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1095 Words Precisely
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NonFiction
Published in Scuba Times
Ron's Tongue
Copyright 1989 TrixiePixGraphics
The dangers of diving aren't always obvious nor can they be necessarily learned from a book. Sometimes you just have to get lucky.
We were contracted to remove an experimental gearbox from a sunken wreck. The ship had been on sea trials when the newly designed reduction gear let loose and thumped a hole in her bottom. The whole vessel wasn't worth the expense of salvage; she lay in deep water, just off a point. It was a fine, sunny day. The crew lay idly about the decks, conversing casually through the diver's com with Ron Ault, my company's Master Diver, who was calmly at work unbolting the reduction gear in the engine room of the wreck. He'd connected a large diameter hose to his hat to supply the extra volume of air needed to power the pneumatic tools. It was an umbilical usually reserved for very deep work, and it tended to float. Thirty feet of it snaked off on the surface from the workbarge before turning downward. But we weren't concerned; the barge was well marked with diving flags four of them, having been meticulously painted on sheets of plywood, each measuring four feet by eight. The sporty boats, out for the day, zipped around pulling skiers and drinking profusely. But though some ventured closer to us than we cared, none approached to less than fifty yards or so. We thought nothing of it.
The compressors hummed melodically; a few of the boys fished quietly over the opposite side of the barge and once in awhile, if Ron was feeling especially mischievous, he'd sneak out of the wreck for a break, trudge across the bottom to where his tender's shiny lure danced and weaved in the current, and give the line a healthy yank. The fisherman would jump up with a start and exclamation and reel for all he was worth. Ron would laugh from the bottom as the tiny hook jerked its way up and out of sight. Once we sent Ron a note on a small message board. It read "Sorry Charlie". Ron hooked it to a fishing lure and gave a hefty pull It was great entertainment.
Suddenly there was a swishing noise, the sound of moving water or rushing air then there was the ear racking roar of huge diesel engines. We all looked up in horror to see a great white slab cutting along not three fathoms from the inland side of our barge. It was unbelievable! The master could be seen clearly, steady at the helm, smirking I believe the stupid bastard nodded and raised a hand off the polished plastic wheel of his yacht as if to wave or salutethen he was gone, and all that remained was his smoke and his wake and our rage.
Though she was sixty yards distant before we could react, one of the men threw a large wrench after the yacht. It plopped impotently into the boiling water. Some of the men on the small tug rafted alongside were knocked down as the huge wake hit like a tidal wave. Gear and supplies fell and were scattered as we lay rolling. We picked ourselves up, shocked. Then there was a hissing sound.....
Ron's tender retrieved his hose thirty feet of it. The bitter end was ragged and mutilated and Ron's life giving air spewed forth like blood from an artery. The tender held it up, even as it snapped and writhed in the air as though it were a snake trying to bite him. We stood aghast, paralyzed, and dumbfounded.
There is great pressure in the depths, while the atmosphere exerts very little upon us above. When a diver's hose is severed, the pressure of the sea tries to push the air through that hose, from the bottom, upwards. --And anything that blocks the hole, along with it... From some depths, a man can be pushed by the pressure into his helmet, and right through the hose to emerge topsides like a single strand of spaghetti. There was a "check valve" in Ron's hose that's designed to protect a diver from those differentials but it now stuck from corrosion.
As Ron routinely began to draw in a breath, it was sucked instantly from his lungs, collapsing one lung completely in the first second. His lips puckered forth, then his face smacked violently to the front of the helmet where the air port was located then his tongue was drawn forth and strained through his clenched teeth.....sucked into the regulator and split further amongst the small bits of machinery there. It was drawn nearly from his head, but finally it plugged the hose and stopped. He struggled for a moment, wrenching his head, trying to pull away from the hat, but it was no use.
Presently, professional that he was, Ron dropped his lead harness, made his way out of the engine room of the wreck, and arrived on the surface like a bloated fish, belly down. Blood oozed from the neck seal of the hat, making ugly dark clouds in the water.
One of the tenders instantly dove into the sea, not stopping even to remove his boots, and Ron was brought aboard. His helmet sloshed with red blood, and his eyes rolled back in his head. We tried to remove the hat, but his tongue was so entwined in the valves and mechanisms that it wouldn't come off. We pulled it to one side so he could breath, and finally someone located a pair of needle nose pliers and a stick, and in this way, extracting it bit by bit, most of the tongue was saved.
The yachtsman continued on.
A Mayday was immediately issued, and the jackass was eventually stopped twenty miles distant.
When asked in court, this "master of ships" replied that he saw the hose only at the last minute but couldn't stop. Once he'd run it down he saw little point in going back; he was in a hurry to meet a friend for dinner after all! He couldn't spare the time. "Divers swim good", though, he said.. And he couldn't see as how he'd caused any real trouble.. It was our fault; we "shouldn't have had our barge parked there"....
Ron recovered in time. Eventually the yachtsman was enticed to replace the damaged hat, no thanks to the court system. But he bought an old used one, one that required much repair to get it to work. A few dollars were contributed toward the medical bills and to this day we think of him often.
