Brigitte Lenoir dies attempting to break rebreather record

[Belmont]

Brigitte Lenoir died in an attempt to beat a rebreather depth record in the Red Sea.

This was mentioned here and did not attract much attention:

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/red-sea/335393-brigitte-lenoir-dies-dahab.html

You can see one of her previous dive in Lac Leman in Switzerland here:

Décès de la plongeuse Brigitte Lenoir en Égypte | Tribune de Genève

She is seen using a Meg rebreather.

There seems to be some controversy brewing as to the reason why she was not helped or at least why her body was not recovered.

 

[Crowley]

I have second-hand information from people who know people who were involved in the attempt. It appears she was indeed diving with a Megalodon on the world record attempt. Initial speculation is that a malfunction caused pure oxygen to be pumped into the mix. At 140 metres, pure O2 would be fatal very quickly. Some reports suggest she died on ascent, others on descent.

Others in the team might not have had the resources to retrieve the body at the time. The accident happend at around 140 metres, the location she was diving is *much* deeper and the margins of safety are very slim indeed. It seems harsh to say this but leaving a dead diver to assure one's own personal safety is pretty much standard practice - otherwise you just have more dead divers. Outside the Blue Hole, Dahab, it might not be possible to recover the body without the use of an ROV. It may not be possible to recover the body from depth at all.

A tragic accident, for sure.

C.

 

[RogerAGrimes]

1. If she and her equipment were not recovered, I wonder how they know it was a 100% O2 injection valve problem? Free flow?

2. In the earlier recorded video, she was attached at all times to the hang line by a moving clamp. If she used it on her last dive, they might have used it to assist her when she went unconscious or at least for the recovery phase. I wonder why she wasn't using it during this dive?

 

[Crowley]

All speculation at the moment Roger - I wasn't there - we can only make our best guesses.