Chapter 12

Diver in Danger

Ian Boughton

‘United and undaunted’ is their motto. It’s a fitting one too, when you consider what the navy clearance diver, who lives and swears by it, is required to do in the line of duty. Clearance divers are the commandos of the deep, marine equivalents of SAS or paratroopers, and while their public profile may not be as well known as these other elite armed forces, their work is just as dangerous and crucial.

United they must be, because team work is the passport to staying alive when working in the dangerous and life-threatening circumstances that clearance divers often find themselves in, and undaunted, because the sort of jobs a clearance diver must do would strike fear into the hardiest of souls. They are trained to undertake their tasks in all sorts of conditions day time, night time, in icy water, and in currents and swells that toss them like a sock in a washing machine. They must be able to do their job blindfolded, because sometimes you may as well be, so poor is the visibility. Blackwater diving they call it, where you can’t see your hand in front of your face. It’s not for the faint-hearted.

Their prime task is simple enough, to clear mines and other explosive devices from waters that are a threat to the navy’s ships. They are the sniffer dogs of the sea, highly trained to search for and defuse all manner of explosive devices that may threaten our ships or underwater facilities. Conversely, they may plant explosives on enemy ships and targets, and carry out reconnaissance for beach landings, detecting and clearing explosives to allow the safe passage of landing vessels.

In Iraq, Australian clearance divers made a name for themselves clearing the heavily fortified port of Umm Quasar during the 2003 Iraq war, securing the port and ensuring its safety to ships and allied forces.

They can also have a more pragmatic role, more as the Mr Fix Its of the navy. Wielding a welder or angle grinder to make running repairs to vessels or facilities under water is as much part of their repertoire as defusing a mine. No slouches make it into the Navy Clearance Team. Years of regular training as a naval officer and then the specialised clearance dive training means no divers come closer to the top of the tree than a clearance diver.

So when they decide to call it a day they are highly regarded as civilian professionals, sought after by commercial diving companies who do industrial work in marine environments. They are sent to work building wharves and bridges, maintaining underwater facilities, oil rigs, or anywhere where work has to be done under the water. While bombs and explosives are not generally part of that scene, the work can still be hazardous and the years of training, sometimes under combat conditions, make the clearance diver a major asset.

Stephen Lamb came through the clearance diver’s ranks in the 1980s. With eight years in the navy under his belt he quickly found work as a commercial diver, working for several employers and doing contract jobs around the country before taking up with Hunter Allied Diving Services in Newcastle. One of Hunter’s clients was BHP’s rod and bar division in Newcastle, an Australian industrial icon and one of the country’s biggest businesses, employing thousands of the regional city’s people over generations.

Stephen had done several diving jobs there in his time with Hunter Allied, so there was no real sense of danger when he kitted himself up for a routine maintenance dive one fine April morning in 1995. He knew the drill well and there was nothing to suggest the job would not go as smoothly as usual.

 

The BHP Newcastle plant operated around the clock, churning out iron and steel products, the raw material for everything from roofing iron to car chassis. A plant such as this, with its huge blast furnaces and coke ovens, generates enormous heat and has to be cooled by water jackets filled with seawater drawn from the Hunter River.

The water was sucked up into six giant pipes by a huge turbine attached to each one, sending the water coursing through the plant at the rate of approximately 132,000 litres of water a minute per pump. The pipes are about 60 centimetres wide. To prevent the debris that floats about the river from entering the pipes and damaging the pumps, each is protected by a separate enclosed bay, the size of a small backyard swimming pool and fitted with a screen. Each bay is served by a common canal at the rear of the bay. Each canal bay and pump can be safely inspected or cleaned individually when the pump for that bay is turned off while pumps at either end continue to supply water to the plant.

The screens had to be removed for occasional maintenance and repairs. This could be done without anyone having to enter the water but before they were put back a diver had to go into the bay to ensure no debris was caught in the screen mounts so it could be slid back easily. Obviously the pumps must be turned off, so the divers could enter the enclosure down a ladder and proceed to clear the area without risk.

Each pipe ran vertically from the bottom of the pit, did a right angle about two metres or so up, then ran horizontally into the huge pump and the pumphouse. Significantly there was no grill or mesh attached directly to the actual pipe entrance.

On the morning of 20 April, Stephen and his two colleagues John Barrett and John Siemek arrived at the plant about 7 am. They went to the wharf on the Hunter River where the work was to be carried out and began preparing their gear. Rather than donning tanks for the dive, air was provided from a compressor on the surface and an airline, as it improved manoeuvrability. But the diver also strapped a small reserve bottle of air as a back-up known as a bail-out. Stephen was to do the dive while the other two, both experienced divers, would be crew, operating the air system and feeding out the air and safety line attached to Stephen. At about 7.15 Stephen went to the dressing room to put his wetsuit on.

Barrett walked over to the pumphouse about 7.30 and signed the job book, notified the pumphouse attendant they were there and about to dive, and checked with the operator that the pumps were turned off.

They walked back to the wharf and Stephen did his final preparations, attaching a backpack and harness which was attached to a lifeline, the airline and the bail out, and put on his weight belt and diver’s knife. He wore no flippers. At 7.50 he donned his mask, inserted his mouthpiece and adjusted his air and safety line to connect him with the other two on the surface. He climbed down a ladder through the entrance hole about three metres to the bay and entered the water, which was about four metres deep. Barrett held the ladder and Siemek held the hose and lifeline.

The only light in the bay comes through this hole and with the water very turbid as well, visibility was practically zero exactly the black water clearance divers are trained for. Stephen descended to the floor of the pit, and made towards the pipe about 15 metres or so. Up top Siemek fed out the line.

Stephen began his inspection on the north side of the bay and after about three to five minutes crossed to the southern side closer to the number 5 pump. Suddenly the line tightened and began to run rapidly through Siemek’s hands. He grabbed it and the force nearly pulled him into the water but then it went slack.

Siemek tugged on the line a few times to see if Stephen responded. But nothing. Something was wrong. The two divers looked at each other and suddenly an awful realisation dawned on them. Somehow, inexplicably, the pump hadn’t been turned off. Siemek gave the hose to Barrett and raced back to the pumphouse to tell the operator to shut down the pump. The attendant Greg Forbie (not his real name), his face turning white, immediately threw the switch to shut down the pump, and pump number 3 as well which was also going.

When the pumps were operating the water was drawn along the bottom of the pit in a huge current. There were no visible cues, particularly in the darkness, so it wouldn’t have been immediately obvious to a diver entering the water that the pump was going.

Once Stephen got closer to the number 5 pump, he was quickly swept up in the fast-flowing current. In the pitch black, unable to see a way out of his predicament and unable to resist the water’s pull, he was drawn towards the pipe’s entrance. Resistance was impossible.

 

At about 8 am Senior Constable Ian Boughton had just come on duty at the Newcastle branch of Police Rescue. The start times of shifts are staggered, a way of giving wider coverage of the shift, and Ian’s partner was not due to start for another hour. He was on a pager and had a vehicle, but Ian was in the office on his own when the call came through on the police radio of an accident at BHP.

Ian called up his partner and told him to meet him there. He vaulted into the driver’s seat of the police four wheel drive and headed south. Only six kilometres away, he was on the scene within about seven minutes. Sadly Ian knew the place reasonably well, having attended calls there a few times in the previous year for emergencies in which five people had died.

When he got to the pumphouse at about 8.15 the divers and other workers were gathered on the wharf unsure of what to do next. ‘When I arrived, there were these blokes staring down at the hole and nothing but an eerie silence. It had come down to the situation where the divers couldn’t do any more; there is a bloke stuck down there somewhere. The fact is we knew he had gone into the pipe and there was nothing to locate him. His air supply is gone,’ Ian said.

By that stage the others thought he was dead and they would be doing a body recovery rather than a rescue. The divers told Ian what had happened after the alarm had been raised.

John Barrett donned his gear, scrambled down the ladder and entered the water following the lifeline as he went. When he got to the pipe entrance he could feel the line going into the pipe. Thinking he could pull his mate down and out of the pipe without needing to enter it he pulled on the safety line. To his horror the line came out with the harness attached and mouthpiece and regulator as well. The reserve air bottle was found later on the bottom. It was not clear if the gear had been jettisoned or pulled off as Stephen was pulled through the pipe.

Shaken, Barrett resurfaced. Unsure about what to do next, but convinced that Stephen had been sucked through the pump, an event he would not have survived.

Just after 8 am, BHP’s emergency response worker Ian Moore was on the scene. He put on a safety harness and went into the bay and searched it for four to five minutes just in case Stephen was somewhere other than in the pipe. Then Siemek tried, even going into the pipe, but he could not feel Stephen in there. The two were convinced he had been sucked through the pump and was dead.

Meanwhile shift foreman Robert McNamara went to check the main salt water tank where the water from the pumps end up, but saw no trace of Stephen. This meant he had not passed through the pump and was still trapped somewhere inside

the pipe.

Having heard the story Ian ordered the staff to check again that the pumps were turned off and called for police divers and any other rescue divers in the area. As a police rescue officer, Ian was trained in land rescue, not water rescue, which is the domain of the water police or SCATS (Special Casualty Access Team) on the helicopter rescue service. Ian’s diving skills were virtually nil having never scuba-dived in his life. He had not even snorkelled. He is not a strong swimmer and in fact has a phobia about drowning which he traces back to a family tragedy as a child. ‘My greatest fear in life is drowning. I watched my youngest brother drown when I was a kid.’

Ian and his older brother found his youngest brother in a fish tank. Both of the brothers had been haunted by the memory, and the elder brother never really got over the guilt and grief, and Ian believes it was a major factor in him taking his own life years later as an adult. As those thoughts threatened again to surface, Ian pushed them quickly to the back of his mind. As the first on the scene, he was in charge and the call was down to him.

Ian’s immediate thought was whether this was to be a rescue or a body recovery. If he assessed that the chances of finding Stephen alive were nil, the task becomes a body recovery, calling for a far more conservative approach. Rescue workers’ first priority is and should always be for their own safety and unnecessary risks are to be avoided. In the case of a body recovery it would be possible to avoid any risk.

But Ian couldn’t dismiss the chance that maybe, just maybe, Stephen was in an air pocket in the pipe, alive but with time quickly running out. Instantly he made a decision to go in and try to find him. He asked the shift foreman if it was safe to go in the water and was told the number 3 and number 5 pumps were off, and he would be safe as long as he did not stray beyond the number 4 bay area.

Knowing that the efforts of two experienced commercial divers had come to nothing and there was only the slightest chance Stephen was still alive, Ian felt strongly enough about that possibility to give it a go. But every second counted and he could not wait for the arrival of police divers.

‘I weighed it up and decided to have a crack. I wouldn’t feel right not doing it,’ Ian said. ‘I said to the other divers, how about you put this gear on me and teach me how to use it while you are strapping it on.’

The divers gave him some quick instructions and told him how to grip the mouthpiece with his teeth so it didn’t pop out. While not trained in diving he had experience with breathing apparatus for land-based use such as in fires and chemical spills, so he was at least a little familiar with the concept, if not the equipment. ‘I thought there can’t be much difference so I thought I won’t dwell on that, the breathing will look after itself. I felt secure enough doing it and at least that way I knew I would have done everything I could.’

Ian stripped down from his overalls and boots to his shorts and singlet, put the mouthpiece in, grabbed a torch, lowered himself down the ladder and slipped into the water. In the blackness he fumbled around for the pipe, found it and began trying to find the entrance. ‘I didn’t really know what the set-up looked like I assumed the pipe was coming straight out of the wall. I never thought it would come out and then go down.’

In his mind’s eye he thought the pipe was horizontal and expected to grope his way along till he found the entrance. But he was moving downwards and couldn’t really understand it. He fought against his buoyancy as he had no weights and started to pull himself down the pipe. Eventually he hit the bottom of the bay and realised then the entrance was facing down with about half a metre gap between it and the floor. This meant he had to go into a squatting position to enter it. His breathing was going OK except for the leaky mouthpiece dribbling a little stream of salt water into his mouth, which he had to swallow. He kept having to remember to grip the mouthpiece with his teeth as instructed, otherwise it would slip out of his mouth.

Ian paused and thought about what to do next. Not really knowing where the pipe would lead, he squatted underneath the entrance for a moment to think. The pipe was very narrow, just able to accommodate a man’s shoulders, so rather than inserting himself head first, he raised one arm above his head, keeping the other down. He thought that if he entered this way there was less chance of getting stuck and he could still pull himself down and out again. He stood up and he was in. He had no real plan other than to take one step at a time. If he felt comfortable going to the next stage he would.

Ian felt as if he had been inserted into the barrel of a cannon and lowered into the murky depths in the dead of night. The only light came from the torch in his hand, which hardly penetrated the inky blackness. Fighting off the overwhelming sense of claustrophobia and allowing his buoyancy to take over, he slipped upwards. He pushed himself up the pipe but within seconds his head hit something that quickly brought his ascent to a halt.

He had hit a bend in the pipe, a right-angle turn that he would have to follow around.

Ian became aware of his heavy laboured breathing and realised he was hyperventilating from the stress. He took a moment to compose himself, slow down his breathing and think of the next step. He thought he would slip along the pipe a body length, hooking his feet over the turn of the pipe and see what he could find before making up his mind about the next step.

At this point he had no idea how far along the pipe he might have to go to get to the pump and Stephen. Stretching his body and arm as far as he could he waved it around in the darkness and just as he did his finger flicked something fleshy. It was Stephen’s fingers, at the end of his outstretched arms.

He had found him. Stephen had been sucked into the pipe around the 90-degree bend, coming to rest with one foot lodged inside the pump, the rest of his body remaining in the pipe. But at this point Ian did not know how far Stephen’s body might be trapped in the pump, whether it was the tip of his feet or perhaps a major part of his body. He found the other hand and holding both tried to pull him towards himself. The first time, nothing. The second time again he couldn’t budge him.

Ian realised by the resistance that he was caught in the pump but he did not know if it was just a foot or perhaps a leg or even worse. On the third effort he tugged as hard as he possibly could in the confined space and felt Stephen shift towards him. He gave another tug and this time he was free. At this point Ian did not know if Stephen was dead or alive. He just knew he had been under the water about 20 minutes and he was not in an air pocket. The outlook looked grim.

Keeping a firm grip on Stephen with one hand, Ian backed his way down and around the bend in the pipe. When he got Stephen to the bend it took a lot of tugging to pull him down he was a big bloke and fitted snugly in the pipe. Ian, meanwhile now at the entrance to the pipeline, was fighting against his natural buoyancy.

After some strenuous effort he finally got Stephen’s upper body around, but then he was wedged in the bend. Ian was now flat on his back outside the pipe, arms outstretched, trying to pull Stephen down through the bend. At last he felt him come loose. He pulled him the rest of the way and out of the pipe.

Meanwhile on top there was a major panic on the wharf as the others worried that Ian had got stuck himself. Minutes had passed and being in the pipe they could see no bubbles from Ian’s airline. The line itself was not moving and so they couldn’t be sure he was not stuck or drowned himself. But soon the bubbles began rising again as Ian emerged. Seconds later he had Stephen out and the pair shot to the surface. ‘I heard them yell “He’s got him, he’s got him”. It must have been a surprise to see me bob up. When I came up next to Stephen’s head I realised I knew him.’ Ian had worked with him 12 months earlier when the pair had gone out in a rubber dinghy late one night through Nelson Bay heads to do a rescue.

The others threw down a rope. He tied it around Stephen and he was hauled up the ladder onto the wharf. ‘We could see his left foot was gone and he wasn’t breathing.’

By this time the ambulance had arrived and the officers began resuscitating him, but after 20 minutes in the water there seemed no hope of reviving him. Despite that the crew worked on him for a full 25 minutes. Towards the end of that time they began the protocols for recording and reporting a death. As they performed their last chest compresses, signs of life returned as Stephen’s heart began again. They loaded him into the ambulance and quickly delivered him to Newcastle’s Mater Hospital where he was placed on life support. But the damage had been done. Over the coming hours there would be little change in his condition and eventually after about 24 hours the doctors decided Stephen would not regain consciousness. The family reluctantly agreed to turn life support off.

His death was a huge blow for everyone involved and devastating for his family. No one expects their spouse to go to work and not come home again.

‘Stephen’s death was hard to take but I still felt it was a good job I had done. I was proud that I was able to do what I did,’ Ian said. He believes that being able to rescue and resuscitate Stephen even for just those few hours had been some comfort for the family.

It meant they were able to see him for the last time, in a bed, warm and ostensibly functioning rather than as a cold body on a stretcher in the morgue the next day.

And it meant there was some comfort in their goodbyes. ‘That was the most satisfying thing out of it. And I knew I had done my best for him well and truly. So I was quite happy in that.’

Later during the coronial inquiry the coroner Nick Reimer said Ian’s actions were worthy of a Victoria Cross if civilians could be so honoured. Ian eventually received the Star of Courage, the Royal Humane Society’s silver medal, the Stanhope medal, the inaugural Galleghan award for the most outstanding act of bravery in a year, and the NSW police bravery medal.

Ian is proud to have received them all, but is particularly honoured to have been presented with an award from the Navy Clearance Divers association. An honour from the elite of divers on behalf of one of their own was enormously satisfying, Ian said.

 

It appeared that Stephen had followed his navy drills to the letter when he found himself in trouble. And it was the reason he came out relatively easily. In the situation Stephen found himself in, the standard emergency drill for a diver in peril is to release your weight belt and other gear and lie with your arms and legs outstretched. The point is to facilitate rescue by doing what you can to make it easier. The drill worked, because Ian was able to just grasp Stephen’s outstretched hand whereas if it had been tucked away behind him he wouldn’t have made contact.

Stephen’s terrible accident and his subsequent rescue were investigated by NSW WorkCover and a coronial inquiry in a bid to uncover exactly why it occurred. It was not clear whether the face mask, mouthpiece and backpack were torn off in the pipe, or if Stephen had jettisoned them under the drill. Even if Stephen had managed to hold the mouthpiece in the turbulent current he would have had trouble breathing because the pressure would have meant his diaphragm could not function properly, WorkCover investigators reported later.

Either way when Barrett pulled on the line and pulled out the mask and mouthpiece they had already separated from Stephen. It appears the emergency bail-out bottle had proved useless with Stephen unable to get to it in the confined space of the pipe.

Ian never at any point believed he was just recovering a body. He believed there was a chance, no matter how slim, that Stephen could be rescued and resuscitated. He thought an experienced diver, having done his protocols including not struggling, could mean his blood oxygen levels would be good and he stood a chance of being revived. He was delighted when the others got a pulse and for the first time he allowed himself the luxury of thinking he just might make it. ‘You start to think I might be able to just sit down and talk to this bloke about what happened.’ But it was not to be.

The most startling thing about the rescue was that despite his training and background, Ian was thrust into a situation well beyond his skills and comfort. Not only was he inexperienced, but he had a fear of drowning. He was diving in a confined space, in black water conditions that even navy clearance divers spend months training for. The fact he was able to overcome that fear and have a go is truly heroic.

While his training was crucial in the rescue effort, his experience and gut feeling both came together and gave him a limit to work to. He had not decided on a plan of action as he prepared, mainly because he did not know what was happening down there.

Despite working beyond his normal limits, he says he does not believe that he took any huge risk, being careful to be measured in his attempts, taking a little step at a time. Pausing, taking stock, assessing the risk before moving to the next step. Even so he had to push himself to enter the pipe and follow it up, not really knowing where it would take him and if indeed he could get out. That said, each step was on the edge of what is considered prudent. ‘I pushed and pushed and found that limit. Whether I would have gone further if I hadn’t found Stephen I don’t know I hadn’t made that decision yet so I will never know.’

The margin between risk and gain in this case was narrowing with every minute but there was still a prospect of finding Stephen floating in an air pocket with the air about to run out. ‘There would be nothing worse than doing nothing then finding out later that he died when he could have been assisted. How would I feel? Me falling to pieces was not going to do anyone any good.’

 

As to how Stephen’s accident occurred, one of the most crucial points hinged on the conversation between Stephen, John Barrett and the pumphouse attendant just before the dive about whether or not the number 5 pump had been turned off. During the investigations that followed, Barrett maintained that he had been assured the pump had been turned off, while the attendant said the pump question had never been discussed. Whatever the truth, the WorkCover investigation concluded that the tragedy was the result of a complete failure on the part of BHP rather than a failure by any specific individual.

A subsequent coronial inquiry confirmed this view. The coroner, Mr Reimer, said there was no ‘recipe’ to follow in the form of standard operating procedure, which would have clearly identified the risk from the pumps and provided checks and balances to ensure they were switched off.

Mr Reimer found no fault in any way with Stephen, describing him as an experienced and capable diver, nor was there any fault with the other team members, John Siemek and John Barrett. While the mask had failed and the belt for the harness was not found these were not issues.

The coroner also found the fact there was no grill or mesh fitted directly to the actual pipe’s entrance was a major safety flaw. If there had been, even with all the other failures, Stephen could not have been sucked into that pipe.

 

Ian said this was most definitely the worst situation he had to deal with in his career, mainly because he was on his own. The impact of the tragedy would linger for Ian and affect both his working and personal life.

In fact, it would eventually lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, the break-up of his marriage, a terrible motor accident that nearly claimed his own life and his leaving the police rescue service.

All the stress of the previous couple of months including work worries and his marriage problems culminated in the accident. It had all become too much and he was under terrible strain.

At work the stress manifested itself in irritability and run-ins with work colleagues until eventually he was taken off duties and ultimately pensioned out.

‘They say the highest stresses in your life are marital, workplace stress, near-death experiences, all those things I think l had most of them so it was no surprise what happened.’

It all came to a head one night after Ian was driving home from a police function. ‘I just wasn’t functioning. I had drunk too much, and driving the truck, hit a 60-foot [18-metre] gumtree at 80 kilometres an hour. I went out through the windscreen opening up my head. I should have died I went out through a gap in the windscreen while the rest of the cabin wrapped around the tree and shortened the whole cab by three feet [90 cm] the impact was so great.’

Ian said the stress of work such as police rescue has to manifest itself somehow in a person. He believes it does not matter what sort of person you are, working in such a stressful job is going to affect you sometime, somehow. The fact Stephen had died had a major impact on Ian. Rescues that do not have a positive outcome are more likely to have an impact on a rescuer than ones that do.

Ian said counselling was not offered after the rescue, which could have stopped him from falling over. After the crash he did take some counselling and it helped. ‘Mainly because you realise you’re not mad, that it is a clinical condition and you are not alone.’

It was unfortunate how all the factors played out and combined to dramatically alter the course of his life. But the car accident had a cathartic effect and helped him to reconcile all his problems, Ian believes. In some way it brought him back to reality to face the fact he had not been coping.

He was surprised the effect the trauma had on him. ‘You think you are OK but you are not.’

He can’t put a finger on why he was so deeply affected but Stephen’s death, his phobia of water and the traumatic memories of his brother’s drowning would have all played a part.

Ian thinks personal crises as a result of police work are now much better handled. He was part of a police initiative to set up peer support that helps officers identify other officers who have been traumatised or are under stress, and to achieve early intervention.

After Ian retired from the police force he took up training in the private sector and now runs training courses in emergency procedures for a range of people from untrained company personnel through to high level emergency workers. His distinguished career has given him a unique perspective on heroism and rescue. And as you would expect he has a very pragmatic view of it. His basic belief is that most people have it in them to do something to help others but only to the level they feel comfortable with.

As a trainer in emergency procedures he always emphasises the crucial point of being empathetic and sympathetic to people’s plights the driving force of helping behaviour. No matter how gruesome or unsavoury the situation, put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself, would you want someone to help me? And of course the answer is yes.