is what caused most of the deaths involved in the construction, from working long hours under sea level without appropriate decompression routines. in those days they had no idea, so it must have been really scary when workers were getting sick on a regular basis and some died. Washington Roebling got it too, and it crippled him. for the last years of construction, he was too sick to leave his house to travel to the work site. his wife carried messages for him.