Canadian Diver in Critical Condition - Yongala wreck dive mishap

[redrover]

I just want to say thank you for clarifying what had gone wrong on this awful day. As hard as this article was to read, it gave us an understanding as to what went wrong.
I recieved the awful news of my only sibling just 4 days ago and have been waiting in agony daily for updates through my mother who is a mess on the opposite end of Canada. I cannot fly to be with her as I am 9 months pregnant.
My father is with her now and she is showing great improvement daily. She is out of the coma, breathing on her own and even walking around a bit. She was able to shower today and has absolutely no recollection of what has happened.
I am so grateful to everyone who helped in saving my sisters life and to all who have sent their hopes and prayers. Someone was listening... my new baby is going to have an autie!! Thank you.

ScubaBoard is a community of divers from all around the world, of all ranges of experience, sincerely striving to improve the diving experience for not only themselves, but the entire community. Preventing the situation being discussed here is the heart of the matter for us, no matter how indelicate we appear. Welcome to our home, and please; make yourself at home.

I think I can speak for many of us adding to DeepSeaDan and Ayisha’s best wishes to your sister for a full and speedy recovery.

This purpose of this forum is for divers to help one another prevent incidents and accidents by sharing, and discussion of incidents and accidents. Or, learn form another’s experience. While discussion may get heated and comments at times seem harsh and unforgiving, its intent is to educate. Along that line, questions may seem to be prying where we have no business.

Intrusive as questions appear, the intent is to follow the chain of events that occurred, understand what went wrong, and what could have been done to prevent it.
Most unfortunate diving incidents are not caused by just one thing, but one small and often easily solvable problem leads to another, and another, and another. Diving is very unforgiving of mistakes and simple problems can get out of hand in a very few seconds.

We all would welcome updates on her condition and the events as they are known. Thank you for sharing with us. And putting up with us, if it comes to that.

 

[aljohnston]

Thank you for your kind words and want nothing more than to help prevent such an awful incident from happening to someone else. I will keep you updated as I get news.

 

[DPeach52]

I was one of the divers on the boat the day this incident occurred. I think some of the posts in this thread are harsh on the skills of the diver, Erin, and on the staff. Also some of the specifics of the Yongala dive are not accurate.

The Yongala lies at less than 30m on a relatively flat seabed. Most of the dive is at around 20 to 25m. On that day there was current, but it was less than we were briefed to expect - it was not difficiult to swim against, but it was there. The water temperature was 21C. Visibility was only about 10m - it was necessary to swim down a few metres to see the wreck, but this had been planned, and descent/ascent was along the mooring line. Penetrating the wreck is prohibited by law.

The boat had 10 customers and 4 staff: 1 skipper, 2 instructors, a dive master. We were split in two groups: one instructor took the 5 more experienced divers, the other two staff took the 5 less experienced divers.

Erin, the diver who is currently in a critical condition, was in the less experienced group and was doing her PADI "Deep Dive". She received additional briefing on the boat, and it was planned she would go to 30m with the instructor, at the start of the dive, and then rejoin the rest of her group.

I was in the advanced group, we entered first, and halfway through the dive I heard the boats "General Recall" - the skipper banging a weight belt against the dive ladder in a certain pattern. When we returned to the boat two of the crew and a customer were performing CPR on Erin. They told us she had completed the deep dive training at 30m, returned to the group at 20m, and then "freaked out". They said she removed the reg from her mouth and acted strangely. The instructor tried to replaced the reg but she removed it again and faught the instructor; eventually swallowing water and drowning.

By the time they got her to the boat she was dead. No pulse. No breathing. They started CPR and EAR.

During the 20minute trip back to the shore she started breathing and her heart restarted; she was put on oxygen. Paramedics and police were waiting onshore, and she was flown to Townsville Hospital. I understand that 3 days later she is still in a coma in intensive care. She had no pulse for such a long time that I fear for her brain function, and we can only hope she will recover fully.

For my wife and I, and all of us on the boat, this is a great shock to see that a healthy, fit, young woman can drown like this. The conditions were not difficult. She was with an instructor and other divers. Yet it happened.

I cannot explain what I saw. This is not a training issue with the diver. Nor were the staff incompetent. On a short dive to 30m I would not expect DCI nor nitrogen narcosis. This was not a difficult dive, nor physically demanding.

And yet, she drowned.

For all divers I can only hope we find out what happened, so we can learn a lesson from this incident. And I hope I have corrected some of the statements I have read in this thread. I can imagine this is a very trying time for Erin, her family the diving staff, and her buddies.

Thank you for the clarification on Erin's unfortunate accident. If age & experience have taught us one thing it is that you can always expect the unexpected. Erin loved diving - although fairly new to the sport it is something she throughly enjoys - whether or not she will dive again remains to be seen. Most importantly now is her recovery. As a close family friend Erin is like a daughter to those of us who have known her since her day of birth, we have been with her parents these last few days and are happy to report all the positive steps she has taken and regained this past day or so. It is always so easy to criticize and to lay blame but sometimes an accident is still just an accident. As with this account of that day each day will bring more answers to both Erin & her parents. We thank all those who obviously acted promptly and did the best they could. As a result Erin is in recovery. Cheers.

 

[TSandM]

It is wonderful to hear that Erin is improving. Thank God for the great people who obviously stepped in and did the absolutely right things for her, after the accident.

I am also proud of the ScubaBoard members who have been more concerned about Erin's health rather than what skills (or lack thereof) may have contributed to the incident.

It may seem cold to family and friends of an injured diver, but one of the biggest values of these threads to the 70,000 odd ScubaBoard members who do NOT know a person involved in an accident, is what conditions or actions led to someone getting hurt, so that we can avoid them when faced with a similar situation. If enough is known about an accident, it almost always becomes apparent that there were several points at which things could have gone differently, and what we all want is to learn to recognize and identify those points, and turn our own situations around so that we don't become another accident report.

If poor training or poor skills were a proximate cause of a fatality or near-fatality, it's important to identify that, to encourage other new divers to get further or better training before attempting certain kinds of dives. If equipment was at fault, it's important to know what it was and how it malfunctioned, so that we might do better maintenance or avoid suboptimal equipment for our conditions. If judgment is at fault, it's important to know that, so that we might not make the same faulty decisions.

None of the discussion seems terribly empathetic, although I think it's probably true that we always ache for the injury to or loss of any fellow diver. But after an accident occurs, there is little our best wishes can do to replace the lost, or heal the injured. All we can really accomplish here is to try to prevent the next incident.

 

[Puffer Fish]

Sometimes we all want to believe that every thing is in our control, that accidents can be prevented, with proper training. There are conditions though, that while rare, can kill people.

I was a witness last year to someone having a case of dry drowning on the surface, from drinking a glass of water. They had never had or expected this condition. Suddenly they could not breath (not ashma, this is a sudden closing of the throat. While scary to see, they lived thru it, but if underwater, I do not believe they would. First because it would close off the lungs and second because they passed out.

To my surprize, there is a disease that causes paralysis initiated by nothing more than a loud noise.

I hope that we can give everyone the benefit of the doubt, when we don't know what really happened.

I an glad to see that the outcome of this event appears to be better than many others in the last month..

 

[shakeybrainsurgeon]

I re-read all the posts in this thread and I see no one blaming this accident on a lack of skills.

I raised the issue of whether this was considered a "difficult" dive site and got a sort of generic response that a dive site can be made difficult if one doesn't have good skills, but no one suggested that was the case here. I only raised this issue because the OP suggests that the number of incidents at this wreck might be unusual (although, as I pointed out, with 100K+ divers there annually, this is not unexpected).

I also raised the question of why Tina Watson, the most famous incident on this site, was doing her first OW dive in an AOW site without an instructor, but I, nor any one else implied that this diver here was not qualified to dive this wreck. I questioned why the crew of Watson's boat, or any boat for that matter, would allow a novice (Watson) with zero dives and only an OW card to dive a deep site with current accompanied by anyone other than an instructor. I did not suggest that was what happened here, nor did I suggest this boat or crew did likewise.

People could say it was "off topic", but I disagree. This is an accident forum and the OP clearly implies that there may be something "wrong" with this site (which, apprently , there isn't). It is valid to address all legitimate causes of an incident.

There was a comment made about being "proud of scubaboarders...", but I don't see where that came from. Another poster's comments about crappy skills was generic and I don not see them targeted at this diver, but simply an explanation of why a site may seem "harder" than it should be. Again, unless I am missing something, I see no allegation in this thread that this particular incident was due to a lack of skills, poor planning or crew incompetence.


Quite the contrary. The dive was made with an instructor as part of a PADI deep dive, the response to the incident was excellent and thankfully appears to have had a superb outcome.

This unfortunate episode simply brings home my prior point: there are no "easy" or "safe" dives. The best divers, in the most benign sites, with the most skilled crews, in the best weather can still have things go terribly wrong.

 

[dave4868]

I re-read all the posts in this thread and I see no one blaming this accident on a lack of skills.

I raised the issue of whether this was considered a "difficult" dive site and got a sort of generic response that a dive site can be made difficult if one doesn't have good skills, but no one suggested that was the case here. I only raised this issue because the OP suggests that the number of incidents at this wreck might be unusual (although, as I pointed out, with 100K+ divers there annually, this is not unexpected).

I also raised the question of why Tina Watson, the most famous incident on this site, was doing her first OW dive in an AOW site without an instructor, but I, nor any one else implied that this diver here was not qualified to dive this wreck. I questioned why the crew of Watson's boat, or any boat for that matter, would allow a novice (Watson) with zero dives and only an OW card to dive a deep site with current accompanied by anyone other than an instructor. I did not suggest that was what happened here, nor did I suggest this boat or crew did likewise.

People could say it was "off topic", but I disagree. This is an accident forum and the OP clearly implies that there may be something "wrong" with this site (which, apprently , there isn't). It is valid to address all legitimate causes of an incident.

There was a comment made about being "proud of scubaboarders...", but I don't see where that came from. Another poster's comments about crappy skills was generic and I don not see them targeted at this diver, but simply an explanation of why a site may seem "harder" than it should be. Again, unless I am missing something, I see no allegation in this thread that this particular incident was due to a lack of skills, poor planning or crew incompetence.

Quite the contrary. The dive was made with an instructor as part of a PADI deep dive, the response to the incident was excellent and thankfully appears to have had a superb outcome.

Unfortunately, overly broad judgmental statements were made such as:

"The Yongala is not a hard dive. It's people's crappy skills that make it hard."

In the context of this thread, such statements serve mainly to unfairly smear the victim's skills.

This unfortunate episode simply brings home my prior point: there are no "easy" or "safe" dives. The best divers, in the most benign sites, with the most skilled crews, in the best weather can still have things go terribly wrong.

I share your view, but some prefer to trumpet the failures of others to meet their own standards or agenda.

That's not "tough love" and it's not particularly constructive.

Your last statement is. Thank you.

Dave C

 

[Darnold9999]

It sounds like this person is very lucky to have had someone on the boat able to provide the care she needed.

Have to say that from the description it sounds like a CO2 triggered panic attack with some level of narcosis to make things worse. 30M is easily deep enough to get narked. The excitement of the first deep dive - perhaps swimming from the instructor to another group, possibly against a current is enough to get a CO2 imbalance.

I have managed to get myself into such a cycle in similar conditions. 30M or so swimming fairly strongly but not feeling that I was overexerting myself. All of a sudden just had to get more air, and the reg just couldn't give it to me fast enough. Once I figured out what I was doing it was fairly easy to slow down take a few long slow breaths and the issue went away, but a new diver might not recognise the problem until it was too late. I know as a new diver I would not have and the problem could have easily spiraled out of control.

 

[DandyDon]

Amazing. Aside from the current, I did a similar dive on my Discover Scuba course in the Caribbean where rules are only suggestions. I didn't know any better, it was a total Trust-Me dive #3 and it got me hooked. I came into Scuba thinking I didn't have much to learn, really screwed a few times with that cavalier attitude, survived and tried to learn from my mistakes once I gave up defending them.

This unfortunate lady was a certified diver involved with continuing education with her Instructor, right? Current can make a simple dive into a life threatening challenge, I know; try diving the original Spiegel Grove before the storm uprighted it in hard current one day, then no current a few days later. But still, you follow your training if you paid attention in your OW class. Better training standards would be nice, but I've had boat pick buddies on similar wrecks who were similarly OW trained - nothing more and because of them I always have my pony slung with me as they usually didn't seem like the instant hero type.

It sounds like a wonderful plan - one on one with the Inst on a real wreck dive, not just a 70 foot drop in a freshwater spring, to really learn in the real world under the supervision and assistance of the Inst. I bet there are OW divers with crappy skills doing the dive if the situation is anything like Florida, but she was buddies with her Inst. Great idea - which seems to have failed, as anything can.

...PANIC.

People's range of panic response can vary widely. This lady's panic cycle may have started at any time after she left surface, or even on the trip out, culminating in full-blown, irrational acts & behaviours at the point described.

It would prove interesting to replay the tape of this day to look for signs of problems in this person from the point of leaving the dock. Rescue training teaches you to look for such signs in people, and sometimes they're evident, sometimes not. Sometimes, the first sign of panic can be at the point of "freak-out". As I stated, the range of response varies widely.

I wish to express my sincere wishes for a full & speedy recovery for the young lady.

Regards,
DSD

I think you're right on there, or at least as much as anyone can be in this speculative based learning environment we call the A&I forum here. I'm sure the Inst watched her boarding, on the way out, gearing up, entering, descending - all very closely. He probly expected some nervousness which is better than my above mentioned cavalier cowboy style as the student should be a little nervous, and will then pay close attention to following instructions and safety protocols. She may have been hiding stronger fears all along, or she may not - something could have clicked later? We'll never know, I don't think; I doubt the lady will ever remember much. I remember posting on somewhat similar accidents about drownings that were revived enough to spend weeks in a hospital, often in longer comas - then had the survivor eventually join us here, read of our best wishes and concerns, and tell us they remembered scant little if anything.

From the what-if-speculation vein: Maybe she was nervous but okay all the way down and thru the skills, but when she was released to join the group - then she may have felt the lonely fear that the ocean can instill? It's a maybe, and narcosis was certainly involved even tho were don't know the degree. It may become more evident to some around 100 ft, but it starts as soon as we drop. I've been deeper, but still waiting on my first narc?

I just want to say thank you for clarifying what had gone wrong on this awful day. As hard as this article was to read, it gave us an understanding as to what went wrong.
I recieved the awful news of my only sibling just 4 days ago and have been waiting in agony daily for updates through my mother who is a mess on the opposite end of Canada. I cannot fly to be with her as I am 9 months pregnant.
My father is with her now and she is showing great improvement daily. She is out of the coma, breathing on her own and even walking around a bit. She was able to shower today and has absolutely no recollection of what has happened.
I am so grateful to everyone who helped in saving my sisters life and to all who have sent their hopes and prayers. Someone was listening... my new baby is going to have an autie!! Thank you.

Hi and welcome to SB. It's an odd way to join a cyber community, but you are with close friends and we are very happy to hear that great news. We have indeed discussed somewhat similar accidents here in which the diver was left in a coma for weeks, if lucky enough to do that well. Usually we're learning from the death of a diver I fear and I am so happy to see a discussion thread with such happy news - and brought to us by her sis no less.

Thank you for your kind words and want nothing more than to help prevent such an awful incident from happening to someone else. I will keep you updated as I get news.

That is the sole intent of this forum, to learn from the accidents of others and avoid similar fates. We're supposed to be objective on this forum to avoid emotional conflict but we certainly do care.

Thank you for the clarification on Erin's unfortunate accident. If age & experience have taught us one thing it is that you can always expect the unexpected. Erin loved diving - although fairly new to the sport it is something she throughly enjoys - whether or not she will dive again remains to be seen. Most importantly now is her recovery. As a close family friend Erin is like a daughter to those of us who have known her since her day of birth, we have been with her parents these last few days and are happy to report all the positive steps she has taken and regained this past day or so. It is always so easy to criticize and to lay blame but sometimes an accident is still just an accident. As with this account of that day each day will bring more answers to both Erin & her parents. We thank all those who obviously acted promptly and did the best they could. As a result Erin is in recovery. Cheers.

It is amazing what seamen and divers can do in a crisis at times. What to do you do when a diver dies in the water? Everything possible all the way! And it sounds like that crew and some fellow customers certainly did everything possible. It can be frustrating to be there and unable to help - just stay out of the way. I saw one of our boat's diver bob to the surface 30-40 yards down current once, a similar embolism it later was learned and the only ones on the moored boat were the captain and other customers who had just returned from a dive tired. I had an urge to grab a line and swim for him but pulled myself into reason as I was too tired to be safe in such a rescue. We had to wait for the dive master and other divers to later board before we could move, but there were other boats there that day and the next one to arrive jerked him out of the water to start CPR as they raced back to shore. We're stuck on the moored boat with his wife who'd been too ill to go with him, all of us us in Oh-My-Gawd mode, wondering. It was a quiet trip back when we could leave and another hour at the dock before we learned he was arguing with the nurses. In a few hours I'll leave Texas for Mexico with my best hopes that we don't have any emergencies, and I will keep your friend in my thots as well.

It is wonderful to hear that Erin is improving. Thank God for the great people who obviously stepped in and did the absolutely right things for her, after the accident.

I seldom feel adequate to even post in agreement with TSandM's post as she does add so much to these threads. I didn't include the entire quote as it's right there above this one but if you may have over looked it, go back to it.

 

[ellisem]

Been reading everything that people have to say. It interests me being a local in Townsville and having dived the site on multiple occassions. It is one of the best dives I have ever done and highly recommend it to all divers. I have experienced the dive in the best of times and the worst of times, from poor visibility to strong currents and high swells and also in perfect conditions.

I could imagine an inexperienced diver would find the Yongala a daunting dive even in good conditions. High swells make getting back on board extremely dangerous and generally cause the trip to be cancelled. Strong currents can rip your mask off and poor visibility can make for a scary decent and poor dive experience. All the companies I have gone out with check everyone's licences, give a full dive brief and are highly professional.

Everyone was warned about the current, but apparently it was less than expected on the day and personally I have found once on the wreck the current isn't as noticeable and for accent/decent you have a line to hold on to. And Queensland regulations require 50 bar left at the end of the dive.

Erin was with an Instructor up until the point of the incident, so until that time she must have been ok. Once she was released somthing happened (possibly the proverbial straw that broke the camels back), which we will most likely never know. It "appears" that she has panicked, but it could have been a medical condition even she was not aware of or like someone has said possible nitrogen narcosis.

I have been down to 55m (180ft for those not with the times) and haven't experienced narcosis but narcosis affects people differently. A small potion of the population would get narced at 1m (3ft), but industry says most people are affected about 30m (100ft). the sea floor at the Yongala is about 30m, but as mentioned by other people, time at 30m is very minimal and most of the dive is spent at 25m (about 45%) and 15m (about 45%).

What can we learn from Erin's experience to try and prevent similar occurrances? Barring getting Psyche passes for every dive, I think all we can do is, if you don't feel comfortable doing a particular dive for whatever reason, just don't do it. You are a long way from medical help if you need it.