> "The pool of warm, sulphidic water stinks of rotting eggs or burnt rubber when you disturb it as hydrogen sulphide is given off." ... tight confined space, n

> "The pool of warm, sulphidic water stinks of rotting eggs or burnt rubber when you disturb it as hydrogen sulphide is given off." ... tight confined space, no direct access to the surface, creepy crawlies, toxic environment/atmosphere. Story time combining all of these + more: H₂S is a horrible thing to get in contact with. I was working for Oceaneering on a diving job just off the coast of China. Next to us a Chinese vessel with their diving crew that was trenching. They've been there long before us and sending divers down on nitrox or air and had them decompress in the chamber on their ship's deck (which alone was insane considering the depth). We noticed they had heavy helicopter traffic and rotated crew out on an unusual high frequency. Nobody on our crew knew what was going on over there nor that they had every diver returning "bent". Our vessel was meant to do inspection and minor repairs on an oil well literally next to them and we had sent our own divers into the saturation chamber to start diving the next day. We had no warning from the Chinese crew anchored not far from us and who must have known shit is on fire considering they've been rotating out their sick divers every couple days. A few minutes into the job our diver returning from the lockout to the bell complained of headache and a foul smell. We brought the bell back up with our divers in it and docked them back onto the "Sat system". The moment the bell got lifted out of the water we noticed the rotten stench. Not only did both guys immediately faint the moment they made it back into the chamber but also the crew docking the bell back onto the system got sick (headaches lasted several days and puking their guts out). Our divers who were still inside the chambers needed to be decompressed which would last close to 4 days at that depth. Under normal emergency procedure a "Med" would be sent into the chamber to help them in case first-aid was needed. But given that the inside of these chambers now were contaminated with H2S we just had to hope that they don't die. We had to slow-down our normal speed of ascent laid out by the decompression table since even with normal procedure our guys were also starting to show symptoms of the bends on their way up. So instead of 4 days decompression time the guys suffered for a whole week before we could get them out and choppered to the hospital. Both our guys survived but were severely ill for a long time. One was in a wheel chair for a few years and never fully recovered though. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturation_diving https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturation_diving