I've done made a deal with the devil. He said he's going to give me an air-conditioned place when I go down there, if I go there, so I won't put all the fires out.

He became world notable as an innovator in the highly specialized and extremely hazardous profession of extinguishing and capping blazing erupting oil well blowouts both land-based and offshore. He began fighting oil well fires after returning from serving in a bomb disposal unit during World War II. In 1977 he and his crew (including Asger "Boots" Hansen) contributed to the capping of the biggest oil well blowout ever to have occurred in the North Sea (and the second largest offshore blowout worldwide in terms of volume of crude oil spilled[citation needed]) at the Ekofisk Bravo platform located in the Norwegian sector and operated by Phillips Petroleum Company (now ConocoPhillips).

He became world notable as an innovator in the highly specialized and extremely hazardous profession of extinguishing and capping blazing erupting oil well blowouts both land-based and offshore.