Staffordshire diver dies during deep sea filming in Aegean Sea
in an exploration of the Titanic wreckage as part of a Discovery Channel expedition led by filmmaker James Cameron, who directed the 1997 blockbuster “Titanic”.
Decompression sickness is caused by surfacing too quickly after a deep dive. The condition can cause rashes, joint pain, headaches, and paralysis but death only occurs in extreme cases.
Greek Ministry of Merchant Marine spokeswoman, Aspa Papadopoulou, said Mr Spencer was found “unconscious with decompression sickness symptoms”.
“Everything was done to save his life,” she said. “A fully-equipped military Super Puma helicopter was rushed in to take him to the best possible hospital in Athens and even in flight every possible method of artificial respiration was tried to resuscitate him.
“The helicopter landed at the military airport of Katechaki, on the outskirts of Athens, after which he was rushed to the Athens Naval Hospital because there is a decompression chamber there.”
* In June 2007 Carl Spencer spoke to the Birmingham Post’s Alison Jones about the exploration of HMHS Britannic. Here are some of his thoughts about Titanic’s sister ship.
"There were lot of questions that still needed answering on Britannic. Why, after the Titanic disaster, did she sink three times faster? She had had a lot of safety modifications that were supposed to make her unsinkable.
"She was a hospital ship at the time but many survivors said they saw torpedo trails going towards her. If that was the case the Germans fired on a hospital ship, and that would have been a war crime. But all evidence pointed towards a mine explosion which was considered a quirk of fate, collateral damage.
"We suspect the watertight doors hadn’t closed, so it was basically a clear passage of water straight through the ship.
"What we wanted to do was not just be at depth but to spend a lot of time there to resolve these mysteries. We managed to get into the boiler room through an open watertight door and we were able to prove that they were open which is why it went down so fast.
"We found debris in a minefield from Britannic and were able to plot her final position and prove she hit a mine. Going down to a ship like that is incredible. Britannic is intact. Titanic is busted up quite bad really.
"The crows nest on the forward mast which is not there on Titanic is there on Britannic and you can just picture Frederick Fleet on Titanic ringing the bell and shouting ‘ice berg ahead’.
"Everybody who died on Titanic did so because they weren’t on a life boat. Everybody who died on Britannic, died in a life boat.
"There was one life boat that was pulled through the propellers on Britannic and everybody except one person was killed and that was a lady named Violet Jessop, who had survived the Titanic.
"She was also on the Olympic, the third sister, when that was involved in a collision.
"I hooked up with James Cameron because I said I would love him to come along. He is a born explorer and with him comes a lot of technology.
"I thought it would be great to have his enthusiasm and his resources along as well."
