Hardhat Diver Jobs. High Pay and High Risk.

This is the first article of a series that I am writing on Xomba about weird career paths. Hardhat divers perform many vital services to the marine industry. From oilfield work to working on docks and salvage, hardhat divers go where no recreational scuba diver can.

Having several family members who either work as commercial scuba divers or who have retired from the industry, I know that it can be financially rewarding yet physically demanding.

Hardhat divers perform tasks such as underwater welding, pipeline inspection, hooking up pipes and repairing offshore oil platforms. A diver may spend hours doing repetitive work, such as hooking up cables and shackes, scraping barnacles or walking a pipeline to check the protective coating.

  The depth of hardhat diver work may be up to six hundred feet, with a decompression chamber located at a certain depth where off-gassing is required before return to the surface. Commercial divers may use surface supplied air, or air from scuba tanks for breathing.

There are many myths about the "life span" of a commercial scuba diver. For years the story was that the average life span of a hardhat diver was thirty years, due to the atmospheric pressures encountered, accidents, etc.

Today safety is the biggest aim of the industry. While the average age of hardhat divers is around thirty years old, the risk of mortality has dropped significantly.

The risks to a commercial hardhat diver are numerous. They include decompression sickenss or "the bends", underwater objects falling and trapping them, explosion, electrocution, out - of - air emergencies and more.  With proper training injuries from these kinds of hazards can be minimized.

Like recreational scuba diving, most accidents are a result of not following proper safety training. With good surface to diver communication, lock out, tag out controls on energized pipes and wires, and adherence to dive tables the risk to the diver of a fatal accident is not that much more than an over the road truck driver.

Hardhat divers may spend two years or more training. They may be required to leave home at a moment's notice to fly offshore for an emergency repair to an oil platform.

Once on the job they may have to stay on an offshore rig, drill ship, or work boat for weeks on end until the job is finished.

The job of a hardhat diver requires that applicants be in excellent physical shape. They must be able to work under intense pressure and follow complex instructions. In addition to dive training they must be certified in the specialty they are performing, such as welding or pipe inspection. All of this training together may take as long as a doctor's education. Financially the job can be very rewarding.

Hardhat divers working in a specialty such as welding may easily make over $200,000 a year.

For more on this "weird career" see "How To Get A Job As A Hardhat Diver"