The pressure zone: the story of a pioneer saturation diver - mike cooke

This is the story of a kid who came out of the Montreal welfare system (three juvenile homes from age 6-16), pulled out of high school and sent to work at 16.

Joined the Royal Canadian Navy at 17.

Five years later, honourably discharged.

The youngest Clearance Diver (CD) to be trained at that time.

The first person to walk on the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico at a depth greater than 1,000 feet.

And the first person to work on the bottom of the North Sea at 1,065 feet.

From cutting free 50-gallon drums off a pipeline in a swamp outside Cameron, Louisiana with alligators sunning themselves on the barrels, to performing CPR at 1,000 feet in the North Sea.

This is a story about diving and especially about saturation diving - about the dangers involved and what it was like to live under pressure for weeks on end.

This is my story.