Pompano Beach Fatality Sunday April 16th
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That's completely untrue. The vast majority of survivable cardiac events have a far greater mortality underwater, even in a swimming pool.
Yes, if you have a massive myocardial infarction with significant loss of pump function, it probably doesn't matter. But a limited MI which might cause loss of consciousness or even just severe pain and disorientation? On the surface, you can make it to the cath lab. Lethal underwater.
Also, shockable rhythms? Why do you think so many states mandate the presence of AEDs in nursing homes, schools, etc..
Near syncope from non-shockable rhythms? Not great underwater.
And that's just cardiac stuff. Epilepsy? Stroke?
I mean, I get that underlying health factors contribute to all sorts of underwater injuries, includng DCI. But to imply that there is no excessive mortality related to diving is simply wrong.
Not a cave diver, but from what I understand, the risk of cave diving among properly trained cave divers is pretty low. Probably because the cavers did better in optimizing and standardizing their training thatt the CCR world has done so far. Plus, organized caving can protect sites from untrained divers. Hard to do that with the ocean.
Solo diving is awesome, and i love it. I don't do it on CCR, but nothing better than a solo macro dive.
《Mod edit》
Solo diving is awesome, and i love it. I don't do it on CCR, but nothing better than a solo macro dive.
《Mod edit》
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In my area out of hospital (dry) resuscitation rates are in the 62-67% range depending on the year.
In water they are 0%, and that's with an AED at our most popular dive site.
@doctormike and @Seaweed Doc. I was responding to a comment made by @jeffsky29 stating "...Clearly scuba diving is causing heart attacks." That statement is not true. However, I totally agree if you have a heart attack underwater, your survival rate is significantly reduced to probably near zero. As Seaweed Doc stated "location, location, location" is spot on. Like being underwater, if you have a serious heart attack solo hiking in a very remote area, your survival rate is probably significantly reduced as well. However, scuba diving, solo hiking, or any other recreational physical activity are not likely to cause heart attacks. But I fully agree that where you are, and what you are doing have a lot to do with survivability.
Got it...
And of course, the most important sentence in medical school is "there's a bell curve for everything". Some people are just getting by with nearly occluded coronaries. All it takes is a little excessive demand in the form of exertion to pull the trigger. And some forms of diving definitely involve exertion...!
Kay Dee
Contributor
To those that know, is it public knowledge what kind of descent Joe's dive was; a 'hot drop' or a 'down the line' descent?
Pardon if it has already been mentioned.
Pardon if it has already been mentioned.
aue-mike
Contributor
MODERATORS - feel free to split off as you see fit.
A copy of this post and answering posts specific to the practice has been created. Do not respond to this post in this A&I thread. Do not go to the new thread to discuss the accident and diver loss from this thread in A&I. Here is the link to the discussion with regard to split dives: The Wisdom? of Split Dives Discussion
I am going to share some information related to the incident that, while it has zero bearing on what precipitated the incident and caused the fatality, I believe it is definitely interrelated, definitely had an impact on response, and will likely be the one tangible teaching/learning moment to come out of this horrible event.
On the day of the incident, the team of divers with Joe Citelli (the deceased) conducted a "hot drop" that was also a "split drop." What is a split drop? This is where the boat has two different groups of divers, in this case, recreational and technical. The boat on that day was headed to the CAPTAIN DAN. But it also dropped a group of divers on the LOWRANCE that included Joe Citelli. The distance between these two wrecks is roughly 0.30 nautical miles or 1,900 feet. That is, the boat dropped a group of divers on the LOWRANCE, and then planned to head over to the CAPTAIN DAN to splash in a group of recreational divers on that wreck. This is not an uncommon practice in South Florida, and sometimes the distance between dive sites can be greater than this example. But, this practice is definitely unwise (read as stupid) IMHO. In conducting a split drop, it is viewed as a manageable risk, but it is obviously an unnecessary risk. I have had discussions with Joe about how stupid this practice was, and he agreed. Which is why it hurts to say that on the day in question, Joe personally requested the split drop from the captain of the dive vessel.
Again, this has nothing to do with what caused the incident. Unfortunately, we may likely never know what caused the incident given the typical findings of the coroner. I hope I am wrong in this instance. But, knowing this was a split drop, the incident happened approximately two minutes into the descent before reaching the wreck, and the team ultimately surfaced with an unconscious diver and no support boat on site definitely impacted the response time in rendering effective aid. This is not a slight on the divers with Joe at all. They observed something was amiss, attended to him, and got him to the surface; they did what they could. But upon surfacing and having no topside support, their efforts to aid and resuscitate Joe were hindered. They had to flag down a fishing boat to relay information to the dive boat on the CAPTAIN DAN with divers in the water, and it took precious time to get them back on site at the LOWRANCE and get Joe onboard the dive boat and attempt to resuscitate with CPR and an AED.
I am not saying that the outcome would have been any different had the dive boat been directly on site. But I am emphatically saying it definitely could have helped -- or -- it definitely wouldn't have hurt. Immediacy of treatment/aid for an injury or incident is typically a critical component to rendering successful treatment/aid. In this case, there was a delay in the ability to render efficient CPR because the dive boat was not directly on site to respond immediately to the incident.
This is a dumb South Florida practice that needs to stop. Folks have long believed that this (split drops) is a manageable and acceptable risk. This incident should serve as evidence that it's not an acceptable risk in technical diving operations. I freely admit I have been on split drops myself. This is the "what if" scenario no one thought would happen. Hopefully this will serve as a wake-up call for local technical divers and dive operators.
A ScubaBoard Staff Message...
I am going to share some information related to the incident that, while it has zero bearing on what precipitated the incident and caused the fatality, I believe it is definitely interrelated, definitely had an impact on response, and will likely be the one tangible teaching/learning moment to come out of this horrible event.
On the day of the incident, the team of divers with Joe Citelli (the deceased) conducted a "hot drop" that was also a "split drop." What is a split drop? This is where the boat has two different groups of divers, in this case, recreational and technical. The boat on that day was headed to the CAPTAIN DAN. But it also dropped a group of divers on the LOWRANCE that included Joe Citelli. The distance between these two wrecks is roughly 0.30 nautical miles or 1,900 feet. That is, the boat dropped a group of divers on the LOWRANCE, and then planned to head over to the CAPTAIN DAN to splash in a group of recreational divers on that wreck. This is not an uncommon practice in South Florida, and sometimes the distance between dive sites can be greater than this example. But, this practice is definitely unwise (read as stupid) IMHO. In conducting a split drop, it is viewed as a manageable risk, but it is obviously an unnecessary risk. I have had discussions with Joe about how stupid this practice was, and he agreed. Which is why it hurts to say that on the day in question, Joe personally requested the split drop from the captain of the dive vessel.
Again, this has nothing to do with what caused the incident. Unfortunately, we may likely never know what caused the incident given the typical findings of the coroner. I hope I am wrong in this instance. But, knowing this was a split drop, the incident happened approximately two minutes into the descent before reaching the wreck, and the team ultimately surfaced with an unconscious diver and no support boat on site definitely impacted the response time in rendering effective aid. This is not a slight on the divers with Joe at all. They observed something was amiss, attended to him, and got him to the surface; they did what they could. But upon surfacing and having no topside support, their efforts to aid and resuscitate Joe were hindered. They had to flag down a fishing boat to relay information to the dive boat on the CAPTAIN DAN with divers in the water, and it took precious time to get them back on site at the LOWRANCE and get Joe onboard the dive boat and attempt to resuscitate with CPR and an AED.
I am not saying that the outcome would have been any different had the dive boat been directly on site. But I am emphatically saying it definitely could have helped -- or -- it definitely wouldn't have hurt. Immediacy of treatment/aid for an injury or incident is typically a critical component to rendering successful treatment/aid. In this case, there was a delay in the ability to render efficient CPR because the dive boat was not directly on site to respond immediately to the incident.
This is a dumb South Florida practice that needs to stop. Folks have long believed that this (split drops) is a manageable and acceptable risk. This incident should serve as evidence that it's not an acceptable risk in technical diving operations. I freely admit I have been on split drops myself. This is the "what if" scenario no one thought would happen. Hopefully this will serve as a wake-up call for local technical divers and dive operators.
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