Last Breath
Last Breath is a fact-based story of a professional saturation diver who got stuck at a depth of about 80–100 metres on the bottom of the North Sea — without oxygen. This incredibly suspenseful documentary was made using the original footage from the divers' helmet cameras.
The story told in the film is so universal and so well explained that I can recommend it to anyone. The images shown there brilliantly convey the life and the demands placed on professional divers. This documentary is a gripping tale of one man's dramatic struggle on the sea floor. Can you imagine spending over 30 minutes on the bottom of the North Sea practically without oxygen?
The film is a great analysis of this accident and, over 90 minutes, can make us laugh and a second later sadden us to the point of tears. The combination of amazing archival footage, the analysis of data from the black boxes, and interviews with the divers and the ship's crew create a real rollercoaster of emotions.
The hero of the film is Chris Lemons — a professional saturation diver carrying out routine work on the Huntington oil field. The drilling structures are at a depth of 80 metres, 115 km east of the town of Peterhead in Scotland. Unfortunately, the work doesn't go according to plan, and as a result of a failure of the boat's dynamic positioning system, Chris loses his connection to the ship and is left alone on the bottom of the North Sea.
That connection is a kind of umbilical cord, which supplies the diver with saturation gases, electricity for lighting and warm water for the suit, so he doesn't freeze at such a depth. The line also provides communication with the ship. Chris is left on the bottom with an emergency tank, which lets him survive on the seabed for about 5 minutes. The ship Bibby Topaz, from which he descended to dive, is pushed further and further away by the storm…
Additional materials
- Description of the serious diving incident and its causes on the IMCA website
- Presentation: Incident summary 08.10.12 "Bibby Topaz"
The hard work of saturation divers
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