One of the world's top divers, Carl Spencer, died May 24th
in a dive accident while helping film a movie about the
Britannic, the sister ship of the Titanic.
Spencer was diving on the ship when it was reported that he
released an emergency signal and made an emergency ascent.
He suffered from Decompressions Sickness and did not
recover. The wreck is in 300 feet of water and it was
reported that Spencer was serving as a safety diver for the
film crew at the time of the accident. This dive is
typically a four hour dive with two hours in decompression,
mostly at the 19-foot mark. He bypassed all decompression
stops on his emergency ascent.
He was 37 and had many accomplishments, including his latest
mission for the Britannic Foundation, an organization to
help preserve the ship. He was working with the National
Geographic Society, filming the Britannic as part of the
17-man crew off the island of Kea in the Aegean Sea.
The Britannic was sunk while it was on a mission to provide
medical help as a hospital ship in 1916 during WWI. The
Britannic was located in 1975 off the coast of Greece. The
Titanic sunk in 1912 on its maiden voyage in the North
Atlantic. Spencer also was part of a dive expedition to the
Titanic led by James Cameron.
The dive legend participated in medical trials and
decompression projects at Duke University. He participated
in other medical trials at the Split University School of
Medicine, Split, Croatia.
He was a well-known speaker on the subject of diving
technologies as co-founder of the conference EuroTek.
His hobbies were listed as racing dirt bikes and flying
helicopters. He left behind his young son and daughter, and
wife, Victoria where they lived together in Burton upon
Trent, Staffordshire, England.
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