Do these things actually exist in bars? (water-filled diving helmets)

Factual Questions
1

In the movie *Men of Honor, * Carl Brashear and Master Chief Billy Sunday (played by Cuba Gooding Jr. and Robert DeNiro) challenge each other to a test of endurance while at a bar - they stick their heads in these brass diving helmets which fill up with water, to see who can hold his breath the longest. The diving helmets are just there, hanging from the ceiling, presumably installed for the purpose of bar bets and challenges (in the manner of a mechanical bull.)

Do these actually exist? Are there bars frequented by sailors that have these things? Were there, at one point?

2

I can’t vouch for accuracy, but if it was a local bar near the diving school they may have catered to that particular clientele.

3

I don’t know but I know this:

Drinking alcohol does not improve judgement.

Drinking alcohol does not improve performance of physical feats.

The family of anyone who dies while doing this would sue the bar right out of business, signed waivers notwithstanding.

In a less-litigious society at the time of the setting in the movie, this might have actually existed. It’s supposed to be a true story, after all.

4

I’ve seen diving helmets as decorations in bars and restaurants, often converted to fish tanks. Or maybe they were actually fish tanks converted to look like diving helmets. But never attached to hoses or anything.

No bar would want the liability or the big mess that would be created by drunks playing with that much water. I think that scene is based on kid’s fanatasy of how cool it would be if that decoration could be (mis)used.

5

I don’t know how those could possibly work anyway. All they did was lower the helmets on top of them, in the clothes they were already wearing. There’s no way they could have formed a watertight seal. There should have been water pouring out during the entire scene, not just at the end when they raised the helmets.

6

Exactly what I was going to say. The only way it would have worked is if they were standing on their heads.

7

Inside the cowl attached to the metal, there is a rubber gasket that goes around the neck. It held in ‘enough’ water for the duration of the ‘contest’.

These were drunk navy men, they didn’t care about a little water dribbling down their chest. They had breath holding to do!!!

The bar owner was happy to clean up the mess on the odd occasion that two drunken, hard headed, bends-addled navy divers wanted to spill water all over his floor, after spending so much of Uncle Sam’s payday disbursements in his establishment.