A LEADING Scottish radiologist has told how he was dismissed by a French diving firm after he warned that divers in the North Sea oil industry were suffering from a serious bone disease.

Dr Jake Davidson, former head of radiology at Glasgow’s Western Infirmary, said diving companies refused to accept the results of X-rays carried out by him to assess the health risks to divers.

Tests showed that several men were affected by a bone disease as well as decompression sickness, better known as “the bends”.

The same disease had affected men building the Clyde Tunnel in Glasgow in 1960, who had been exposed to compressed air.

Dr Davidson said: “The director of a French diving company was incandescent with rage, telling me his diving schedules were the very best and it simply wasn’t possible for his divers to have bone disease.

“But when my X-rays were re-examined, several of his men did indeed have the disease. The company doctor was sacked and I was not invited back.”

Towards the completion of the Clyde tunnel, Dr Davidson and his colleagues screened the entire work-force of 240 and found that, after working in compressed air, one in five was affected in hip or shoulder joints.

He said: “Young men in their twenties were liable to be seriously disabled and consequently there were compensation cases to follow.

“Fortunately, compressed air, used for preventing water from seeping through from the river bed, is no longer required in tunnel construction.”

Dr Davidson, now retired, tells the story in his autobiography Jake’s Corner.