Fiona Sharp death in Bonaire

[Wookie]

yeah...I feel bad about posting it without context in this thread based on the thread spin off.

The Bonairereporter is a local paper that is mostly about social events, crimes, feel good articles, selling real estate and govt updates.

I always read it before a trip to see if something is going on.

I wouldn't use it for anything scientific or think of it as in depth analysis of any particular subject.

We knew it was wrong, but it gave us the chance to drag the thread off topic.

 

[scubadada]

We knew it was wrong, but it gave us the chance to drag the thread off topic.

Again...

 

[Wookie]

It’s a blessing.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Here is an example of where a gag strap worked on a very deep, test dive in a chamber to test a new open circuit regulator. This was written by Fred Roberts about his test dive to 380 feet on air in May 29, 1955. There was no buddy, and Fred did suffer a convulsion, lost consciousness, and survived due to the gag strap he had attached to the mouthpiece. Here is his writeup on this dive, as published in his book, Basic Scuba.

Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this is not a home-made regulator, but most probably a prototype of a production regulator that was planned by a diving company. The only one I can think of that meets this description is DESCO. If you have a copy of Fred Roberts' book, Basic Scuba, go to pages 421 through 430, where he explains "The Deep Dive," a chamber dive to test a newly developed DESCO regulator.

The main object of the test was to eval/uate a new regulator developed by Desco. This would be a determination of its operation at extreme depth. I also wanted to compare my reactions to nitrogen at extreme depth with that of the 197 foot dive I made in Lake Michigan...

...The lung used in the dive employed only a single 70 cubic foot cylinder. You can see that the rule of thumb that "while using only one tank of air in a twelve hour period you cannot go deep enough nor stay long enough to require decompression" is not always true. Two lungs were actually in the tank, one filled with compressed air at about 2300 psig and a serond filled with pure oxygen, to be used in decompression only...

...I could see the needle of the depth gauge pass 325 feet, then 350 feet. This actually was my goal. I had had more than enough. I moved to the ladder and gripped it tightly with both hands, surfaced and signaled to a very worried tender that I wanted to go up. My reactions must have been considerably slower than my thoughts, for although the controls were reversed quickly, the needle climbed to 380 feet, or 165 psig of pressure.

"I braced for the ascent. As I looked around the chamber I remember thinking 'It's all over now' and mentally patting myself on the back. I still thought I was somewhere around 360 feet, since that was where I l/ast saw the needle on the depth gauge when I moved to the ladder. THEN THERE WAS NOTHING! the men outside saw that my head was bowed. My muscles twitched violently as I hung onto the ladder. The pressure gauge read 165 pounds per square inch, the last pressure reading recorded by the tape recorder--a pressure equivalent to that experienced at a depth of 380 feet.

"The descent had taken eight and a half minutes from the surface and 30 seconds on the bottom for a total dive of 9 minutes duration. I remember very little of the many things that went through my mind. I was apparently "out" but I do remember having what seemed to be dreams. At first there was a total blackout. Then a vague sense of consciousness. I would never care to had the feeling of that half-world of unreality again.

"MY BLACKOUT CAN WITH ABSORUTELY NO WARNING. There was no physical unpleasantness connected with it--I was conscious one moment, and unconscious the next.

"As I began to wake up I remembered two incidents which occurred during my semi-conscous state. The first may have been the factor that resulted in the death of Diving Master Maurice Fargues, a member of Captain J.Y. Cousteau's diving team, who descended to a remarkable depth of 396 feet. This also may have cost a Miami attorney, Hope Root, his life on his 400 foot air dive, from which he never returned.

"For some reason, all at once I could not seem to get enough air to breathe.1 My lungs felt as though they were on fire and I had the urge to open my mouth wide and take deep breaths. Fortunately this sensation apparently did not last too long, and I had fastened my mouthpiece around my head and in my mouth so hard that the corners of my mouth were stretched overe the edges, and this would not possibly allow me to open my mouth. Finally the sensation was gone and I could breathe easily again...

...The final results showed two things. I had experienced nitrogen narcossi at 175 feet when diving to 197 feet at Kenosha, Wisconsin in cold water (while seasick). Here the same narcosis returned about the same depth in relatively hot water...

The second finding was that the single stage regulator under test performed very well. The only unhappy situation which developed was that the moist head generated by the incoming air above the water completely melted the candy bars I had saved for a decompression snack...

1 Possibly the result of acute hyperventilation.

Now, what if this single-stage regulator was the very regulator that Fred Roberts took to 380 feet on air in a chamber tank? To my knowledge, no one has yet come up with one of the DESCO regulators. If that is the case, it would be an exceedingly rare and valuable regulator.

John
http://vintagescuba.proboards.com/thread/5121/homemade-regulators?page=1&scrollTo=45100

SeaRat

 

[Popgun Pete]

I remember Dr Carl Edmonds gave a lecture on diver fatalities at a SPUMS conference and mentioned the "sudden diver death syndrome". He used that old, well known phrase, "there are no old, bold divers". During the lecture he made us experienced divers all squirm as he ran through the list of no-no’s that most of us had breached at some time or other and had only escaped harm thanks to good luck rather than skill. He spoke of old divers in their later thirties (more shifting in seats and squirming) and the need for a buddy and a dive plan that was adhered to. Dr Carl's talks were always entertaining, but some left ashen-faced and contemplated selling all of their dive equipment. At post-conference drinks this was all forgotten, but came back to haunt you on some sleep deprived nights.

 

[Popgun Pete]

Read Scuba diving fatalities - Wikipedia, "Human Factors"

 

[ScubaGypsy]

Excellent chart. No coral grows at 300ft there ........snip.........

Isn't there black coral at those depths & deeper off of Bonaire?

 

[Popgun Pete]

Those oro-nasal masks used with underwater communications gear, any of those used with rebreathers, or does the "eggs all in one basket" problem rear its head? They are held on with a pluraliy of straps, so not so easy to dislodge. May have volume implications for the breathing circuit in terms of the increased mask space, although there should be a boundary with the inner mask mouthpiece section.

Here is a mask design where imagination has jumped ahead of practicality.

 

[telemonster]

Those oro-nasal masks used with underwater communications gear, any of those used with rebreathers,

There are FFM that can be used with CCR.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Those oro-nasal masks used with underwater communications gear, any of those used with rebreathers, or does the "eggs all in one basket" problem rear its head? They are held on with a pluraliy of straps, so not so easy to dislodge. May have volume implications for the breathing circuit in terms of the increased mask space, although there should be a boundary with the inner mask mouthpiece section.

Here is a mask design where imagination has jumped ahead of practicality.
View attachment 547757
View attachment 547758

This mask, due to its curved surfaces, will cause spaciaI disorientation if used underwater. How do I know? I once tested a Scott SCBA for emergency use underwater by firefighters. I got those problems using the Scott mask.

SeaRat