Lewis Beddows, 24, has been left medically unfit for work after an air diving incident in Las Palmas in December 2018, working on the Ocean GreatWhite rig ahead of a UK drilling campaign.
An incident report seen by Energy Voice states “confusion” and a “breakdown in communication” on site led to a critical six-hour delay in Lewis receiving treatment for his injury – type two vestibular bends, a build-up of inert gas which affects the brain and nervous system.
His father, Derek Beddows, recently stood down from his job as the global diving technical authority for energy giant BP, based in Aberdeen, in order to support his son who lives in Norfolk.
Beddows Sr, who has worked in the industry since 1976 and lived in Westhill since 1995, likened the case to a “Shakespearean tragedy” and a “nightmare”.
He has called for lessons to be learned industry-wide following the incident, when the diving supervisor in charge decided not to put Lewis in a recompression chamber, which was the only effective treatment for the injury, according to the report.
After a year-long standoff with the contracting company Otech, the firm has in the last week got in touch via lawyers to “reach an amicable agreement” with the Beddows, but would accept “no formal admission of liability” and “will not do any interim payment”.
The Norwegian firm has not responded to repeated requests from Energy Voice for comment.
The diving incident report is signed by Otech’s chief executive and chairman, Odd Are Tveit.
Lewis, who began professional diver training at 16 and has worked around the world, including the North Sea, has been forced to sell his assets to “survive”, including savings to buy his first home.
MRI scans have shown that the 24-year-old now has 14 visible lesions on his brain and central nervous system, caused by the micro bubbles of nitrogen in his blood stream.
Dr Maarten van Kets, a specialist diving physician, said in a medical assessment that Lewis is suffering from “significant and ongoing” problems, with the delay in treatment “increasing the likelihood of incomplete recovery”.
These include reduced vision in his right eye, numbness and reduced sensation down his right side and difficulty with balance.
Beddows Jr had also been deemed to have suicidal ideation following the incident, which has altered his mental state, ability to concentrate and communicate, as well as his memory.
He is still in control of his faculties after a series of recompression treatments in the days and weeks following the incident, but his father said “he could have been killed or permanently paralysed”.
Dr van Kets’ assessment added that he would never expect the 24-year-old to be fit to dive again and he may “never regain a medical capability compatible with any gainful employment in the long run”.
Beddows Sr said: “In 44 years in the diving business, I’ve seen a lot of bends. I’ve been in the chamber with a lot of guys with bends but I have never seen a type two as bad as the one that manifested itself in my son, which makes this whole thing quite Shakespearean in its tragedy.
“I cannot believe, in this day and age, that this kind of thing still happens to a young man just doing his job.
“You spend your entire working life keeping divers safe and improving the lot of the diver in the water, the working man in the water, and BP are very good at supporting me to do that, and then your own son is crippled by incompetence.”
Beddows Jr contracted the decompression sickness after a series of dives on December 5,6,8 and twice on the 9th, in a schedule deemed “too aggressive” by the incident report.
He was carrying out welding work on the Ocean GreatWhite, the largest semisubmersible in the world, in
preparation for its arrival at Kishorn Loch in the north of Scotland the following month.
Beddows Jr said the work was running behind schedule, leading to the additional dive – rig operator Diamond Offshore said it “would not be appropriate to comment” on a dispute between an individual and a third party company which it is not involved in.
A combination of factors, including “shortcomings” in planning for the work and a “lack of adequate response” to the incident led to Beddows Jr’s injuries, according to the report.
Signs of his illness showed up less than 10 minutes after the final dive, which Lewis describes as “being hit round the head with a bat”, losing hearing in the right ear and collapsing.
At that stage the diving supervisor decided not to use the “fully operational” on-site decompression chamber, which would have solved the problem, as he thought it was “faulty”, despite protests from fellow workers.
A witness statement describes how several diver medical technicians were “trying desperately to overcome the strong resistance to put him in the chamber but it did not happen” and an ambulance was called.
At no point was the Otech diving doctor notified that an incident was ongoing, meaning “decisions related to the treatment of the diver were consequently made without any input from accepted hyperbaric medical specialists”.
After the decision was taken not the use the chamber, Lewis was transported to a hyperbaric centre in Las Palmas for treatment which Otech had on contract for 24-hour emergency treatment, which turned out to be closed.
It was a full six hours after the dive, when Lewis had been flown to the neighbouring island of Tenerife, that he was finally recompressed.
The consequences of that delay are still keenly felt.
(continued in next post.)
