This is a story of one helmet diver's terrifying experience on a lugger.

Ahmat was "first diver", and there was a "second diver". Both had their own tenders. The first diver entered the water from his station at the left hand side of the boat while the second diver entered from the right.

On this particular day, weather and tide conditions meant that the lugger had to drift sideways with the two divers trailing from the same (left) side of the boat.

When the time came to surface, the second diver surfaced first and was in the process of being lead around the rear of the lugger by his tender to the right hand side of the boat. The first diver was just below the surface. The first diver's tender called the engineer up from the engine room to assist as the waves were making the task of pulling in the divers difficult. The engineer, came on deck and saw the second diver climbing up the right hand side of the boat and decided to turn his air supply off. Unfortunately he turned the wrong diver's air off!

After giving the lifeline to the engineer, Ahmat's tender moved to the point where the first diver would be climbing on board, oblivious to the terrible mistake that had been made. Ahmat realising that he had no air and that he was losing bouyancy, gave the signal on his lifeline for "more air". The engineer mistakeningly read this as a signal for "more line" and let out line sending Ahmat deeper. Ahmat then gave the signal to "pull me up" and again the engineer mis-understood the signal and let out even more line thinking that Ahmat had seen a patch of shell and wanted to go down to collect some.

As Ahmat sank further and further down and felt the crushing pressure of the water on his body, he closed the valve on his helmet and crimped the air line to protect what little air he had left. He remembered being told not to panic and, while praying, he began rolling the airline up on his arm, much like you would roll up a water hose. His idea was that he just might be able to pull himself up by his own air hose.

The crushing pressure and the dwindling oxygen supply left in his suit and helmet eventually took its toll and Ahmat blacked out. Fortunately, up on deck the engineer's mistake was discovered and the air was turned back on and Ahmat was hauled up to the surface. All on deck were crying as they were certain that the ocean had claimed yet another victim. As his body rose from the depths, Ahmat regained conciousness with what he described as if some one was shaking his shoulder. They got him on deck and took off his helmet - he was alive but the pressure and lack of oxygen had taken its toll with his face swollen black and blue and his eyes bulging from their sockets. One of the crew gently pushed the eyes back and all breathed a sigh of relief - not often would such a mistake in the pearling industry go by without claiming a soul.