Chris Lemons

Chris has been a commercial diver for over 14 years and currently specialises in deep-sea saturation diving, operating almost exclusively in the oil and gas industry. This highly specialised form of diving involves living in the claustrophobic confines of a decompression chamber for up to 28 days at a time, commuting daily to the sea bed in a diving bell, and working at depths of up to 900 feet for 6 hours at a time.

​In September of 2012, a freak failure of the dynamic positioning system of the vessel Chris was working under resulted in the umbilical, which provided him with breathing gas, light and heat, being severed completely. He was left on the sea bed, in complete darkness, 300 feet below the surface, with only 5 minutes’ worth of breathing gas he carried in the emergency tanks on his back, and no way to protect himself from the freezing temperatures.

​It took his heroic rescuers over 40 minutes to come back and find him, and his miraculous survival has baffled experts ever since. This extraordinary story was subsequently immortalised in the hit Netflix/BBC documentary ‘Last Breath’, while Chris continues to dive to this day. Today, Chris has agreed to share his story with The Book of Role Models.

How do you see yourself? Who is Chris Lemons?

That’s such a difficult question for me to answer. It’s for other people to define you. I would say I’m a fairly ordinary human being and there is nothing particularly special or inspirational about me. I just happen to do a job that is slightly unusual, because people don’t necessarily know that much about the world of diving.

In some ways, my job has come to define me. I am proud of what I do and it certainly sends me home with my head held high, but I am not just my work. I am a father of two, so that’s probably what defines me most these days.

At the end of the day, I would like to think I am a nice person. That’s my biggest goal in life: to be decent, courteous and polite with everyone I meet. And to improve their lives in some small way.

How did you get into diving? Did you know someone who was involved in diving and helped shed some light on this unconventional profession?

That’s a good point, diving is a world that is shrouded in mystery for the general public. If you watch the documentary about me, it explains a lot about what the job entails, but, for the most part, people don’t know this sort of work even exists. I certainly didn’t know anything about it as I was growing up.

This profession is something I fell into. I was probably a little bit lost when I was 19–20 and didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. It was a friend’s father who sort of took pity on me. I was helping him out with a few odd jobs and he found me a place to work on a diving boat (we call them dive support vessels, or DSVs). I started off with it as a summer job to earn a bit of money while I was figuring out what I was going to do with my life. I ended up working back deck on one of these boats out in the North Sea, which is quite tough in itself – all the elements.

This job gave me an insight into the world of diving, particularly saturation diving, which I eventually got involved in. Funnily enough, you don’t really get to know the divers when working on DSVs. They live in separate chambers for 28 days at a time, so you don’t cross paths with them very often. They seemed a bit of an enigma, a bit heroic and a bit special. At the time, what they did seemed very romantic and interesting. (I have learned that it’s the complete opposite since I came to do it!) Also, they used to turn up on the quayside with nicer cars than I did – I’m not going to lie, that was definitely a factor too. Mostly, though, it became an ambition: I wanted to do what they did and be one of them, and my life was very simple after that.

This ambition became my drive. I feel for a lot of youngsters these days who go through their early years unsure of what to do with their lives – just like I was – treading water, I suppose. I was lucky: once I had found what I wanted to do, the drive grew in me very quickly, and I followed it through right to the end.

“I feel for a lot of youngsters these days who go through their early years unsure of what to do with their lives – just like I was – treading water, I suppose. I was lucky: once I had found what I wanted to do, the drive grew in me very quickly, and I followed it through right to the end.”

How do you become a diver? Are there technical courses?

It’s a progressive thing. First, you have to qualify as an ‘air diver’, which means breathing air and diving to a restricted depth of 50 meters. I had to do a 12-week course for that. Then, you have to find work as an air diver, which can include a wide range of diving jobs. Most of my work was offshore, because I was already involved in that world through my earlier work on DSVs. You cut your teeth working as an air diver: you have to work so many years, do so many dives at various depths and gain so much experience before you can be considered for the next step, which is saturation diving. I think, I spent about seven years as an air diver before I was able to take my saturation course. After that, you have to search for a job again. It’s a very competitive world, as there are a lot of divers who want to do it, but very few openings. It’s a case of who you know and how you impress people while you’re still an air diver.

You’ve mentioned saturation diving. What exactly is it?

Saturation diving is pretty much exclusively used in the oil and gas industry (which is where I work) and also – although rarely – in a military context. Basically, it facilitates diving very, very deep.

If you scuba dive in the Caribbean to about 30 meters to look at the fish, you can’t go back to the surface as soon as you’re finished; you need to spend a certain amount of time stopping on the way up to decompress, that is to allow the inert gasses in your system to come out, rather than block your venial system. So, if you were to dive to 30 meters for 30 minutes, you might have to stop for 20 minutes on the way back up. We work on the bottom of the North Sea that can be 180–200 meters deep – more in other parts of the world. The principle is no different; however, if I was to work on the bottom of the North Sea at 150 meters for six hours, my tissues would become, what we call, saturated with inert gas. The time necessary to decompress on the way back to the surface would extend to about five days! The decompression time goes up exponentially, and taking so long to resurface safely is obviously not feasible on a day-to-day basis – you can’t have a diver hanging on a rope in the water for five days.

Our boat works 24 hours a day; there are divers on the sea bed all the time. We get around the issue of decompression by saturation diving, which involves using special pressurised living chambers on the bottom of the boat. On day one, 12 of us (four teams of three) go into them and we shut the door. The chamber gets pressurised down to the depth we are going to be working at. So if we were working at 100 meters, they would get pressurised down by pumping gas in until we are at a pressure of about 90 meters under water, or the equivalent. Then, every single day, a diving bell locks onto the top of the chamber, and three of us climb up and we get separated from the chamber. We are lowered through a hole in the bottom of the boat down to 90 meters. When you open the door, you have dry environment, because you have equivalent pressure inside and out, so the water doesn’t come in. We don our diving equipment and drop down to the last 10 meters to reach the sea bed and then work for six hours. That work involves anything to do with the oil industry: pipe lines, hydraulics, electronics, inspection of the rigs themselves, putting things in, taking things out and overall maintenance work. Sometimes it can involve just moving bags of mud around the sea bed – it’s not very glamorous at all.

After six hours, we climb back into the bell and are raised back up to the ship. The bell connects back to the chamber, and we climb down, eat and sleep. All the time you are in the chamber, you are under that pressure the whole time and we spend 23 days doing that same routine. After the 23 days, we stop diving and spend time just lying in our bunks, reading books for five days to very slowly decompress in a carefully controlled environment. I have to say, the diving itself is easy, but living for 28 days in close confines with people you may not necessarily like is a whole different thing.

Do you have contact with the outside world?

Yes, we can phone home, but there is a little caveat to that. Once you are any deeper than around 33 meters and breath air, you get a thing called nitrogen narcosis. The nitrogen that you breath under pressure becomes slightly toxic. It’s like being drunk, so it affects your decision-making. Once you get beyond 50 meters, you are almost incapacitated and unable to work, so you need to change the gas that you breath. We breath Heliox, a mix of helium and oxygen. Although you don’t suffer many side effects from that, you do get a very high-pitched voice. The deeper you go, the more constricted your vocal cords get as well. So while we can phone home, it’s almost unintelligible. My wife is quite attuned to it by now and can pick things up. We can also send texts, as long as the internet connection is decent. Television also helps to pass the time and keep abreast of any news.

It is definitely a skill to be able to live in those conditions and not feel claustrophobic, because there is no exit mechanism. If your appendix bursts, your mother dies or you just don’t want to be in there anymore, there is no circumnavigating the five days of decompression. You need to be someone who can psychologically deal with all that, because the environment you’re in has similarities with prison – ironically, with less freedom. The good thing about the job is that it tends to fairly quickly weed out people who are aggressive or difficult to live with. I think there is a misconception that this type of job is for macho types, but, actually, most people in this field are very nice and friendly. You have to be. If you’re not, no one will put up with you and you will get sacked pretty quickly.

“If your appendix bursts, your mother dies or you just don’t want to be in there anymore, there is no circumnavigating the five days of decompression. You need to be someone who can psychologically deal with all that, because the environment you’re in has similarities with prison – ironically, with less freedom.”

How long do you get to spend on leave on shore?

In the North Sea, you are legally limited to 28 days of work at a time. However long you are under the sea, you generally have the same amount of time off. Whilst you are at work, you are totally focused, doing nothing else but living and breathing your job; however, as a reward, you have the rare luxury of only working six months of the year. I miss things at home when I’m at sea, but when I am home, I can be 100% a father or husband and enjoy myself.

The documentary ‘Last Breath’ tells your harrowing story of you becoming stuck alone in the depths of the sea. Were you conscious at that stage, and if so, what went through your mind while waiting to be rescued?

I definitely fell unconscious at some stage, and it’s not entirely clear how long I was conscious for. We know that, under normal circumstances, the amount of gas I was carrying on my back should have lasted around 5–8 minutes; however, the intensity of my breathing in panic might have affected that estimate. About 40 minutes passed between my umbilical cord being severed and me getting rescued, so the vast majority of it I don’t actually remember. Those eight or so minutes to me seemed very, very lucid. Right at the beginning, when I was in full panic and survival mode, I don’t remember thinking very much at all, apart from being frightened and desperate to find a way to save myself. If you watch the documentary, you can understand the situation I was in a bit better. There came a point – quite quickly – where I realised that I wasn’t going to be saved; I knew there was no way they could get to me before my gas would run out. It was a very sad moment that, strangely, helped dissolve the fear and panic. Once I had given up hope, I knew my chances were pretty much non-existent, so there wasn’t anything left to panic about. I remember a tidal wave of sadness coming over me – and of loss and grief. Not so much for myself but for those I was leaving behind, and for the life I would never have. I was still relatively young, and my life, hopes and dreams were all ahead of me. I can remember thinking a lot about the devastation this ending would cause to other people: my fiancé at the time, with whom we were in the middle of building a house together, and my mother. For all you know that life finite, you still want to get to as much as possible of it. I am not alone in having that experience, of course. There are people who get illness-related death sentences every day, being told they have a finite time to live. So, I don’t consider myself special at all in that sense; however, in my case there was an incredibly small window of time to process everything. In situations like this, you turn from a grown-up individual back into the little child again. I remember calling out into the complete darkness ‘I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry’ to my fiancé and calling out my colleague Duncan’s name hoping he would come and save me even though I knew it was hopeless. I was overwhelmed with desperation, sadness, loneliness and disbelief that I was going to end my days in this strange and alien place and not in my bed when I am 90. I was astonishingly lucky to stay alive in the end.

“There came a point – quite quickly – where I realised that I wasn’t going to be saved; I knew there was no way they could get to me before my gas would run out. It was a very sad moment that, strangely, helped dissolve the fear and panic. Once I had given up hope, I knew my chances were pretty much non- existent, so there wasn’t anything left to panic about.”

“I was astonishingly lucky to stay alive in the end.”

How did your life change after that incident, if at all?

I get asked that question a lot. People assume you would have some kind of epiphany. That you would wake up the next morning thinking you were going to be a better human being, live your life better and take advantage of every day. To tell the truth, that didn’t happen for me. I like to think there was a bit of me that wanted to be a better human being and lead my life better anyway. I am not religious, so I think death is a finite thing, and I am comfortable with that. It doesn’t mean I want it to happen, but I know it is going to. More than anything, this tells me I need to take advantage of every second I have on this amazing beautiful planet we live on.

“I need to take advantage of every second I have on this amazing beautiful planet we live on.”

Also, life takes over. You come back from this life-and-death situation and you feel ‘Oh gosh, I am a bit special’, but you still have to put the bins out on a Tuesday morning. Life goes on despite you thinking you’re someone exceptional now – you’re not. People have near misses all the time, so I think you relativise it a bit. Mine was an unusual situation, I suppose, and therefore it has drawn interest and the film was made – it’s all a little embarrassing, really. The way I see it, I had a very lucky escape but was unharmed, so I think I should count myself very fortunate and move on.

“You come back from this life-and-death situation and you feel ‘oh gosh, I am a bit special’, but you still have to put the bins out on a Tuesday morning. Life goes on despite you thinking you’re someone exceptional now – you’re not.”

One thing I do have as a result of this experience is a more acute awareness of death. I think about it a bit more too. In some ways, I am less fearful of death, even though I have never really been afraid of it. Of course, I didn’t die, but I was about to. And if that is the same process I have to go through again eventually, at least I’ll know what to expect. It was sad, but there was no pain – I don’t really remember the moment of going unconscious, for example. If you think about going to sleep, you remember getting into bed, winding down, maybe thinking about the next day, but not the actual moment you fall sleep or unconscious, do you? That was very much the case for me that night. I get a lot of people who have lost someone contact me to ask about death. It’s nice to try and reassure them it is like falling asleep in a way – the same way I reassure myself.

Have you thought of changing your profession after this experience? Switching to something safer?

We went back to work three weeks after the accident! In fact, we were the first people back in the water when the boat started working again. Part of this decision was due to the fact that I was young and naïve, in the infancy of doing that kind of work and maybe didn’t appreciate the magnitude of what had happened. I was worried about my job; at the end of the day, I still have a mortgage to pay. The problem is diving is all I know and can do. If someone offered me a job doing something more sensible, I would probably take it. That’s slightly unfair, because I do like my job and I feel what happened was a freak accident, a single failure, and the chances of it happening again are infinitesimally small. It is a dangerous profession in a way, but it’s also extremely well regulated. I talk to people who go scuba diving for pleasure and I think they are putting their lives in more risk than I am. There are 110 people on the boat I work on, who are always working to ensure I am safe, whereas someone who goes scuba diving to 50 meters on his own is in far more danger than I am.

So, if you were not in diving, what else would you like to do?

Rock start, obviously – just for the life style! (laughs)

I would quite like the idea of getting more involved in safety side of diving, making sure the standards are up to scratch. Like I said, I feel very privileged to be working in such a controlled environment in the North Sea in the UK. The European waters too generally have very stringent regulation around diving, but that’s not the case everywhere globally. There are a lot of people doing my kind of work around the world who put their safety and lives in other people’s hands with very little regulation of the whole process. People die all the time when diving, and that shouldn’t happen. There hasn’t been an accident-related death in the North Sea since about 1983, I think. People have the view that diving is a very dangerous profession, but at the same time, the risks can be very well mitigated, so there is no excuse for that not to be the case. I would like to get involved in that a bit more, either through campaigning or as a profession.

“Remember that all these people who intimidate you in life and make you think ‘Gosh, I could never be like them’ have had the same insecurities and difficulties that you do. Only, they have learned to overcome them.”

What part of diving you enjoy most? What makes this job so attractive to you?

I think it is what attracts everyone to diving: the sensation of being under water. At my work, we don’t really swim that much, but there are days when it is a magical job. I imagine it’s a bit like being an astronaut in space: you feel slightly weightless, you can climb up what feels like big building under the water using just two of your fingers, you get to see the beautiful sea life and that ethereal majesty of the underwater world when it’s lovely and peaceful. That’s what keeps me diving, and I think it’s what draws people to diving in the first place. Although, I have to admit that this magic happens perhaps one day in about 40; the other 39 days it’s muddy, horrible and I can’t see anything. You are under pressure (both literally and figuratively!): you don’t realise you’re under water half the time, because you are focusing on what you have to do – it’s a big money industry. My boat costs about €200,000 a day to hire, there is an oil company that might be losing millions a day if something doesn’t go to plan, and here I am: little Chris on the sea bed with my friends and a camera on my hat, with 110 people on the boat closely following everything my hands are doing. That’s quite stressful, and I don’t enjoy any of that bit. I can confidently say my job is varied and interesting – no two days are the same and it’s exciting, there is no doubt about that. Although I don’t particularly have pride in working in the oil industry – I don’t want our planet to be using petrol any more than anyone else does – unfortunately, we still need oil, and I do get a sense of pride from the actual work that we do.

What are the most important values and things in your life right now?

I am fairly simple; I value the same things that most people do. Honesty and courtesy. I really struggle with people who are rude, aggressive or angry. People should be kind to each other. That’s the values I appreciate in life, and also try to instil in my children. Life would be much better if everyone was decent to each other.

If there was one piece of advice that you could give to others from what you have learned, what would it be?

To be yourself (even if it sounds a bit trite). Realise what you are. Your intelligence or physical level of strength – these can be worked upon and improved, but the essence of you remains the same. The quicker you can come to terms with what you really are, the more comfortable you will feel with yourself. Don’t be afraid to speak to people around you and ask for their advice. Again, this is part of recognising your own weaknesses. You can’t be good at everything, so you need others’ advice and help – we all do. Remember that all these people who intimidate you in life and make you think ‘Gosh, I could never be like them’ have had the same insecurities and difficulties that you do. Only, they have learned to overcome them.

“The quicker you can come to terms with what you really are, the more comfortable you will feel with yourself.”

If you had super powers, what would you change in the world?

We live in this beautiful world which is being torn apart by divisive arguments. If I had a super power, it would be to make people be kind, discuss things rationally and not be so divisive in our politics and our arguments. Although most of us actually lie in the middle ground, we end up being either massively right wing or massively left wing. There doesn’t seem to be a place in between anymore; you can’t be rational – you have to be one thing or another. It sounds a bit like a Miss World answer, but all I wish is for us all to be just a little bit nicer and talk to each other.

Do you get training at work on coping mechanisms and overcoming psychological challenges?

No, we don’t do it at all, actually. We have a very stringent physical once a year to check our lungs, heart and so on, yet you never get asked how you are feeling or how being locked in a small space every day is affecting you. It’s a neglected part of our world, even though that’s the case in a lot of fields of work. Mental health is a hot topic at the moment in the UK, which is great and means that people can talk much more openly about it. People are starting to realise that in truth mental health issues can probably have more impact on people than breaking a leg or crushing a finger. The damage people suffer through their work or life psychologically is immense.

Coming back to my accident, there were a scary few moments, but we got through it completely unharmed, so we felt strangely euphoric about having escaped that situation and, ultimately, it’s been a positive experience in our lives. However, there were over a hundred people on the boat that day, who had to watch and experience what was unfolding. There is a bit of footage in the film of me just lying prostrate and it’s quite harrowing. The actual footage of that last’s nearly 40 minutes and people on board our boat had to assume all this time that a friend or colleague was dying on the sea bed. Many of them have been traumatised by that, some never worked with divers again and many suffered nightmares, even if they were only involved in a small way. Trauma is not as straightforward as people think, it doesn’t necessarily have to involve the protagonists or those directly affected. The effect it can have on other people is remarkable, and it can be more severe.

Nowadays, I get a lot of attention because of ‘Last Breath’ (although my accident happened in 2012, the film came out in 2018). Ever since the accident, and particularly since the film came out, I get hundreds of emails a day at times. They are lovely on the most part, and I have been lucky enough to get invited to speak to people, for example in Canada and Australia. It is a real privilege and I really enjoy it. Like I’ve said, I don’t feel like I am anyone special – I was very much the damsel in distress in that story; however, I am lucky to be able to share it, and it seems to touch people in one way or another. Whether it was the closeness to death or the slightly miraculous nature of it.

It’s lovely to be involved in this way and bring the topic of mental health to light. I am not qualified in any way, but if the story of my accident might open the discussion and have a positive impact on anybody, I am grateful to have the opportunity to do that.

Who or what has influenced you most in your life?

There were two figures in my life I particularly looked up to. One of them was my grandfather, who was French and a sea captain. He was quite an aloof figure but possessed all those qualities I value: honesty, kindness, discipline and integrity. He was a strong non-conformist man who did not like rules, knew what he wanted in life and did his own thing to achieve it. He was a big influence to me at an early age. He didn’t like many people, but he liked me.

In the professional context, I would mention the man who got me my first job on a diving boat, my friend’s father. He was an ex-soldier and quite similar to my grandfather in that he was a hard man and didn’t really like people. When I was younger, he was a bit of a hero to me – someone I wanted to be like. You get a different perspective with age, and heroes are often in the eyes of the beholder.

Looking back on your life, what is the biggest struggle or fear that you have had to deal with or that you still have?

I think we all have, that insecurity and lack of self-belief. They now have a name for it – imposter syndrome. The feeling that you don’t really belong, that maybe you are not good enough. I’m still riddled with it, and I think I have battled with that my whole life. As you get older, you realise that most people experience the same, but some are better at hiding it than others. I am not that good at hiding that I feel very deferential in everything I do. You need to recognise your own strengths and accommodate your weaknesses to overcome this feeling. My work has given me a great deal of confidence that then extends to other areas of my life too. It’s allowed me not to worry too much about having to be macho and be honest about my weaknesses.

“The feeling that you don’t really belong, that maybe you are not good enough. I’m still riddled with it, and I think I have battled with that my whole life.”

Are you saying that you overcome your insecurities with age and you don’t have so much to prove to anyone?

I still feel I have to prove myself all the time and still feel insecure, but I deal with it much better. I think people who have absolute self-confidence most of the time are probably kidding themselves. I am envious of people like that, but there’s something nice about knowing your weaknesses. As humans, we tend to warm to people who are self-aware. Life is so much easier when you have come to terms with yourself. I have got to the point in life where I recognise that I am good at certain things and not that great at others, but I have grown to accept that. To me, that’s growing up. Besides, I am lucky to have lots of friends around me, who support me and tell me nice things!

How do you motivate yourself? Some people may be in the same position, facing those insecurities and unsure where to start.

Motivating yourself is very hard. When people were going through the COVID-19 lockdowns, in particular, this issue was really highlighted to people. We were stuck at home, unproductive, and all those demons started to register.

“It’s easy to say, ‘Get up in the morning and let’s be positive – life is good!’. But it doesn’t really mean anything unless you believe it.”

It’s easy to say, ‘Get up in the morning and let’s be positive – life is good!’. But it doesn’t really mean anything unless you believe it. For me, you have to rationalise. You have to sit down and say ‘What am I good at? What’s good about my life?’ If there isn’t much you can list, all you can do is focus on changing that. It is important to understand that you can change things. People get stuck in ruts their entire life, but they don’t have to. It’s a big world out there. Although it is intimidating and scary, you have a lot more control over your future and destiny than you think sometimes. You need bravery to do something different, to break from what you are doing and take a risk, of course. I appreciate it’s easier said than done.