Former Greenevillian James Easterly "Jim" Austin, a longtime professional diver and underwater welder who was well known to many in Greeneville, died Feb. 9 as the result of a fall at his workplace in West Palm Beach, Fla., The Greeneville Sun has been notified.

Lillian Austin Clinard, of Knoxville, a sister of Austin, said earlier this week that she had been informed that her brother had been deep diving all day and, after returning to the company operations office, fell from a height of about 20 feet and was killed instantly.

A celebration-of-life service is being planned for June 19 in Florida.

Clinard said that Austin, who was 60, began his diving career with Taylor Diving and Salvage in 1975.

"He became a certified plate-welder in 1976 and was involved in offshore pipeline construction in the North Sea and Gulf of Mexico at depths to 655 feet.

"In fact, Jim spent 387 days in saturation over his career. Saturation diving allows professional divers to live and work at depths greater than 50 meters (160 ft.) for days or weeks at a time."

"This type of diving," she explained, "allows for greater economy of work and enhanced safety for the divers.

"After working in the water, they rest and live in a dry pressurized habitat on or connected to a diving support vessel, oil platform, or other floating work station, at the same pressure as at the work depth.

"The diving team is compressed to the working pressure only once, and decompressed to surface pressure once, over the entire work period of days or weeks."

Clinard said that her brother became a diving supervisor and lead diver for CSA Marine Services and was involved in marine construction, salvage, power plant maintenance, and underwater inspection and explosives-setting around the world.

"He worked on projects ranging from undersea pipeline installation, bridge repair and demolition, nuclear plant reactor cavity and intake maintenance, to artificial reef construction."

Clinard said that her brother had worked internationally in Mexico, Guam, the Bahamas, Cyprus, Jamaica, Micronesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Japan, Portugal and Brazil, and in the U.S. in Louisiana, Alaska, Florida, Texas, Oregon, Washington, Maine, New York and Alabama.

For the last 15 years, she said, Austin has worked as a freelance diver, "choosing to work with only those companies with the best diving safety records.

"He was concerned about the health and safety of divers, and he personally was a picture of health and possibly the oldest working salvage diver in the world.

"Over his career he was responsible for saving the life of a fellow diver on two known occasions."