Word: wookey
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Narrow Margin. The scientists on board the Reclaim had figured on his staying at 600 ft. for exactly three minutes. Wookey stayed two minutes longer to untangle his air tube. This threw the dive off schedule and threatened Wookey's narrow margin of safety. As his shipmates began to haul him up, a sudden chill struck through him. "It was the most intense cold," he said, "that I ever felt. That cold gets into your guts, and you feel you can't stand...
Slowly, with many stops, he rose toward a submerged decompression chamber that hung 220 ft. below the surface. It was open at the bottom, with compressed air keeping the water out. Inside waited Able Seaman George Clucas, an expert diver, to give Wookey aid and comfort while he finished the long decompression process...
...When Wookey reached the chamber, he waited ten minutes while the pressure in his helmet was reduced to the pressure in the chamber (about 110 Ibs. per sq. in.). Then he climbed into the chamber itself, and Clucas took the front glass off his helmet. "He was so cold," said Clucas. "So very cold. He could hardly stand up when he reached me." The two men sat down for a long, dull, eight-hour wait, supplied with candy, hot coffee, reading matter...
...chamber with the two men inside was taken on board the Reclaim. For an hour they breathed pure oxygen to flush residual helium and nitrogen out of their systems. Then the door was opened, and they stepped out. At once they felt the dreaded pains of the bends, Wookey in his shoulders, Clucas in his legs and chest. They ran into a larger decompression chamber, where they were kept under oxygen for four more hours. When they came out, they felt fine, but tired and very hungry...
...Wookey had beaten the diving record by 65 ft. and he had done potentially useful work at 600 ft. He could have attached a cable to a sunken submarine at that depth. Some day he expects to go deeper; the limit, he feels, is imposed by cold and the long time needed for proper decompression. Asked why a man will do such a thing, Wookey says, "I think diving is intensely interesting, especially in shallow water. I go deeper because...