Click2Flicks - Men of Honor - Chapter 7

<body link="0000ff" alink="ff0000" vlink="000000" bgcolor=000033> <table width="100%" bgcolor=000033> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <table width=90% bgcolor=ffffff> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align=center><p><b><font face="arial, helvetica" size=5 color=000000><b>MEN OF HONOR</b></p> <p><font size="4">CHAPTER 7 - MIXED-GAS DIVING</font></p> </div> <center> <table width="90%"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <div align="justify"><font face="arial, helvetica" color="000000" size="3">As scientists and divers began to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/nurp/images/nur05530.jpg"><b> learn more </b></a> about the mysterious effects of deep-water diving on human beings, they developed a <a href="http://library.thinkquest.org/28170/33.html" target="_blank"><b>different mixture</b></a> of gases for people to breathe under water. Instead of using the same gases, in the same percentages, that divers breathe above water, Navy diving pioneers like Charles "Swede" <a href="http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h47000/h47733.jpg" target="_blank"><b> Momsen</b></a> began to experiment with other types of gases - like <a href="http://www.cm.utexas.edu/periodictable/Helium.htm" target="_blank"><b>helium.</b></a> <p>Momsen, and others, discovered that helium mixed with oxygen was a much <a href="http://fig.cox.miami.edu/~lfarmer/BIL265/diving/img005.gif" target="_blank"><b> safer combination</b></a> for divers than nitrogen mixed with oxygen. They also found that <a target="_blank" href="http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/nurp/images/nur06004.jpg"><b> diving bells</b></a> were good places for submerged divers to rest and communicate with the surface.</p> <p>When divers are underwater, gases (including oxygen/helium mixtures) compress in their body. When they return to the surface, divers have to <i>de</i>compress. They do that by making <a target="_blank" href="http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/nurp/images/nur05520.jpg"><b> periodic stops</b></a> on their ascent to the surface or by <a target="_blank" href="http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/nurp/images/nur06003.jpg"><b> using</b></a> a diving bell. If there isn’t enough time for a slow return - or if a diver develops some kind of diving-related illness - treatment is in a <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ndc.noaa.gov/graphics/chamber.jpg"><b> hyperbaric</b></a> chamber.</p> <p>Carl Brashear mastered all of these mysteries of the deep. It took him more than one attempt, however. His first effort - in 1960 - was over quickly.</p> <center><font face="times new roman" size=3 color=000000><b><i>The stay was short. I flunked out of first class. Blew<br>it...First-class school was a hard school, very hard.</font></i></b></center> <p>Carl had to study sophisticated subjects:</p> <center><font face="times new roman" size="3"><b><i>Physics. Medicine. Decompression. Treatments. Ratio<br>proportion, mixing gases to the proper ratio.</font></i></b></center> <p>When he flunked out, he did not leave as a second-class diver. He left as a non-diver. He was devastated.</p> <blockquote><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><b><i>Man, I hit rock bottom. I said, "I’ve got to get off of this ship." </i>[He had been assigned to the USS <i>Nereus</i> - AS-17.]</b></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font face="arial, helvetica">Undaunted, Carl applied extraordinary effort to graduate as a First-Class Diver. He ultimately completed 26 weeks at the diving school in Washington, D.C. where he qualified in a Navy "wet chamber" similar to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.ncsc.navy.mil/Capabilities_and_Facilities/Facilities/Ocean_Simulation_Facility.htm"><b> the one</b></a> in Panama City, Florida. Before he even started the program, he tried to improve in the areas where he had failed before:</p> <center><font face="times new roman" size="3"><b><i>I studied math from 1961 to 1963, day and night.</font></i></b></center> <p>Carl finished third in a graduating class of seventeen. About fifty percent of his class had washed out.</p> <p>Only three years later, while aboard the USS <a target="_blank" href="http://www.navsource.org/archives/09/09374003.jpg"><b><i>Hoist</i></b></a> (ARS-40), Carl faced tragedy head-on. While helping to avert the damage potential caused by one of the worst nuclear weapons-related incidents in the history of atomic weapons, First-Class Navy Diver Carl Brashear became an amputee.</p> </div> <p align="center"><font size="2"><a href="men_honor_ch6.htm">GO TO LAST CHAPTER</a>     <a href="men_honor_ch1.htm">BACK TO FIRST CHAPTER  </a>   <a href="men_honor_ch8.htm">GO TO NEXT CHAPTER</a></p><br> </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table> </body>