Deputies try to raise doomed sub

[shawl@torchlake.com (Jonathan Shawl)]

Traverse City Record Eagle    April 12, 1990
Deputies try to raise doomed sub

INTERLOCHEN – A motorboat with a tow line failed to budge a sunken
submarine that sank in Green Lake Tuesday with its two inventors aboard,
leaving one man dead and the other hospitalized.
Grand Traverse County sheriff’s deputies planned to try to retrieve the
submersible today, Lt. Tom Schmuckal said.  The sub sank Tuesday
afternoon in 38 feet of water when its plexiglass nose cone shattered,
he said.
Carl Hardwicke, 29, of Grosse Pointe Park apparently drowned, but his
business partner, Gregory Hansen, 27, of Warren escaped through the hole
and was rescued by Hardwicke’s family.
Hansen was flown to Bronson Methodist Hospital in Kalamazoo, where he
was treated in a decompression chamber.  He was listed in fair condition
this morning.
Sheriff’s deputies will investigate the cause of the accident once they
retrieve the sub.  Undersheriff Harold Barr said investigators aren’t
ruling out the possibility that it hit a submerged log.  Lake resident
Mark Payne said loggers used to float logs from Green Lake to Frankfort
along the Betsie River.
The two Michigan Technological University engineering graduates designed
and built the submersible, named Seaker 100.  They had formed a company,
H2O Submersibles, to market the sub, which was displayed in February at
a Detroit boat show.
Hardwicke and Hansen made a successful dive in Green Lake last fall and
were testing it Tuesday when the accident occurred.
Hansen issued a short statement Wednesday through the hospital’s public
affairs office.
“I am grieved about the loss of my friend and partner.  Naturally my
concerns at this time are with our family and friends,” Hansen said.
He said he and Hardwicke were “completing final testing of minor
modifications to the submersible when the accident occurred.”  He said
the cause was being investigated.
An underwater video camera photographed the sunken craft Wednesday and
divers inspected it to determine how to retrieve it, Schmuckal said.
“It was somewhat buoyant while they were down there so they tried to
pull it,” he said.  A boat pulled for about 20 minutes without making
any apparent progress.
Schmuckal said divers planned to see if the submersible was snagged,
then will put air bags in the interior and fill them to try to bring the
sub to the surface.
Hansen was treated at Bronson for the bends, a painful condition caused
by sudden removal from a pressurized atmosphere. Bronson is the only
hospital in the state with a decompression chamber since Alpena General
Hospital stopped using one early this year.
Bellaire physician James Greenwood, who was previously a staff physician
at the Alpena hospital said he leased the chamber from Luedtke
Engineering Co. of Frankfort a $1 a year.  He said the hospital gave the
chamber back because the company needed it.
Greenwood said sudden decompression converts nitrogen from liquid to gas
bubbles in a victim’s tissue.
“It’s just like carbon dioxide in a bottle of Pepsi when you open it,”
he said.
The chamber is pressurized, causing nitrogen to convert back to liquid,
then the pressure is gradually reduced over more than two hours.

Submitted by Jon Shawl to the Psub group.

ADDED NOTE. From what I understand, it was not the bends one would get
from staying under pressure too long, but it was a possible air embolism
that he was treated for. This can happen when you hold your breath on
accent, as little as a 4' rise while holding your breath can damage your
lungs and force air into your blood stream and cause something like a
stroke. You learn about this in a dive course. Please take a dive course
before building a sub. At least you will have a better chance of getting
out and to the surface safely.