Got tangled in a wreck off the coast of Louisiana last month

I was doing a salvage job on an old shrimp boat near Grand Isle when my umbilical got snagged on a piece of twisted metal. It took me almost 10 minutes of cutting myself free with a dive knife while my tender kept yelling through the comms. That wreck had more sharp edges than I expected and I learned the hard way to run my lines above the debris field. Now I double check my route before I go down on any wreck dive and I carry a second cutting tool. Has anyone else had close calls like this on offshore jobs?

2 comments

2 Comments

paul_lane8013h ago

Dude that sounds terrifying. I had a similar thing happen off the coast of Florida last year where my secondary line got looped around a broken ladder rung and I was stuck for what felt like forever. My heart started pounding so hard I could hear it in my ears. Now I always have a backup knife strapped to my thigh in addition to the one on my vest. That feeling of something pulling you back when you need to move up is just the worst.

sandra_black19h ago

Yeah I started running a second line on a separate reel after that exact thing happened.