Showerthought: That job in the Houston ship channel where the current spun me around

We were doing an inspection on a piling under a dock, and the tide shift hit way faster than expected. My umbilical got wrapped around the structure, and I got turned upside down for a second. The tender on deck felt the pull and stopped my winch right away. Now I always check the tide tables twice and add a 30 minute buffer before going down in a tight spot like that. Anyone else have a close call that made you change your prep work?

3 comments

3 Comments

ward.tara17d ago

Ever notice how almost every safety rule is written because someone had a day like yours? It's wild. That one scary moment teaches you more than a hundred safe dives ever could. It feels like our brains are wired to only really learn the hard way, even with all the warnings. Makes you wonder what simple thing we're all ignoring right now that'll bite us later.

torres.nathan17d ago

My old foreman called it the blood tax.

davidshah17d ago

Just watch, the next big safety rule will be about not using your teeth as a third hand. Someone's gonna try to hold a flashlight while tightening a bolt and end up with a new nickname and a liquid diet for six weeks. We'll all have to sit through a training video about it, and some guy in the back will nod slowly, remembering his own close call with a spanner and an incisor. It's always the stuff that seems too dumb to need a rule that gets one written in someone else's blood.