WARNING: DISTRESSING CONTENT The horror of every bubble of nitrogen in your blood bursting open in one split second became a deadly reality for one group of divers in the North Sea
08:00, 03 Jan 2026
In one of the most gruesome deaths of all time, five men boiled alive from the inside out after a split-second miscalculation 1,000 feet underwater.
In 1983, the Byford Dolphin, a semi-submersible oil drilling rig, was operating in various locations in the North Sea. The site saw one too many accidents occur during its time, and the worst saw exploding organs, blood boiling and a man knocked dead by a diving chamber. A group of four British and Norwegian divers, Edwin Arthur Coward, 35, Roy P. Lucas, 38, Bjørn Giæver Bergersen, 29, and Truls Hellevik, 34 as well as tenders William Crammond, 32, and Martin Saunders, 30, came together to complete a deep sea diving mission on the rig.
To be able to safely carry out deep sea operations, the divers had to be confined to a series of compression chambers over the 28 period. These highly sensitive chambers prevent a buildup of nitrogen in the bloodstream, according to Lad Bible. The pressurised living quarters were accessible through a diving bell, a ring shaped chamber, which was sealed off from other parts of the underwater station.
This technique was known as saturation diving - it prolonged the period you can spend underwater and prevented painful and often deadly nitrogen buildup when resurfacing. Coming up to the surface of the water causes nitrogen and helium to dissolve into divers' bloodstream, which can be deadly. That's why in the chambers, divers inhale a specific blend of gases - usually helium and oxygen, adjusted according to the dive's depth.
If divers resurface too swiftly, the sudden pressure drop triggers decompression sickness. On the fateful day of November 5, 1983, Bergersen and Hellevik were returning to the chamber via the diving bell, helped by tenders Crammond and Saunders. To safely move between chambers, the diving bell needed to be sealed to avoid the bends. But a fatal mechanical failure meant the bell was released seconds before Hellevik had been able to close the chamber door.
The inner crew chambers were meant to be pressurised to nine atmospheres but in this instance they dropped to one within a split second. Crammond was killed when he was hit by the errant dive bell while the four divers died in an instant as the nitrogen in their blood turned into bubbles, effectively boiling them from the inside.
Hellevik was thrust through a 60cm wide gap, with the pressure meaning his organs spilled out of him. Saunders was the only man to survive the horrific incident, suffering from collapsed lungs, fractures in his back and a broken neck. An official investigation found the cause of deaths was human error.
The incident remains a mystery as its exact cause is still unclear, but it highlighted the urgent need for improvements in diving safety.