What are the health risks of submarine travel?

Answer 1

Submariners don't get paid hazardous duty pay for nothing; submarines are more dangerous places to work than their surface counterparts. Toxins, carcinogens, close quarters, conventional and nuclear weapons, and the unlikelihood of quick response from fleet resources in the event of a major casualty all add to the problems crews face.

I know of only 1 person I served with (my cousin, who was in the same squadron as myself) in the submarine force who left the Navy without any health problems. Everyone else I served with (including myself) wound up with some type of health problem, some serious, some deadly, some that will be a part of their lives forever. This is the reason that the submarine force is all-volunteer, and you must sign up to the fact you're volunteering for hazardous duty. Of course the caveat is that they don't tell you how hazardous until you volunteer and they process you through training.

The submarine force doesn't suffer idiots; simple mistakes can get everyone killed, as the tight spaces and limited oxygen while submerged make fires and flooding difficult to suppress. Tests on underwater hulls have shown that temperatures can approach several hundred degrees within a minute in a closed space on board a boat, and if you're in an area where you can't surface quickly (e.g., under the ice or in a sensitive area).

Radiation isn't usually a problem, but everyone is constantly monitored for exposure to ionizing radiation. Although the U.S. Navy hasn't had any problems, Russian submarine reactors were notoriously infamous during the Cold War for causing severe radiation exposure to their crews.

The chemicals used in submarine systems are toxic and in some cases carcinogenic. Over time they can take their toll. That's in addition to the normal dangers of shipboard life.

The lack of any real way of knowing the time of day (save for the meal the cooks are serving) makes for sleep issues. It's been 25 years and I still have sleep problems related to those days.

The high-stress environment and conditions also get to some, though others do well in such cases. Zero tolerance for critical mistakes (especially in engineering) makes the pressure to get it right extremely high. I've seen officers' careers ended due to a simple clerical mistake that was caught by Naval Reactors.

The list goes on, and is long and varied. You can check the link below to the Naval Submarine Medical Research Lab to see some of the health studies on submarine environments.