A DIVER FACE TO FACE WITH DEATH.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XX, 16 November 1895, Page 602

A DIVER FACE TO FACE WITH DEATH.

HERE is one of Mr Pearce’s adventures : ‘ In the year 1163.’ he said, • I was engaged in salving the cargo of the s.s. London, which was sunk in the river Tay. I was working from the lighter of the Dundee Shipping Company. A chain, having at the end of it four sharppointed hooks, was let down to me, and it was my business to fix the hooks in the bales of cotton yarn which formed the cargo. As this was done, the bales were hauled up. I should tell you that the water was so thick below that all my work had to be done by feeling. Well, having just fixed the hooks in one of the bales I signalled for those above to try if the strain would hold. Whilst I was feeling to see if the bale had started, the hooks, not being secured sufficiently to stand the strain, gave way, tore out of their grip through the packing, and one of them caught in the palm of my hand and dragged me from the bottom of the hold to the upper deck, where I had some difficulty in getting it out. lat once gave the signal to be hauled up, and in | the daylight my hand looked an awful sight, for the whole of my palm had been completely torn open, and the hook had penetrated the third finger. It made me feel queer, I can tell you ; and I despaired of ever being able to use my hand again. I was laid up for three months, and at the end of that time to my great surprise, was able to be at my work as usual. As you may suppose, that hand has never been the same again since, and I always feel it a good deal in the cold weather. ’ On another occasion Mr Pearce had a narrow escape. He was at work this time on board the wreck of the Star of Ceylon, a barque of some 500 tons, lying in thirteen fathoms of water off the South Foreland, when suddenly, without the slightest warning, a cask of gun-shot fell from the deck into the hold, striking one of his feet. But a few inches more, and he would probably have been killed. In this case, as in that of the London, the water was so thick that the work had to be done by feeling, which greatly increases the risk. Another source of danger arises from the presence of marine monsters. The intrusive shark has sometimes to be cannily dodged, and the lifeline may at any moment be snapped in two should the creature’s vora city prompt it to such an action Then, again, after the diver has descended, wherever he may wander he has to come back exactly the same way—a thing not so easy to do in the semi-darkness, ami when he is climbing about the hold of a wreck.