Quote:
Originally Posted by DanT
Do you think that most of your colleagues had a good understanding of how risky the job was?
I think a lot of us do dangerous things, especially as young adults, without truly appreciating the risks.
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Of course they knew. We use to go down to the bottom of the rig right off the water and burn some. We'd take welding rods, sharpen them, spear a shark as it swims by with them and watch the other sharks/fish devour the sharks body for fun. So yeah we knew if the fire or explosion didn't get us, the sharks would.
I was washing dishes at first making what is now, $3500 a week. Go out there for 4 weeks. Single, 18 years old, high school drop out from Missouri and I've got $14K in my bank account in a month? I can see why people accepted the risk to their lives.
Its a lot safer now, they know how to keep the sharks away from the rigs etc. pay is not as good but at least your chance of dying is way down from what it was in 1979.