Gassed Submariner Awarded $420,000
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday April 20, 1993
"You lock yourself in a garage and stick your mouth near a car exhaust pipe and see what it's like."
This was how John Breen described what it felt like to breathe in the acrid diesel fumes that filled his submarine, the HMAS Onslow, as it exercised off Jervis Bay in 1981.
The 39-year-old former submariner, who was working in the control room at the time, was awarded $420,000 in damages in the Supreme Court yesterday after suing the Federal Government.
He claimed he suffered "serious psychological damage and psychiatric illness" from the accident, in which one sailor died and a number of crew members collapsed from the fumes.
The Government conceded negligence and liability for any damage suffered by the crew but it disputed whether Mr Breen's present psychiatric state was caused by the accident and if "mentally distressing factors" caused him to resign in 1982.
Justice Sharpe said in his judgment that the "life-threatening episode ... was never obliterated from (Mr Breen's) memory and, whilst not verbalised, was a significant stress factor to him".
It was probable that it caused the emergence of Mr Breen's agoraphobia in the mid-1980s, which was masked by asthma attacks and was not diagnosed until September 1987, he said.
But he found there had been a "considerable embellishment" of Mr Breen's symptoms and that the resignation was based on other reasons.
Mr Breen, of Isabella Plains in Canberra, told the Herald that there was"controlled panic" when the fumes filled the submarine as it dived on March 1, 1981.
"You could smell it, you could see it. We were in black lighting at the time ... There were people collapsing and I was sent forward ... to look after the unconscious people. No matter how scared you are, you just continue. People continue to function quite well because it was inbuilt training. It's later on the problems happen."
He said that for years he had felt sick and was "constantly treated for asthma and viruses" and "didn't know what was happening". When he first believed his condition was linked to the accident, he had just "wanted to be looked after medically". But the Government "didn't want to do that" and "as they became less responsive, I became more determined".
A spokeswoman for the Australian Government Solicitor said an appeal was under consideration.
© 1993 Sydney Morning Herald