by beaky » Wed Mar 23, 2005 8:34 pm
Awful. Reminds me of a story I heard the first time I was in New Orleans...
Met a guy at a bar who is a salvage diver; works in the Mississippi River, which is murky, deep, and very swift-moving down near the Delta. He was called once to recover the body of a man who was operating a forklift on a dock and somehow rolled off into the river, and never came up. Nobody went in after him- it'd be suicide without the right equipment and training, and very dangerous even for a pro.
This diver went down there in a heavy old-time suit w/air hose and helmet, battling the current, and groped around until he found the forklift and this poor fellow, still strapped into his seat, with "a look of utter surprise" on his face, as he put it (lest you think him cynical or disrespectful, he also said he felt terrible for the guy, and figured his heart had failed before he had time to think about getting free and making for the surface). The diver had a comm. link to the surface via his tether, and his supervisor or whoever said: "Listen, the press and some local officials are here, so we're sending down a bodybag. We can't have them seeing the body when we haul him up".
My new acquaintance told him: "I'm barely holding on here in a 15-knot current of mud, and you want me to unstrap him, stuff him in a bag, and then hook him to the winch? Buddy, he's comin' up as is- unless you you wanna come down here and put him in the bag!"
A little grim humor there...
