Children die playing with scuba gear left in pool - Jensen Beach, Florida

[stuartv]

CAGE is AGE in a specific location.

I rent my helium in big T-bottles. It is very expensive. So is the daily tank rental. When I have finished a dive trip and have helium left over, I will fill a regular tank with it so I am not paying rent until the next trip. I will, of course, label it when I do, since I will be using it for mixing when I am preparing for the next trip. I have a booster that makes this possible. I would guess that it is an unusual circumstance--there can't be many people in that position.

A mix of 10/50 or 10/70 is normally only used for diving when you are getting down to the 90m/300 foot range. That is a seriously hypoxic mix.

In south FL, a lot (? I know some that do, anyway) of CCR divers use 10/50 for dil all the time, no matter what dives they are doing. So, I could easily see having a BO cylinder that just hangs around, filled with 10/50.

 

[boulderjohn]

I assume the tank had two regulators from which the two were breathing.

Perhaps they really were reasonably skilled divers and they were buddy breathing and sharing a single second stage?

he kids asked permission to use a tank in the pool, an adult put a tank in the pool, and the kids went in after it. They had played in this pool with scuba gear before, per the article. The two second stages was just some speculation by another poster.

I was the one who speculated, with no reference to any official source, that they were likely using 2 regulators. The reason for that speculation is that I am having a hard time imagining another scenario.

johndiver999 identified a buddy breathing scenario as a possibility, and I suppose they could have been lying in shallow water and passing the regulator back and forth, essentially buddy breathing. The only other possibility would be that one saw the other pass out and then tried to bring the sibling to the surface while breathing from that tank, too.

 

[OTF]

It's also very possible that these early news stories have big mistakes or omit important information.

 

[John the Pom]

Hi @John the Pom , this is the first time I heard of CAGE, and since I cannot open the article you linked (only the abstract is available) and I didn't manage to find explanations on the internet, I was wondering whether you could provide some info:
- What is the difference between CAGE and other kinds of AGE?
- When specifically do you develop CAGE?
- I read that a single breath of helium can cause CAGE: how?

Maybe @Dr Simon Mitchell and @Duke Dive Medicine can help as well?

Thanks a lot!

As far as I understand it (as an engineer, not a medic) "cerebral" simply indicates the site where the damage caused by the embolism occurs - presumably with the potential to cause fairly rapid and severe symptoms. But the idea of two children having the same medical event does seem unlikely. The problem is, for someone completely untrained, the idea of diving down to the bottom of a pool, taking a breath of air, then holding their breath on the way back to the surface seems like a natural thing to do - and sadly even some qualified scuba divers don't realise the hazard presented by a few metres of water when it comes to compressed gas.

If it was a hypoxic gas mixture, then the idea that it could have ended up in a swimming pool with a couple of children seems like a massive breach of the most basic principles of safety.

 

[Wookie]

I'm told that the gas was pure helium. The pool owner and grand-dad of the kids (different people) are well known in South Florida diving circles. The cylinder was not properly labeled.

 

[doctormike]

I'm told that the gas was pure helium. The pool owner and grand-dad of the kids (different people) are well known in South Florida diving circles. The cylinder was not properly labeled.

Can't bring myself to "like" this post, but thank you so much for sharing this. Heartbreaking. Can't stop thinking about it.

Please, if anything good comes out of this knowledge, let it save someone's life someday. This is why we do accident analysis.

 

[formernuke]

Ok, I'm not trimix certified but why would someone have a scuba tank with pure helium? I understand a bank bottle but a regular scuba tank, why even have that?

 

[formernuke]

For blending trimix.

Interesting I would think you would blend from a bank bottle bottle rather than a actual scuba tank

 

[doctormike]

Interesting I would think you would blend from a bank bottle bottle rather than a actual scuba tank

Yeah, I actually deleted that because I answered quickly and then realized that actual trimix blenders would be better at answering this question.

But I gather from a comment upthread that some people rent the T bottles rather than buy them, so if there is leftover He when they return it, they decant it into one of their own tanks rather than wasting it. Not sure if that was what happened here, but if Wookie's report of it being 100% He is correct, I'm not sure why else someone would have a scuba tank filled with that...

 

[Wookie]

Dr mike is right. You pay rent on helium bottles, but if you have empty Al-80s laying around, you boost the helium into the Al’s so you don’t pay rent on the T bottles.