Medicine: Up from the Bottom

Between hurricane warnings the morning was glassy calm and only faintly overcast as the submarine U.S.S. Archerfish hove to, 15 miles southwest of Key West, over Vestal Shoal. Flooding her tanks, Archerfish submerged and settled gently on the coral-sand bottom at 322 ft. On the surface, the submarine rescue ship Penguin maneuvered from a special mooring until she was directly over the sub, double-checking her position by UQC (underwater sound communication). Then Penguin lowered a diving bell. Of the four men who rode it down to 300 ft., only one was inside; three were skindivers with backpacks of Scuba gear, and they hitched a ride on the bell, for speed and safety, by clinging to its exterior.

In the forward torpedo room of Archerfish were Commander (Medical Corps) George Bond, 43, and Chief Engineman Cyril Tuckfield, 38. Dr. Bond wore nothing but swimming trunks, face mask, a Mae West life vest and a pressure gauge on his wrist. Tuckfield carried a small additional item: a nose clip of rubber-padded steel. They clambered into Archerfish’s tiny forward escape hatch and dogged down the door, cutting themselves off from the rest of the submarine. Over UQC came the word: all set. Penguin’s skipper, Lieut. Commander George Enright, began a six-minute countdown.

25 Seconds. First, Bond and Tuckfield checked the lights, emergency gear—and each other. Then Tuckfield opened a seacock, and the forward escape hatch began to fill with water. The men stayed at normal atmospheric pressure because excess air and their stale breath escaped through a vent line into the torpedo room. As the 68° water rose to their chins, Bond and Tuckfield shivered. With half a minute to go, the doctor gave the order and the chief opened a valve, letting air under 225 Ibs. pressure gush into the hatch. The outlet vent was closed. The air pressure zoomed, and at the equivalent of 240 ft. the gauge on Dr. Bond’s wrist imploded. Dr. Bond had to hold his nose with his fingers while he did heroic Valsalva* maneuvers to equalize the pressure in his head; Tuckfield had the advantage of his nose clip.

Dr. Bond stood with his foot poised against the outboard escape door, which would open when pressure inside and out was equalized. After 25 seconds, he felt it give, and yelled: “On the bottom!” Tuckfield closed the air inlet. They were now up to their necks in water, and breathing air at a pressure of about ten atmospheres, 134 p.s.i. above normal. Instead of being searing hot, as they had feared, it proved comfortably warming. But there was no time to enjoy it. Not a second could be lost, or they would begin to suffer nitrogen poisoning—Jacques Yves Cousteau’s “rapture of the deep”—which makes men behave irrationally and often suicidally.

Seven Quarts. Dr. Bond grabbed an air hose with a pistol end, and inflated Tuckfield’s Mae West to about 140 Ibs. The chief did the same for the doctor; in every move, they checked each other. Then Dr. Bond wriggled his 6-ft. 2-in., 204-lb. frame through the little (28 in. by 42 in.) escape door, grabbed a wooden grating in Archerfish’s deck to wait for Tuckfield. The chief, 6 ft. and 190 Ibs., was out a second later, gripped the doctor’s belt. Each barrel-chested man has a lung expansion of seven quarts or more, and they had the equivalent of almost 18 gallons of air compressed in their lungs.

They held their mouths open and carefully regulated their diaphragms to control the rush of escaping air as it expanded while they rose and the pressure fell. Waiting Cameraman John Light, who had ridden the diving bell, recorded the galaxy of bubbles first as Dr. Bond let go the grating and the researchers soared toward the surface. More air escaped from the Mae Wests, fitted with automatic valves. Otherwise, they would have exploded.

Sideslipping only about 20 ft., Bond and Tuckfield made the vertical ascent of 302 ft. in 53 sec., and grabbed a life ring. They felt fine, needed no decompression, had suffered neither nitrogen narcosis nor the bends, even in mildest form.

Purpose of the Navy’s deep-down test: to learn whether “buoyant ascent,” made quickly after only a short period under abnormally high pressure, could safely be used by men trapped in a submarine as much as 300 ft. down. (In peacetime, 85% of submarine emergencies occur in water no deeper.) In seven action-packed minutes, Dr. Bond and Chief Tuckfield disproved many a medical assumption about underwater emergencies, neatly proved their lifesaving point.

* Holding the nose and keeping the mouth closed while trying hard to breathe out.