DIVER’S ORDEAL

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23883, 27 February 1943, Page 2

DIVER’S ORDEAL

GLASS OF HELMET BROKEN ACCIDENT ON RIVER BED (0.C.) SYDNEY, February 2. While working in 60 feet of water installing a coffer dam on the bed of the Hawkesbury river, 40 miles from Sydney, a diver. Andrew Dubos, 31, had a terrifying experience when the glass of his diving helmet was knocked out by a piece of hardwood. As the smothering water rushed through the aperture, Dubos, with failing strength managed to give a distress signal to his assistants on the surface Before losing consciousness. He was hauled into a pontoon and recovered after resuscitation methods had been applied. Handsome, with gleaming white teeth, Dubos joked about his experience during a press interview at a hospital. “They say drowning is a ; pleasant death, but, hell, they’re mad; it's dreadful!” he said. Describing the accident from the time the timber struck him until he lost consciousness, he said;—“l felt the clout, and touched the timber. I could not see. The river is dirty and it is dark down there. Within a few seconds the water started to gush in. Ithought the airline had gone, and I closed the intake valve. This should have made me buoyant, but the water still poured in at a terrific bat. Then I knew what had happened, and gave two distress signals. This may seem to cover a long period, but it all happened in a few seconds. ■ “When I began to suffocate I thought; ‘This is it; it's curtains this time. I've had some thrills, but I felt certain I was going to die. I thought of a millions things rapidly, and then they tapered down to three thoughts— my wife, our unborn baby, my mother These thoughts kept repeating themselves in my mind, Then, finally, I thought of my boyhood days on (he Parramatta river when I first wanted to be a diver. Suddenly it seemed someone hit me in the middle of the back with a sledge-hammer and I went down. It got queer, and I remember thinking, ‘This is it, you must die now'.” Dubos said it was lucky when he gave the distress signal to his attendant, Kenneth Cole, there were others near to give aid. Cole could never have raised him unaided, said Dubos. With his diving suit and water in it he had weighed about 3jcwt, When he was hauled to the surface Cole ripped off his diving-suit with a jack-knife and made him ready for fellow-workers, Frank and Jack Curtis, to apply resuscitation methods. When he re B fl i' ied consciousness the first person Dubos saw was a policeman. “I believe we started asking each other silly questions, and the policeman capped it all by getting out his notebook.” he said. Dubos said that as soon as he was able to leave hospital he intended ro dive at the same spot to try to find out what exactly had happened and if possible recover the lost glass from his helmet.