New Show: The Flood - EP2: Shut all hull valves

Summary

Sick to Death: The Flood – EP2: “Shut all hull valves”

Podcast: Sick to Death
Host: Cameron Stewart, The Australian
Episode Release: June 25, 2026

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Episode Overview

This gripping episode chronicles a near-catastrophic event aboard HMAS Dechaineux, an Australian Collins-class submarine, on February 12, 2003. Fifty nautical miles off Perth, a sudden flood left 60 crew members moments from death as icy seawater poured into the lower motor room at crushing depths. The story unfolds through first-hand accounts from the crew—including Commodore Peter Scott (then Commander), Petty Officer Geordie “Rocker” Bunting, Able Seaman Greg Sullivan, and Chief Engineer John Ryan—as they describe, with raw honesty and stark detail, the chaos, panic, camaraderie, and professionalism that determined whether they would live or die.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. An Ordinary Day Turns Life-Threatening

• Petty Officer Geordie Bunting describes starting the day in routine fashion, performing system checks with two colleagues. They decided who would enter the cramped lower motor room by playing paper, rock, scissors—a fateful outcome that placed Bunting in the direct path of disaster.
  • Quote: “It was just another ordinary day…we played paper, rock, scissors as to who was going down the hole. And somehow I come up worse off than the other two.” (05:52 – Bunting)

2. The Flood and Immediate Chaos

• Without warning, a different hose bursts under high pressure, knocking Bunting off his feet amidst a deafening explosion and a torrent of freezing water.

  • Quote: “There was a sharp hiss and then an almighty explosion… it was like being stuck in a washing machine.” (05:57 – Bunting)

• The force is so great that a heavy metal clamp narrowly misses him twice as he’s tossed around the tiny compartment.

  • “Something flew past and clipped my head and hit something and it flew back, but it was all split second stuff.” (06:48 – Bunting)

3. The Rescue Effort

• Able Seaman Greg Sullivan and Petty Officer Michael Morris hear the commotion and rush to aid Bunting, who is pinned and drowning.

  • Quote: “As soon as we went through the door, we didn’t see Rocker, so we looked down the hatch…that’s where the water was, obviously, and lots of it, and Rocker in it.” (08:05 – Sullivan)

• Bunting recounts a surreal moment of calm and visions of his family as the body’s trauma response sets in, suggesting he was near drowning.

  • “Everything went quiet… I saw a vision of [my wife and daughters], but I was at peace. Your body does amazing things to protect you from trauma.” (08:31 – Bunting)

• Sullivan and Morris, fueled by adrenaline, succeed in hauling Bunting out by his epaulettes.

  • Memorable moment: “I don’t know how, I’m not a small guy, but somehow they lifted me straight out.” (09:13 – Bunting)

4. On the Brink: Submarine Operations in Crisis

• Commodore Peter Scott, as commander, describes the flood protocol in detail: chaos in the control room, emergency stations, and “shut all hull valves,” their last line of defense.

  • Quote: “We’ve got a major flood somewhere back aft… So you hit that shut all hull valves function and the scores of hull valves…are shut immediately. We didn’t know at the time, but that stopped the ingress of water.” (11:32, 15:20 – Scott)

• Ballast tanks are blown and the submarine is angled at 20 degrees—twice the normal ascent—to try and surface. But uncertainty hangs in the control room: they have no idea if they’ve taken on more water than they can push out.

5. The Crew’s Reactions and the Narrow Escape

• Chief engineer John Ryan’s dash to the motor room is harrowing:

  • “I needed to get to the motor room and see what was going on so I could relay back or do what I could to stop it and fix it. Just shit, shit, shit.” (17:00 – Ryan)

• The crew waits breathlessly, eyes fixed on the unmoving depth gauge.

  • “Everything just kind of froze… just holding that breath and just going, are we coming back up?” (16:23 – John Ryan, Melanie Ellerton)

• For the longest moment, the submarine hangs—then begins to sink.

  • Quote: “The boat just hung for what seemed like an eternity and then began to slowly sink.” (20:04 – Scott)

• Meanwhile, the flooded compartment presents an additional threat: electrocution, as electrical cables and seawater mix.

  • “We yelled up to isolate some of the equipment so that it didn’t fry or we didn’t fry.” (20:32 – Ryan)

6. Personal Reflections and Lasting Impact

• Bunting, Sullivan, Scott, and Ryan all reflect on the thin line between survival and disaster, the power of training, and the defining role of teamwork.
• Stoic humor and camaraderie surface even amid harrowing fear—a hallmark of seasoned submariners.
• Their memories are tinged with gratitude and humility; none expect to forget those frantic, suspended seconds.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I know, and we all know that if we go down in this depth of water, we will be crushed by the pressure before we hit the bottom.”
  (00:28 – Commodore Peter Scott reading from Running Deep)

• “We’ll never know how close we were…” “I reckon it’s closer to 10 [seconds from death].”
  (02:57 & 03:24 – Geordie Bunting & John Ryan)

• “It was under the water most of the time… It was cold. It was vicious.”
  (07:41 – Bunting on his ordeal in the flooded compartment)

• “It did not move for the longest time, leaving the crew frozen in fear.”
  (19:47 – Narrator on the tense wait at the depth gauge)

• “I’m a positive sort of person… I put my arm around Morrie and said, ‘We’re gonna be alright, mate.’ I wasn’t sure, but…”
  (19:28 – John Ryan showing calm under intense pressure)

• “Electrocution.” “We were standing waist deep in seawater.”
  (20:42–20:44 – Stewart, Scott, Ryan)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |------------|--------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:28 | Commodore Scott sets the scene and stakes – certain death if crushed at depth | | 03:24 | John Ryan estimates just 10 seconds from disaster | | 05:57 | Geordie Bunting describes the explosion and start of flooding| | 08:05 | Sullivan’s perspective: finding and rescuing Bunting | | 08:31 | Bunting’s near-drowning and out-of-body calm | | 09:13 | The moment Bunting is pulled to safety | | 11:32 | Scott on the chaos and emergency protocols | | 15:20 | Executing “shut all hull valves” | | 16:23 | The tense, timeless pause as the crew waits at depth | | 20:04 | The boat descends, seemingly doomed | | 20:32 | The post-flood danger—electrocution in waist-deep water |

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Structure & Tone

The episode blends clinical precision with emotionally raw narrative, maintaining the language, gallows humor, and understated bravado of the submariners. The tension is palpable, yet frequently undercut with sharp wit or dry understatement, making the harrowing account human and relatable.

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Conclusion

“Shut all hull valves” is a masterclass in immersive, character-driven investigative storytelling. Through the memories and visceral responses of those who lived it, the episode probes the terror and teamwork forged in crisis in the “silent service.” It’s a vivid, nail-biting account—and a tribute to dedication, training, and the sheer survival instincts of sailors pressed to the absolute limit.

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If you missed the episode, this summary brings you the full emotional, technical, and dramatic sweep of a story that nearly ended in tragedy but became, instead, a story of survival and professional resolve.

Transcript

[Narrator]

The Flood is brought to you by the Australian War Memorial. Some stories define a nation. Others reveal what it means to be human. Through Their Eyes is a new podcast from the Australian War Memorial that uncovers powerful human stories, revealing war through unexpected perspectives and immersive storytelling. Through Their Eyes we'll be live soon. Wherever you get your podcasts,

[Commodore Peter Scott]

Breathe. My heart is beating through my neck. I know, and we all know that if we go down in this depth of water, we will be crushed by the pressure before we hit the bottom.

[Cameron Stewart]

Commodore Peter Scott was responsible for HMAS Deschano and the lives who depended on her. He still carries that burden and he wrote about the experience in his book Running Deep. I asked him to read a passage from the book.

[Commodore Peter Scott]

We're beneath deep diving depth and we're sinking. There's a moment in time where I know all of me and I'm here. The captain is here, holding onto his fear to remain calm and offer courage to his crew. Commander Scott is here, observing every single order and every single action. A mind racing to understand the present and shape the future. Scotty, the husband, is here and so is Laura's dad. Pete, the hopeful boy still searching for his place in the world, is here. Not wanting to die, not like this. Not taking this crew with him. Yet I can already see myself floating face down and lifeless through a cold, dark submarine.

[Cameron Stewart]

It was February 12, 2003 and 50 nautical miles off the coast of Perth. The Royal Australian Navy submarine HMAS Descheso and its 60 crew were fighting for survival.

[Petty Officer Geordie Bunting]

I don't think there was anybody on board that day, Cameron, that wasn't shit scared.

[Cameron Stewart]

I'm Cameron Stewart and this is the flood. Episode 2 Shut All Hull valves. Peter Scott had no idea how much sea water had entered his submarine or if water was still surging in. He knew the flood had started. In the lower motor room at the back of the submarine where one of his crew, Petty Officer Geordie Bunting, was stationed. But he knew nothing else.

[Petty Officer Geordie Bunting]

We'll never know how close we were

[Cameron Stewart]

to finishing up at this moment. HMAS Desheno, the pride of Australia's new submarine fleet, was just seconds from sinking like a monstrous black rock to the frigid depths of the Indian Ocean. The only comfort for Geordie Bunting and his crew was that their death would have been swift. In the years since, the crew has often speculated they were 20 seconds away from death.

[John Ryan]

I probably think that was a bit of an overestimation. I reckon it's closer to 10. Yeah. I knew we were in trouble. That's it.

[Cameron Stewart]

As the stricken submarine went down, Bunting and his crew would have listened helplessly to the creaks and cracks as the water pressure outside leaned on the hull like an elephant. There would have been no survivors.

[Petty Officer Geordie Bunting]

It was just another day. It was just another ordinary day. And we proceeded out to carry out some checks. There was myself and two other guys who were in the engine room, and for some reason we played paper, rock, scissors as to who was going down the hole. And somehow I come up worse off than the other two. So, yeah, down I went. And we were just looking for leaks and just hoping that everything held together as it should to put the boat through its paces.

[Cameron Stewart]

Geordie Rocker Bunting grew up in Townsville, Queensland. In 1987, at the age of just 17, he joined the navy, seeking, in his words, adventure and opportunity.

[Petty Officer Geordie Bunting]

It got me out of North Queensland to go and do something that I never thought I'd do. I joined up as an apprentice, starting my training out at HMAS Naremba in Quakers Hill in Sydney. I had no idea where I wanted to be. And then at a point in time, a roadshow came around trying to wrestle up submariners.

[Cameron Stewart]

Not many people can say they got married on a submarine, but after Bunting became a submariner, he loved it so much that he took his vows on one of the old Oberon class boats.

[Petty Officer Geordie Bunting]

I was married on HMAS Ovens. My wife decided she wanted a waterside wedding and for whatever reason, she convinced me to get married on the casing of a submarine. That was 32 years ago.

[Cameron Stewart]

Bunting served in the Oberon boats as an apprentice, fitter, machinist, before moving over to the Collins class submarines, eventually joining the crew of the dechano in late 2002. On that fateful day in February 2003, as the submarine glided down to its deepest diving depth to test its systems, Bunting's job was to stand in the lower motor room and keep an eye on a newly replaced hose, which was exposed to sea pressure as the submarine approached its deepest diving depth. His gaze was fixed on that new hose when suddenly he was knocked off his feet.

[Petty Officer Geordie Bunting]

There was a sharp hiss and then an almighty explosion.

[Narrator/Additional Voice]

Bang.

[Petty Officer Geordie Bunting]

And the next thing I can remember was, shit, it's getting pretty cold. It was fearfully cold and there was a lot of water coming in. I can remember screaming out at the top of my voice, not that I thought it was heard that we were flooding. And then, yeah, it was like being stuck in a washing machine. It was just round and round and round.

[Cameron Stewart]

Barnting did not yet know it, but a different hose had broken, spraying icy seawater into the small room at a pressure strong enough to sweep him off his feet. Such was the force that a heavy piece of metal attached to the hoses to help keep them in place flew just centimetres from Barninck's head, avoiding what would almost certainly have been a fatal blow.

[Petty Officer Geordie Bunting]

Something flew past and clipped my head and hit something and it flew back, but it was all split second stuff that went on.

[Cameron Stewart]

The metal elbow zoomed past the front of his head, hit a wall and rebounded behind his head, miraculously missing him both times.

[Petty Officer Geordie Bunting]

Gotta remember, the space wasn't much bigger than a phone box. It's only a very, very small space when you sort of hunched over to be in there, and it's probably a little bit, probably a couple of meters wide that you've got a deck platform that you're on. But I kept trying to make my way to the ladder, but then getting washed back and then I'd be at the ladder again because it was very much in a whirlpool type situation.

[Cameron Stewart]

You were trying to get up out of the manhole in the roof, which

[Petty Officer Geordie Bunting]

would have got you trying to get to the manhole. But I ended up getting jammed on the other side of the ladder, between the ladder and the main motor. I was on the wrong side of the ladder.

[Cameron Stewart]

Was your head under the water at any point?

[Petty Officer Geordie Bunting]

No, it was under the water most of the time. It was sort of up. It was. Yeah, it was cold. It was vicious.

[Cameron Stewart]

Able Seaman Greg Sullivan, who was stationed nearby in the engine room bilge, heard the explosion and the roar of the water. As soon as Sullivan walked through the door towards the hatch leading down to the lower motor room where Bunting was, he saw how much trouble both Rocket and the submarine were in.

[Able Seaman Greg Sullivan]

We went back there. There was water, spray and mist. As soon as we went through the door, we didn't see Rocker, so we looked down the hatch to the bilge area. That's where the water was, obviously, and lots of it, and Rocker in it.

[Cameron Stewart]

Bunting, who was pinned under the water by the pressure, said his initial panic was replaced by a strange calm. Looking back now, he believes he was starting to drown.

[Petty Officer Geordie Bunting]

I don't know whether it's your body coping with stress or with an issue, but everything went quiet. Everything went very, very quiet. And I can remember seeing my wife, Ana, and my daughters. I saw a vision of them, but I was at peace. Your body does amazing things to protect you from trauma and. And I guess that was one of them.

[Cameron Stewart]

Bunting was fading in and out of consciousness when suddenly he felt hands from above clutching at his shoulders. Greg Sullivan and Petty Officer Michael Morris were reaching down through the hatch into the flooded motor room to try to fish him out.

[Petty Officer Geordie Bunting]

I got grabbed, which was probably one of the most relieving feelings that I've ever had. But the two guys who found me, granted, grabbed me by the epaulettes on the shoulders of my overalls, managed to skull drape me out of there. I don't know how, I'm not a small guy, but somehow they lifted me straight out. They knew I was down there and obviously they'd come back to find me. And that sticks with me.

[Narrator]

The Flood is brought to you by the Australian War Memorial what does war look like through the eyes of the people who lived it? Through Their Eyes is a new podcast from the Australian War Memorial that uncovers deeply human stories drawn from the AWM's vast collections, galleries and expert insights. Through unexpected perspectives and immersive storytelling, each episode brings history to life in a way that's personal, moving and relevant today. Discover the stories behind our history. Listen to Through Their Eyes soon, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Cameron Stewart]

In moments of intense action, our brain signals to the body to send a rush of adrenaline into the bloodstream, giving us a huge burst of energy and strength we might not know we had. That's doubtless what was happening to Greg Sullivan and Michael Morris as they reached down into the hole in the submarine's main deck to haul Geordie Bunting up.

[Able Seaman Greg Sullivan]

I don't know how I got him out. I remember once we got him up, I pulled him over to the side and sat him down. He was white, I presume from cold and fear also. Not sure if I said it or just thought it, but why are we not moving up yet? As they had blown ballast, that was probably the scariest bit, waiting for the boat to start going up.

[Cameron Stewart]

All vessels have capacity to carry what's called ballast, or extra weight to help with buoyancy and stability. In the submarine, the ballast tanks are filled with seawater when the submarine needs to dive, and when it's time to surface, compressed air is blown into the tanks to force the water out, lightening the boat. Even Sullivan, who was busy saving Bunting's life, was aware that the submarine was not responding as it should have to the flood. It wasn't going up. Here's Peter Scott.

[Commodore Peter Scott]

So we are at deep diving depth. The submarine is under as much pressure as you would design. The submarine to operate at. And we've got a major flood somewhere back aft in the submarine. When you go to emergency stations like this, you're getting ready for anything, so you're getting ready for fires and so on. So there's people getting dressed into firefighting gear and breathing masks and all that sort of stuff. So a lot going on, but all in. In a remarkably cool sort of manner. I'm standing forward in the control room, but quite central. So in between the two main periscopes, which are obviously lowered because we're deep, we're at diving stations, so the control room is full of people. It's a very small space, there's a lot of gear in there, but there's somewhat at every station and more. So the first person I'm clocking is the xo, who is duty command and the watch leader. Just to get a sense of where they're at. You do it without thinking, but your attention is moving around the control room. So very quickly. There's a lot of orders and reports coming in and out of the control room. They would, I think, be completely unintelligible to someone who was not understanding what was going on. A lot of information moving back and forwards quite quickly. So the chief of the boat, probably the most experienced senior sailor on the submarine, is on the plains. He's quite a character, very laconic sort of fellow. So he's just cool as mustard, just sat there, flicks the boat up to 20 up and holds it there the entire way up top forward. We had the sonar operators, so they were having a pretty quiet day. There wasn't a whole lot out there. But they need to kick into gear because quite apart from the flood,

[John Ryan]

it

[Commodore Peter Scott]

can be dangerous bringing a submarine from deep up to periscope depth because your situational awareness changes. You know and understand what's happening at that depth. You don't necessarily know and understand what you're coming up to. So they switched on operating their sonars to check for any sort of sign of life or shipping or whatever up above us and make sure that we're safe to actually come up.

[Narrator/Additional Voice]

Without knowing how seriously damaged his submarine was, Commander Scott's immediate task was to urgently gather speed to give the Duchenno the momentum to climb back towards the surface, while at the same time blowing all of its ballast tanks. To make the submarine as light as possible, Scott ordered the submarine to climb on a 20 degree angle, twice the normal angle of ascent, causing coffee cups in the mess area to slide off the tables and crash to the ground.

[Commodore Peter Scott]

We have emergency operating procedures for any major casualty like that, a flood, a fire, a hydraulic burst. Then they're exceptionally well trained and drilled and they just kicked into action. We're propelling at full speed. We drive the submarine so that we get about a 20 degree bow up, which you know is not extreme but it's, you know, you're trying to get to the roof.

[Cameron Stewart]

Submarines have valves in the hull that allow small amounts of seawater to flow in and out for purposes like cooling desches. Last line of defence was, was the ultimate order in the Navy's emergency operating procedures. Shut all hull valves. Would it help? Commander Scott did not know.

[Commodore Peter Scott]

So you hit that shuttle hull valves function and the scores of hull valves that are doing different jobs around the submarine are shut immediately. So we didn't know it at the time, but that actually stopped the ingress of water into the lower motor. What we didn't know was how much water we'd taken on what had caused the flood.

[Cameron Stewart]

Commander Scott did not know it at that moment, but the final order of that emergency operating procedure, the cry of shut all hull valves had the effect of successfully closing the external ocean exposed valves across the submarine. Crucially, this also blocked the flood of seawater and into the lower motor room. But in the space of between 10 and 15 seconds, an astonishing 12 to 15,000 litres of seawater had already poured in. The question of the survival of the crew was now a simple one. Had the dechano taken on more seawater than it had released by blowing the ballasts? Here's Melanie Ellerton.

[John Ryan]

Everything just kind of froze. It was definitely like a pause in time that, just holding that breath and just going, are we coming back up?

[Commodore Peter Scott]

Yeah.

[Cameron Stewart]

The chief engineer, John Ryan, who had been with Commander Scott when the flood alert had sounded, ran from the front of the submarine to the back to give Scott a first hand report of the accident. Ryan sprinted at full speed down the narrow corridors, at one point passing a framed quote from Shakespeare's Henry V. Whoever does not have the stomach for this fight, let him depart.

[John Ryan]

I needed to get to the motor room and see what was going on so I could relay back or do what I could to stop it and fix it.

[Cameron Stewart]

Was anything going through your head at that point?

[John Ryan]

A lot of things I think, but nothing in particular. Just shit, shit, shit. So heading back there, one of the last things I had to do before I entered the engine room was to open the tunnel door and you have to equalize the pressure either side. So I had a pause of about two seconds or so. To think like, what am I opening this to? We'll see. As I got back closer, it was foggy and the closer I got, there was mist in the air. Basically it was almost like a fog. I saw Rocker there looking very bedraggled. The flood was down there. Pretty sure Michael Morris was already in the lower motor room at that stage. So I leapt down there with Michael.

[Cameron Stewart]

When John Ryan saw how much seawater had flooded the lower motor room, his heart skipped a beat. As the boat's chief engineer, no one on the Duchenno knew more about the limits of what the submarine could tolerate.

[John Ryan]

Yeah, I knew we were in trouble because it was a lot of water and at that stage it was still coming in. I mean, we were waist deep in water. I won't say we're scratching our heads, but we were trying to figure out where the flood came from.

[Cameron Stewart]

The surge of seawater into the lower motor room had been cut off by the shut all hull valves function. The flood had stopped, but the submarine was now weighed down by up to 15 tons of seawater. It was as if two African elephants had just walked on board. But even Bunting, who was barely conscious after his near drowning, realized that something was now very wrong with the submarine. He kept waiting for the boat to start climbing, but it never did.

[Petty Officer Geordie Bunting]

The crew were doing the best they can to bring this thing back up. Bearing in mind that we were very, very heavy in the ass, the angle that the boat was on was pretty scary.

[Cameron Stewart]

John Ryan, again,

[John Ryan]

I'm a positive sort of person. So, I mean, when we had the bow up, there was sort of a pause of 10 or 15 seconds. I put my arm around Morrie and said, we're gonna be alright, mate.

[Cameron Stewart]

Really?

[Commodore Peter Scott]

Yeah.

[John Ryan]

I wasn't sure, but

[Narrator/Additional Voice]

for those who could bear to look, their eyes were fixed upon the depth gauge, the single dial that would effectively tell them whether they were going to live or die. It did not move for the longest time, leaving the crew frozen in fear.

[Commodore Peter Scott]

The boat just hung for what seemed like an eternity and then began to slowly sink.

[Narrator]

This is episode two of our four part series, which the Australian subscribers hear first at TheFloodPodcast.com and Apple Podcasts next week on the flood.

[John Ryan]

I mean, the water was swirling. We yelled up to isolate some of the equipment so that it didn't fry or we didn't fry.

[Cameron Stewart]

What was the danger there?

[Commodore Peter Scott]

Electrocution.

[John Ryan]

We were standing waist deep in seawater.

[Narrator]

The Flood is an audio and video investigation for the Australian by Cameron Stewart, executive producer Claire Harvey and editor Jasper Leake. You can watch the video right [e-mail] Our theme is composed by Jasper Leake, cinematography is by Andy Taylor and video editing by Lachlan Clear. Additional footage was shot by Luke Geldard and Peter Aquilina. Our graphics are by Sean Callanan and animations by Frank Ling. Special thanks to Kristin Amyot, Ryan Elphin, the Australian National Maritime Museum and the Australian War Memorial. Captured Imprisoned, Determined to Survive through first hand accounts from the Australian War Memorial's archives, Through Their Eyes reveals what it meant to endure captivity and maintain hope and survive against the odds. Listen to Through Their Eyes wherever you get your podcasts.