|
OSLO—Gary Cronin usually lasted six weeks inside a diving
capsule before he started seeing monsters.
“I’d
look in the mirror to shave and see horrible faces like
a werewolf,” says the 59-year-old Alaskan who began
diving in Norway’s North Sea oil fields in the early
1970s. “I knew then that I had to go to the surface.”
Today,
Cronin says his work caused more lasting harm: memory
loss and spinal damage that have triggered thoughts of
suicide.
Cronin
is one of about 4,000 divers who laid the foundations
for the oil boom that transformed
Norway
into the world’s second-richest country.
Nineteen
are now suing the government, claiming they were
crippled by living for weeks at a time at depths of up
to 300 meters.
The
lawsuit may set a precedent for almost 140 other cases
seeking more than 1 billion kroner ($197 million) in
damages, the divers’ lawyer says.
“Norway
has a fairy-tale image,” says Cronin, a former US Navy
Seal who lives in Oslo. “Underneath that, there’s some
pretty horrible things they’ve done in the name of
wealth.”
Testimony ended May 6 in Oslo District Court. A decision
is expected around September 1, said court spokeswoman
Irene Ramm.
Norway
has reaped more than 5 trillion kroner from taxes,
dividends and ownership of energy companies since it
pumped the first oil in 1971, Finance Ministry figures
show.
Much of
the money has been tucked away in the world’s
second-largest sovereign wealth fund, which has swelled
to 1.95 trillion kroner.
The
government says it has no legal responsibility for the
divers’ injuries because it didn’t employ them. It has
paid about 2.5 million kroner to each of 200 former
divers because of the state’s “moral” obligations.
“The
divers should direct their demands to the operators they
were contracted to or the diving companies,” says
Christian Reusch, a lawyer representing the government.
(Bloomberg) |
