Freediver dies providing safety - Blue Hole Arch, Egypt

[DandyDon]

Freediver Stephen Keenan Dies While Providing Safety At Dahab Blue Hole – DeeperBlue.com

Very sad news for the Freediving community coming out of Dahab as Stephen Keenan, co-owner at Dahab Freedivers and Chief Of Safety for numerous Freediving competitions, died on Saturday whilst freediving at the Arch of the Dahab Blue Hole.

Whilst full details are still unknown at this stage, we understand that Keenan was providing safety cover for Italian Freediver Alessia Zecchini, who was attempting to complete a Free Immersion (FIM) dive of the Blue Hole Arch.

Keenan appears to have provided assistance to Zecchini at around 50m / 164ft after she got disorientated. Both divers ascended but a distance away from where the other safety divers were expecting. Keenan seems to have suffered an in-water blackout in the last 10m / 32ft of the ascent. Due to where Keenan and Zecchini surfaced, there was a short delay in rescuing Keenan. It is understood he died whilst in a taxi to the hospital.

The Arch is a 26m / 85ft long tunnel in the Dahab Blue Hole at a depth of 56m / 184ft and is often seen as quite a challenge due to its depth and requirement to swim for quite a distance through it.

Keenan, 39 from Dublin in Ireland, had been active in the Freediving community since 2009 when he discovered the sport in Dahab. He went on to co-own, along with Pascal Berger and Miguel Lozano, one of the world’s most dynamic Freedive schools – Dahab Freedivers – as well as set a number of Irish National Records.

He was an AIDA, PADI and EFR instructor trainer has taught and coached hundreds of divers in Dahab, Spain, and the Philippines.

He was probably best known for his role as Chief Of Safety for a number of the Vertical Blue Freediving Competitions, as well as regularly providing safety at Freediving competitions across the world.

 

[Johnoly]

He was well known. I can't imagine a secondary kick at those depths when he saw an issue. That's deep even for a 1st kick down.

 

[Jiminy]

Accident report

AIDA | News

 

[Dan]

To those who are not familiar with the Dahab Blue Hole underwater profile & how to freedive it, this video below illustrates it nicely by William Trubridge:

 

[Kay Dee]

Semantics aside, and with all due respect, I think anyone calling / expecting another freediver to be so-called 'safety cover' - as referred to in the old first post - at the max depth of that dive is a misnomer in the extreme. As long as all went well........well, but............. when it didn't / doesn't, as in that case, then it is just an accident waiting to happen.

Now while the deceased appears to have made a truely valiant effort, he was also only 'operating' on a single breath after all, which no matter how experienced, has its limits. To be of any real assistance - i.e. safety cover - in any free diving emergency at depth the safety cover needs to be on scuba, i.e. either OC or CCR (and if on CCR then with an appropriate source at hand of OC for the free diver).

I realise this is a very old thread, so I hope by now that 'lesson' has been well and truely learnt from that unfortunate accident.

 

[Rollin Bonz]

Semantics aside, and with all due respect, I think anyone calling / expecting another freediver to be so-called 'safety cover' - as referred to in the old first post - at the max depth of that dive is a misnomer in the extreme. As long as all went well........well, but............. when it didn't / doesn't, as in that case, then it is just an accident waiting to happen.

Now while the deceased appears to have made a truely valiant effort, he was also only 'operating' on a single breath after all, which no matter how experienced, has its limits. To be of any real assistance - i.e. safety cover - in any free diving emergency at depth the safety cover needs to be on scuba, i.e. either OC or CCR (and if on CCR then with an appropriate source at hand of OC for the free diver).

I realise this is a very old thread, so I hope by now that 'lesson' has been well and truely learnt from that unfortunate accident.

I was thinking the same. I don't know much about free diving, but I understand a free diver isn't at the mercy of a controlled ascent like a scuba diver, and the goal is to get a free diver in trouble to the surface ASAP, and a SCUBA diver can't do that. But in a case like this, couldn't the free diver just go to scuba like a bail out to deal with the pressing emergency, then ascend gradually like as scuba diver to the surface?

The accident report points to several steps that could have been taken to prevent it. In retrospect, simply marking the exit point with a strobe or other means (thus eliminating the required near perfectly timed arrival of Mr. Keenan) would have been enough.

Sad

 

[almostDIR]

Semantics aside, and with all due respect, I think anyone calling / expecting another freediver to be so-called 'safety cover' - as referred to in the old first post - at the max depth of that dive is a misnomer in the extreme. As long as all went well........well, but............. when it didn't / doesn't, as in that case, then it is just an accident waiting to happen.

Now while the deceased appears to have made a truely valiant effort, he was also only 'operating' on a single breath after all, which no matter how experienced, has its limits. To be of any real assistance - i.e. safety cover - in any free diving emergency at depth the safety cover needs to be on scuba, i.e. either OC or CCR (and if on CCR then with an appropriate source at hand of OC for the free diver).

I realise this is a very old thread, so I hope by now that 'lesson' has been well and truely learnt from that unfortunate accident.

Scuba divers are limited by ascend rates and at those depths also the deco ceiling so they are not able to bring to victim to the surface quickly. It would need a long chain of scuba divers at different depths to be able to pass the freediver forward and the last bringing him to the surface.

The same reason why the freediving videos are shot by freedivers... Scuba divers can't keep up with their speed when it comes to depth changes.

A safety scuba tank could be useful though in addition with the safety freediver if both could be arranged at the same time

 

[BlueTrin]

Scuba divers are limited by ascend rates and at those depths also the deco ceiling so they are not able to bring to victim to the surface quickly. It would need a long chain of scuba divers at different depths to be able to pass the freediver forward and the last bringing him to the surface.

The same reason why the freediving videos are shot by freedivers... Scuba divers can't keep up with their speed when it comes to depth changes.

A safety scuba tank could be useful though in addition with the safety freediver if both could be arranged at the same time

Could they give a DSMB ?

I guess if the guy is in difficulty he won’t be able to hold onto it ?

 

[dmaziuk]

You'd need a horse collar to keep victim's head above water upon surfacing, and that's not enough if they're not breathing. I expect the time it would take to put the BCD on them and inflate it makes it not feasible anyway.

 

[BlueTrin]

You'd need a horse collar to keep victim's head above water upon surfacing, and that's not enough if they're not breathing. I expect the time it would take to put the BCD on them and inflate it makes it not feasible anyway.

Yea I meant the DSMB would send them up and someone else would take care of them at the surface.

In something like the Blue Hole tunnel it is probably not ideal though.