Empathy For Kursk Crew

(CBS)  Gerald McLees is one of the few people alive who can really feel and know what is like to be aboard a crippled, damaged submarine such as the Kursk.

In an interview with CBS News Correspondent Richard Schlesinger," McLees talks about the Kursk disaster and tells his own story of being aboard the USS Squalus, which went down on a test dive off New Hampshire in 1939.

McLees and the rest of the crew waited 240 feet below the surface for more than a day-and-a-half to be rescued, using the newly-developed diving bell. 26 crewmembers were killed; 33 others survived.

"We just settled in the forward torpedo room," he remembers. "We had no lights, no power. And they told us to just lay down and conserve the oxygen."

Even under the best of conditions submarines are inhospitable places. In an emergency, things start happening very quickly as oxygen levels decrease and levels of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide increase.

Dr. Frank Berlingeri, who served aboard submarines in the 1970s, explains, "What first happens is the headache. Headache starts at as very low concentration of carbon dioxide.

"As carbon dioxide builds up in the bloodstream it stimulates the body to breathe faster," says Berlingeri, who says that causes disorientation and a gasping for air.

The Kursk is without a doubt in darkness and without heat, much like McLees' experience in 1939. Power for light and heat probably went off when the sub hit bottom on Saturday.

And unlike the Squalus sailors, who knew help was on the way, there has been no radio contact at all between the Kursk and rescuers.

"It's just as though you're suffocating," Berlinger grimly notes. "It's a horrible death."