Accident on Southern Cal Oil Rigs Dive

[Eric Sedletzky]

Hi @Eric Sedletzky

I'm not underestimating the difficulty in diving the oil rigs, as I have never had the opportunity to do so. However, I assume this was designated a recreational dive, 130 ft, no deco, I would hope that most divers doing this would have experienced the the depth and their weighting, wet suit squeeze, and narcosis. I still can't quite grasp what went wrong here outside incapacitation. If there was current, one could send up one's DSMB and ascend away from the structure, just like getting blown off a wreck.

The end result was incapacitation but we have no idea what lead up to that. In a perfect world only people who have the skills and knowledge should be diving a place like the rigs out in blue water with all the challenges of offshore California diving, but it’s not a perfect world.
People can flash any card they want and make all sorts of claims as to their diving abilities, but is that always the truth?

 

[Hatul]

The info at this point is sketchy but one theory is the diver had a seizure and was at a depth of some 130-140ft. He may have had a O2 toxicity seizure if he used Nitrox. Just speculation at this point.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I have to say that this does not sound like my idea of a fun dive.

How far off shore are the rigs?

Far enough, several miles. You can see land but I’ll say 3-5 miles offshore? Maybe more for some of them? I’m bad with distances, but far enough that you aren’t swimming back to shore

 

[elgoog]

I have to say that this does not sound like my idea of a fun dive.

It's a stunning dive. The structure itself is gorgeous, it's covered in tons of invertebrate marine life and attracts a lot of fish and sea lions. This is a good video

How far off shore are the rigs?

Ellen, Elly and Eureka are about 8 miles off shore from San Pedro. The Ellen-Elly complex is where this incident occurred.

 

[Kevrumbo]

. . . I still can't quite grasp what went wrong here outside incapacitation. If there was current, one could send up one's DSMB and ascend away from the structure, just like getting blown off a wreck.

We're told to always stay within the structure during the dive, and upon surfacing as well. For live boat drop-off and pick-up, we always go on the boat crew's command as they maneuver into close proximity to the oil rig structure to minimize surface swim distance. In large swells this operation can be challenging. . .

Because of swirling currents with surge & surface swells, along with variable surface conditions such as potential fog or haze, and especially being in the shipping lanes of two of the largest container ship ports in the US (Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach), you try not to get "blown-off structure", nor do you electively make a blue water ascent into open waters beyond the oil rig platform as a standard procedure.

As an aside, an accident such as this a few years ago closed sport diving for awhile (moratorium still in effect?) on @Eric Sedletzky 's Oil Rig Grace up north in the Santa Barbara Channel. I hope this doesn't impact us here down in the San Pedro Channel as well. . .

 

[Altamira]

It's a stunning dive. The structure itself is gorgeous, it's covered in tons of invertebrate marine life and attracts a lot of fish and sea lions. This is a good video


Ellen, Elly and Eureka are about 8 miles off shore from San Pedro. The Ellen-Elly complex is where this incident occurred.

Never having dived an oil rig, I was about to ask the question "So what is the draw?". Thanks to your video, it is apparent what attracts divers to this rig. Very nice video.

 

[Kevrumbo]

Never having dived an oil rig, I was about to ask the question "So what is the draw?". Thanks to your video, it is apparent what attracts divers to this rig. Very nice video.

Very large scallops for the taking (10 max per fishing licensed Diver for take-home, but we also "ceviche-ize" a few extra collectively and eat 'em on the diveboat before coming home). The hazard though is that you have to go deep, at least 24m/80' and deeper to the second horizontal cross beam support platform at roughly 36m/120' at Oil Rig Eureka.

 

[vladodessit]

Victim's tank did have "Nitrox" sticker. As far as I could tell, he was in wetsuit and jacket style BCD, looks like hp100 tank. I would be interested in the content of the tank. Could be health issue, too. Toxing on oxygen? Hmm, how deep would he be at that point?I doubt 130-140 on 32% would be enough to get seizures... Possible-yes ut not very probable.

 

[elgoog]

Thanks to your video, it is apparent what attracts divers to this rig. Very nice video.

Just to clarify, that's not my video - it's the one that made me want to dive the oil rigs.

Very large scallops for the taking (10 max for take-home, but we also "ceviche-ize" a few extra on the diveboat before coming home). The hazard though is that you have to go deep, at least 24m/80' and deeper to the second horizontal cross beam support platform at roughly 36m/120' at Oil Rig Eureka.

Yeah, this too. I would say about half the divers on my boat were there for scallops. We stayed at the 1st cross beam on the Eureka and my buddy got 5 small/medium sized ones before I got bored with that (probably could have got the limit there). Almost everyone else went deeper for the bigger ones.

 

[Sam Miller III]

@Marie13[/USER], post: 8140881, member: 478333"]
I have to say that this does not sound like my idea of a fun dive.

How far off shore are the rigs?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Marie13,
Miles and miles from the windy, snowy, sleety, rainy, freezing cold of Chicago
It is in a place called Southern California - where recreational diving began

SDM