[lobe]

Anecdotally, my uncle did this back in the late 80s to 2000s. Towards the end he would make AUD$400-800k a year (depending on how many jobs he took on) which was great money for someone who got into it in his early 20s after dropping out of high school.

The catch was the pressure of the environment, needing to be physically in peak shape (my uncle was an anomaly in lasting in the job until his late 40s), and the danger as he had several colleagues die on the job (worst I heard was due to the operators giving the wrong gas mix to the chamber). My uncle also definitely is a crazy man with a few screws loose, so that part checks out

[dottrap]

I have neighbor that did deep commercial diving after he left the military. He was special ops so he was in top physical shape. I never asked how much he made, but he implied it paid extremely well.

But it was extremely dangerous. He didn't develop any long term issues, but he told one story where they suddenly lost a man. There was a quick shadow and then a man was gone. They found a piece of dive suit in the area. They believe it was a giant squid that got their buddy.

[krisoft]

> worst I heard was due to the operators giving the wrong gas mix to the chamber

Worst I have heard was the Byford Dolphin rapid decompression incident:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_a...

Four diver died instantly in a very gruesome way.