Polish fatality in Dahab, Egypt

[Searcaigh]

I hope the other diver recovers and condolences to the family of the deceased.

100m dives are not for the faint hearted, it takes a lot of planning and necessitates a good back up team too, so I assume something went seriously wrong gear wise, but we may never know.

 

[Peter69_56]

The link you used to read a description of an accident was about a traged that happened in 2000. Apologies for confusion, I only referenced it as a source of information about 100m depth. I have removed the link now to prevent further confusions.


I higly doubt it was an attempt on a single tank with a recreational diver. The person reporting the incident referred to both dive buddies (the one who died and the one who ended up in deco chamber) as “our divers”. I have explored his FB account a bit and found a post from May 2021 showing 3 guys in a restaurant in Dahab with a quote “Strong heliox team”. Whether one of those is the author of the post or whether those are just visiting divers, it implies technical diving as an area of activity for the author of the post.

There are still no more details about the accident, only condolences being given on FB.

Thank you for the information. And yes I agree I think that incident was a tech dive which sadly went wrong, and to make it even sader, it looks like no one will ever know why it happened. I happened to mention in my previous post that it appeared that it was a tech dive, however I though it important to show divers with little or no experience in deeper diving the pitfalls of making a rushed decision on a moments thought to go deeper, in particular on a single tank.

I know in the past at the Blue Hole many incidents were recreational divers trying for the arch. I believe that they try and police it as much as they can now days to prevent that, however I expect there are still those heros who try and get around the efforts to prevent unnecessary lose of life, just to show how "they" did it.

I dont have an issue with people taking risks, as long as they are fully informed and the risks are understood by them before they do it, and on the understanding that they dont have an expectation that others will risk their lives to save or recover them. I think in the main this is not the reality. I also think anyone doing a very risky action is a very selfish action by them as even if they are not recovered, it usually deeply affects others who are either close to them, or were there on the day.

My wife and I are both tech divers, and she has a very clear understanding and agreement of how we deal with any issues.

 

[divezonescuba]

Some sources attribute up to 200 divers having passed away at the Blue Hole. The vast majority are divers who attempt the dive in recreational gear and a single AL80 of gas. They secumb to recreational gear failure, out of gas, nitrogen narcosis, and oxygen toxicity. The bottom is very steep. The deceased often roll down the tube like area to the bottom at 300 feet to outside of the hole which is 600 feet. In the old days around 2010, according to author John Kean, two sometimes three divers a day would die in the Blue Hole. The authorities then started cracking down on unqualified divers diving the Arch. A Belgian diver was setting a depth record there and observed bodies and parts and coined the name of the divers graveyard.

There is a memorial wall dedicated to the fallen divers near the Blue Hole. Sometime around 2011, the authorities banned families and friends from putting up additional plaques. But apparently that is being ignored to some extent as some more recent plaques have been emplaced.

With the proper technical training, equipment, and technique, the dive is actually no more hazardous than any other dive to that depth. It used to be that the most dangerous part of that dive was falling down due to the flip flops on the 30 foot path down to the water. Since 2019, on our first trip there, they have now added sets of steps to both entrances, so it is that much safer.

We were there last week and I posted a video on our group diving the blue hole arch in the tec trips section. Here is the link.

 

[divezonescuba]

It has been a about two and a half of years since this incident occurred. Because some posted indicated interest in the situation, I am posting additional information of what happened.

This incident occurred the day after we left Dahab in 2021. After the incident, I started asking around and this is what I found out at the time. The dive was indeed intended to be a 100 meter dive. 100 meters is the deepest depth that you can declare a dive plan for without having to go thru extra paperwork with CDWS (Egyptian Diving Governing Body). An in water safety support diver is generally required by the dive operators on planned dives greater than 80 meters. I am not sure if that is also a CDWS requirement.

On the descent, the diver panicked and ascended in an uncontrolled manner to the surface. The support diver who was at 20 meters attempted to control the panicked diver. The support diver was not able to control the panicked diver who reached the surface. Both the panicked diver and the support diver were taken to the hospital. Nowadays, there is an ambulance standing by during the day at the Blue Hole. The panicked diver died a couple of days later in the hospital. The safety diver, fully recovered after his treatment.

In 2022, I did not think it appropriate to ask the person who was acting as the safety diver about the incident.

In 2023, there were a number of personnel changes at the dive shop and I coincidentally happened to have a conversation about the incident with the new technical diving manager. I understood him to say that the panicked diver's incident was brought about by a high pressure hose leak.

This is something that any certified technical diver should be able to handle. But high pressure leaks seem to be only covered from the standpoint of a manifold leak during training. I think that I will add the high pressure hose leak scenario to my list of things tec divers need to be proficient in.