we could get them out of the water and treated best. The drill went really well and it was a good learning experience for everyone involved as it was something new to almost all of us. Here are some pictures that show the events of the drill.

Getting ready for the drill

Jumping in

Waiting for the drill to start

Captain briefing everyone on what is going to happen

Brave volunteers jumping in to help out

Me pretending to be unconscious

Getting positioned in the rescue basket

Taking off my dive gear, ready to pull me out

Getting lifted up by the fork lift

Almost out

And safely on land (with Dan Bergman, ICU nurse)

Unfortunately not too much more than a week after we had this drill I found myself diving to save the piece of equipment that had saved me during the drill. There was a bit of an accident and our forklift ended up going for a swim. (No Persons or animals where hurt in this forklift accident) I got to be apart of the rescue effort as 2 of us dove in the murky water to find it on the ocean floor and attached a crane to it so that it could be pulled out. Needless to say its back to the drawing board on what we will do in case of needing to pull a diver out of the water... :)"

Some people have windows in their offices and could catch the perfect moment before the forklift went under... I think it got confused and thought it was a submarine... Oh well, never a dull moment on the Africa Mercy! :)