Coroners Report. What do you think!

[boulderjohn]

Way to many 'they just vanished' stories heard from someone's 'last buddy'.

I have no trouble believing the "they just vanished" line. On the land, people we are with are on the same plane as we, so if we look away and then look back, they will be there. If we do the same thing in the water, our friend could be just a few feet away but on a different plane, and we won't see them.

As a technical diving instructor, I see something like this all the time. When I have newer students doing complex skills, they will often take their eyes off of me and go through some twists and turns with their bodies as they perform the skill. I need to be sure to be in a good position to intervene in case of a problem, so I end up moving around to maintain that good position. That position is often a tad above them, to prevent an ascent. When they are done with the skill, they will usually be looking around for me until I grab them so they know where I am.

Not long ago, I was doing a basic reef dive with my daughter-in-law and young grandson. At the end of the dive time, I signaled an ascent. My daughter-in-law glanced at her gauges, and in that time she descended a couple of feet. She then looked around in all directions frantically. We had just disappeared! Her beloved son was gone! We were about 8 feet away. If we had been a single buddy who lost buoyancy control, she would never have found us.

 

[boulderjohn]

In LA County, we were very fortunate in 2019 that we had ZERO scuba fatalities. (We've already had four or five this year.) In 2016, we had 6 fatalities. Whether or not they're representative of the overall picture, here's what the cause of death in each was:

#1 - Deferred (this is not unusual and by now the case has been closed with a COD but I don't have it in my records) - Victim was known risk-taker, wore 38 lbs lead, liked to dive very deep, 0.028% blood alcohol, 30% occlusion artery, enlarged/fatty liver
#2 - Heart attack following a lobster dive with a scooter
#3 - Drowning (free-diver) - Wore 30 lbs weight, family said in excellent health, blood alcohol 0.049%
#4 - Deferred - New diver (first dives after cert - cert was two months prior), passed out a few minutes into dive at 40-50 feet, 2600psi in tank, unclear if autopsy was performed
#5 - Deferred - Training dive with instructor, bolted to surface at end of dive in current, passed out on current line
#6 - Drowning - Looking for lobster, went inside pipeline (wearing doubles), did not come out, no air in tanks, found 500 feet inside pipe, 15-20 lobsters in bag (daily limit in CA is 7)

And here are 4 from 2017:
#1 - Drowning/barotrauma - 1700 dives, became inverted and over-inflated in drysuit but was still negative, buddy assisted but she passed out, he brought her rapidly to the surface, CPR administered & AED used, never regained pulse, autopsy showed severe barotrauma with air trapped in lungs/brain/skin
#2 - Drowning/embolism - Found unresponsive on bottom during tech dive to 190', others on dive "sent her up" because they needed to deco, she was spotted and brought on board boat, autopsy revealed subcutaneous emphysema and other sings of barotrauma
#3 - Heart attack - Looking for lobster, wearing 40 lbs lead (est to be 20+ more than needed), made it to surface but coughing loudly, private boat nearby took him aboard and he passed out, history of cardiac issues
#4 - Drowning with underlying cardiac issues - Diving for scallops on oil rigs (rig is in 300 feet of water - dive took place around 100 feet), observed passed out underwater and slowly descending, rescue attempted but aborted at 160 feet, victim recovered next day by Sheriff's dive team at 265 feet, main cylinder was full but pony bottle was empty, may have confused pony reg for main reg and couldn't switch back when OOA

So there you have 10. 2 heart attacks, 2 with measurable alcohol in system, 2 grossly over-weighted, a new diver, a highly-experienced diver, 5 drowning, 4 that I'd term "diver error," and plenty of underlying medical issues.

Just one last comment on this--note that 60% of the fatalities were the result of confirmed or likely medical issues.

 

[The Chairman]

Read enough ScubaBoard threads and you will find people calling for agencies to stop teaching it altogether.

This is simply not true. I teach the CESA horizontally but think doing it vertically is exceptionally nuts given the damage it can and has done to students and instructors. Either you don't understand what I state, or you're intentionally distorting it. There's been enough distortions in our election campaigns: no need to do it here.

 

[boulderjohn]

This is simply not true. I teach the CESA horizontally but think doing it vertically is exceptionally nuts given the damage it can and has done to students and instructors. Either you don't understand what I state, or you're intentionally distorting it. There's been enough distortions in our election campaigns: no need to do it here.

Wow! The king of distortions is accusing me of distortion!

When did I say anything about you and your specific position on CESA?

 

[Storker]

I teach the CESA horizontally

Which I personally believe is a complete waste of time. Doing a simulated CESA horizontally gives a completely wrong impression of how it will be if you have to do a real CESA vertically.

But what do I know? I'm not a certified instructor.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

Just one last comment on this--note that 60% of the fatalities were the result of confirmed or likely medical issues.

Not to beat this to death (no pun intended) but not exactly. (Not sure how you get 6 medical, unless you count embolism as medical whereas i count that as diver error.)
2 of the 10 (20%) attributed to medical issues.
5 of the 10 (50%) were attributed to drowning, with 2 of those 5 (40% of the subset, 20% overall) attributed to embolism.
3 of the 10 (30%) were initially deferred and I don't know the eventual determination.

Additionally:
2 (20%) out-of-air.
2 (20%) with measurable alcohol in the bloodstream.

And also bear in mind that this is WAAAAY too small a sampling size to be considered accurate for overall findings. Don;'t hang your hood on their numbers. They represent nothing more than what happened in the jurisdiction of L.A. County over this 2-year period.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

Doing a simulated CESA horizontally gives a completely wrong impression of how it will be if you have to do a real CESA vertically.

But what do I know? I'm not a certified instructor.

Or . . . it teaches them how far they can go (frequently the length of a pool or 75 feet) exhaling on one breath without running the risk of them embolizing while doing it. And then you add in an explanation that, should they have to do this for real, gas expansion in their lungs while ascending will make it seem "easier" and even extend the range over which they can do this, thereby giving them some back-of-the-brain confidence that, should they ever have to do it for real, might kick in and save their life.

But what do I know? I AM a certified instructor and have been teaching for 40 years.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

On the role of the Coroner (since that's where this all started) . . .

Not specifically dive-related but this profile of the Coroner role was in today's Los Angeles Times. Might be an interesting read and given some perspective. (Hopefully not behind a paywall.)

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-12-12/covid-19-deaths-increased-danger-coroner-office

 

[Storker]

what do I know? I AM a certified instructor and have been teaching for 40 years.

Point very well taken

 

[Scraps]

Way too many 'they just vanished' stories heard from someone's 'last buddy'.

Concur. Where I live we have a lot of days (today, for example) with visibility at or less than 15 feet. Because it is so easy to lose a spear fishing dive buddy in these conditions (look under a ledge for a few seconds, and your buddy can easily be out of sight when you're done), my buddy and I have modified our lost buddy protocol. I'm the "stay put" lost buddy, and my buddy is the "retrace route" buddy. This procedure has kept us from circling each other in the gloom and saved us uncounted unnecessary ascents to find each other.