White Dork Down

I’m sitting in the helicopter, idly fingering the collar of my survival suit, making small talk with the other passengers and looking out the window at the water below, when the pilot screams the three words I did not want to hear:

“BRACE! BRACE! BRACE!”

Without thinking I’m down, one arm braced across my chest and grasping my shoulder, the other across my lap and grasping my knees, and I’m hunching as small and compactly as possible.

In seconds the ditching helicopter hits the water surface, and for a brief moment it bobs there, before the liquid begins to pour into the vehicle. I sit up, one hand grasps for the window, the other checks the buckle on my my lifejacket -- secure -- then confirms the location of my seatbelt buckle. In all, maybe two seconds has passed since impact, and the water is already surging over my calves.

While tearing out the rubber seal around the window with my right hand my left is pulling out the Emergency Breathing System (EBS) fitted to my chest. I fit the breathing tube into my mouth and the clip to seal my nose even as my right elbow is knocking out the window pane. As the water reaches my neck I take the deepest breath imaginable and engage the EBS as water closes over my head.

The chopper is now completely submerged, sinking, and I’m still strapped in tightly to my seat. Worse, the air in my lungs is all I have to survive on and I exhale the lot into the EBS.

That’s when the top-heavy helicopter rolls upside down, the engine dragging it down to the sea floor. This is also my cue to get out, now, or die.

I release the seatbelt as the life-saving nasal clip also releases its firm hold on my nose, and water shoots into my sinuses. I panic, and inhale stale air from the EBS in my mouth and water through my nose.

Suddenly all calm is gone and the lizard part of my brain takes control. It’s telling me that I am inhaling water. It’s telling me that what little air I am getting has far too much CO² and far too little O². It’s telling me that something is grabbing my waist. It’s telling me that I’m going to die.

Instinctively I gasp again and get another mix of water and air, but this time there’s even less oxygen in the mix and even more carbon dioxide.

It’s a second since capsizing, and out of the six or seven breaths the EBS affords you, I’ve only got five lef--- four more gasps left before I run out. Even though I’m upside down, feeling panicked and scared, I still manage to unbuckle and slide out through the window frame.

In moments I bob to the surface where I rip the EBS from my mouth and cough up fluid, and in my first panicked breath I swallow more air and water than I breath but this time the panic’s gone. Treading water, I take my first real breath and then belch loudly and involuntarily, which draws an appreciable applause from the assembled students waiting for their turn to ride in the helicopter crash simulator.

This is Day 1 of my three day Basic Offshore Safety Induction and Emergency Training session, and I am having a ball.