Scotland training

I as I sit here at the company house I’m am reanimating about the the places I have worked and the people I have meet. Facebook reminded me that this week three years ago, I was working in Scotland. That was a great hitch!

In Scotland all the oil is off shore in the North Sea. In order to get to the rigs you have to take a helicopter, in order to do that you have to take a safety corse. This is not your typical safety corse like the one I had to take today where they sit you down and you do lots of paperwork and som guy stands there and talks for eight hours. No no no. This is the most intensive training ever! It starts of with the paperwork but with a twist. We learn all about the terrible explosion in the North Sea in 1988, called Piper Alpha. (Talk about mind-blowing) sort version of Piper Alpha story is a production platform in the North Sea was undergoing some repairs. One of the pumps was disabled and off line and a steel plate was left to cover the pressure sensor hole. At some point in the night the other pump stopped working due to build up of flammable ice. The pump with no pressure gage was turned on with in minutes there was an explosion fallowed latter by a second explosion and all hell broke lose. In the end 61 men survived out of 226. If you want to read more which I totally recommend doing here is the Wikipedia page:      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piper_Alpha

After that terrifying start to a training session then you get to play with all kinds of awesome things. I even got to use a fire extinguisher on a fire! We also learned how to deploy a life raft and water survival skills for a cold water disaster. After all this fun in the freezing cold pool the last day of class roles around and they’re truly save the best for last.

On the last day of training we suit up in our cold water survival suits. These things are bulky and huge and yellow. And never fit right. The cuffs are all sealed and it’s a real pain to get in. It takes a good 10 minutes and team work to get into. Once you are in and sweaty (so sweaty) you go to the edge of the pool and are issued a life jacket with a rebreather (if you have the time before the crash you take a big breath and fill a pouch with air). Then you get in a helicopter simulator. It looks like a mutilated shipping container. There is no back to the thing and there are “Windows” and a door. There is no glass in the windows and no door in the frame. It’s on this huge arm that can lift it turn it and flip it upside down.
The first group goes up and sits down in the seats in side. Everyone straps in to the most complicated seatbelt ever known to man. This is all out side the pool. “Everyone in? ok now un strap and get out.” Not hard not complicated. Easy. That represents “a ground landing with out fire” next everyone back in strap in. Here we go up and over to the pool. Where they set the helicopter down and it sits on the surface of the water. “Controlled water landing” so it goes on from there each time adding another level so by the 7th time the windows are in and you have your rebreather and your seatbelt and everything. They turn you upside down and dunk you in to the pool. To get out you have to wait 7 seconds (so the blades stop spinning) nock out the window with your elbow climb thru it and swim to the surface. At this point for the one and only time you get to pull that magical red cord on your life vest that the fight attendants have told us about for years. At this point you would think the fun is all over but wait there’s more! Now you have too swim with this inflated life vest to the life raft and climb in. I can honestly say that is is the most undignified and most difficult thing I have ever done.

So after that any training corse will naturally pail in compression. After that amazing week I got to ride in a helicopter for real as they sent me out to work on a jack up rig for two weeks. And no we did not crash.