Imagine living for weeks inside a sealed metal tube where the pressure is nine times heavier than the surface. Now imagine all that crushing pressure vanishing in a fraction of a second. On the Byford Dolphin rig in 1983, that nightmare became real.

This deep dive unpacks one of history's worst diving accidents, a catastrophic explosive decompression in the North Sea. We cover the saturation-diving system, the procedural failures, the gruesome yet scientifically critical medical findings, and the 26-year fight for justice that exposed a systemic cover-up.

• A dive tender opened the clamp before the inner door was sealed, dropping pressure from nine atmospheres to one instantly
• Dissolved gases boiled the divers' blood, denaturing proteins and flooding their arteries with fat
• Diver Truls Hellevik was forced through a  ...