Dive Accident in Tripoli, Libya, report

[BoltSnap]

Dive Accident Report:

Last week a free diver/spearo who is NOT a certified scuba diver and who never received any formal training in scuba diving suffered a decompression sickness hit in Tripoli, Libya. His dive
profile was:

First Dive (on air):
Max Depth: 28.9 meters
Average Depth: 18m
Total Dive time 39m
Safety Stop for 5 min at 6m
Water Temp: 26C
SIT: 90min
[Although he owed a “required” decompressions stop with substantial time at 5 meters, no signs of Decompression sickness during his SIT time was reported.]

Second Dive:
Max Depth: 29m
Average Depth: 22m
Total Dive Time: 39 min
Safety Stop for 5min at 6m

When he came up to the surface from his second dive, he felt numbness at both of upper arms. He went down for an “in water recompression” dive on air that was essentially a third dive:

Max depth: 10m
Average Depth: 6m
Total Dive Time: 40 min
He was using air for this “in water recompression” dive.

According to the NAUI Dive Tables:
He exceeded the “no decompression time” for his first dive and was required to do a 15 min “required” Deco stop at 5m but he didn’t do this stop. He ended up as a “K” diver at the end of the first dive and an “H” diver at the end of the 90min SIT time. For a second dive to 30 meters, he had 30 min of RNT and NO AMDT. His TNT for the second dive was 69min!!!

NAUI’s dive tables do NOT show decompression information for somebody who overstayed his time limit by this much!!!! He was WAY too far to the right in table one in NAUI’s tables. His attempt for ““in water recompression” did not help either at all.

When he came up from his third dive (“in water recompression” session), he still exhibited symptoms of decompression sickness, pain and “tingling” in his extremities. He proceeded to the local medical center where he was given 100% O2 to breathe for approximately 2 hours. His symptoms seemed to have subsided after this 100% O2 therapy (he had to tell the medical staff at the medical center that he needed to breathe 100% O2 since no one there knew anything about decompression sickness or about how to treat dive injuries). This injured diver was told by his friend that since his symptoms seemed to subside after the 100% O2 therapy (no recompression chamber treatment yet), he need not worry about going to a recompression chamber. He called me when he was about to leave the hospital and asked for a “second opinion.” I informed him that he needed to get to a chamber ASAP even if his symptoms seem to be less after the 100% O2 therapy he received at the hospital.

There are no “professional” type of recompression chambers within easy reach in Libya for the recreational divers. There is one sponge fisherman who has an old chamber aboard his fishing boat he uses for recompressing his divers. This fisherman was crudely trained by Greek sponge fishermen long time ago and uses some “French” Recompression tables he was given by these Greek Sponge divers. He was kind enough to treats injured scuba divers for very little money. I knew about this sponge diver from contacts of mine but never met him in person.

I gave the injured diver the name of the location where this sponge diver docks his boat with the recompression chamber. I convinced him to go and seek this fisherman’s help. He went to the marina where the chamber was and was lucky to find the boat still in the marina. I went to the marine to check on him shortly after he went there. When I arrived, he was already in the chamber for almost one-hour. He had access to 100% O2 inside the small chamber. He came out of the chamber after approximately one hour total time inside. He seemed to be symptom free after the treatment and went home.

I have been in contact with this diver since his ordeal started and now he reports that he is all OK with no residual effects. No medical follow up for him as far as I know. No verification by a specialist that he is actually “OK.” No neurological examination of any type was performed.

This person is an exceptionally lucky person (assuming that he really has no residual effects from his ordeal. I am not so sure however). The fact that he is a young person (in his twenties) and in great shape helped him a lot in addition to the fact that his average depths were shallower than his max depth (he appears to have spent most of his time in shallow waters and not at his max depth).

Although this person is an accomplished free diver, he was NEVER trained to scuba dive by a licensed and authorized professional scuba instructor at all. He isn’t the first or the last person to go through this ordeal in Libya. He is merely a lucky person to have survived it and had the most incredible fortune in having access to a recompression chamber this easily in Libya. Practically no injured divers in Libya have this chance at all. What is worse than untrained people going scuba diving without any real instructions is the nightmare of having people in Libya run “scuba training programs” who are not instructors and never had any type of training as recreational scuba instructors. We have several of these charlatans in Libya. There are also divers who learned to survive while scuba diving who are teaching others to scuba dive. There are probably around five legitimately certified scuba instructors in Libya but many more who claim to be but aren’t certified scuba instructors.

Lots of work and education to be done here in Libya. I hope that I’ll have the patience and the endurance to help change the situation and educate the people and avoid this type of insanity and criminal activities. I think that I’ll start offering the following services in the coming year:

1. Collect more information on dive related injuries amongst civilian recreational divers in Libya.

2. Run “awareness” workshop on decompression and dive tables.

3. Lead efforts to establish proper recompression treatment centers in Libya as a “not for profit” organization.

4. Make people more aware of the value and importance of receiving proper instruction from professional certified instructors and avoid charlatans who aren’t certified scuba instructors.

5. Pray to Allah more to give me the patience and stamina to do what I want to do here in Libya and still keep what is left of my sanity.

6. Have the opportunity to dive more and cool off underwater

 

[iamrushman]

thanks for the info ........perhaps now he will at least read the book...

 

[mselenaous]

Scary how there is so little education and access to care in case of emergency in some areas...even with the age of the internet.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Storker]

Thanks for the info, quite interesting. Being a computer diver myself, used to extending my total bottom time way beyond tables with multilevel profiles, I was wondering if the case was as serious as you indicated after his first dive.

His dive
profile was:

First Dive (on air):
Max Depth: 28.9 meters
Average Depth: 18m
Total Dive time 39m
Safety Stop for 5 min at 6m
Water Temp: 26C
SIT: 90min
[Although he owed a “required” decompressions stop with substantial time at 5 meters, no signs of Decompression sickness during his SIT time was reported.]

According to the tables, he should be well and truly bent. However, an average depth of only 18m suggests a multilevel or triangular (fast descent to max depth, then a gradual ascent over the course of the dive) profile, not a square one which the tables assume.

Without knowing his actual profile, it's of course difficult to analyze his N2 loading, but I did a rough, back-of-the-envelope type calculation with the only simulation tool I have available: Suunto's Dive Planner v.1.0.0.3. I assumed a max depth of 29m, two-level profile with 10min@29m, then 29min@15m (18.6m ave) and a safety stop of 5min@6m. The software suggested about 75% saturation of the medium-fast compartments, lower for the faster and slower compartments. So there's a very decent chance that he never went into deco on the first dive.

Second Dive:
Max Depth: 29m
Average Depth: 22m
Total Dive Time: 39 min
Safety Stop for 5min at 6m

When he came up to the surface from his second dive, he felt numbness at both of upper arms.

Again, I had to guess his profile, but I went for 10min@29m, then 29min@20m (22.3m ave). This is where Suunto's algorithm says he went into deco, still owing quite a bit at the end of the SS.



This is in no way intended to subtract from the basic message of your report (which I support fully), but I find it interesting to see how much the tables differ from computer calculations when you dive other profiles than the square ones the tables suppose.

 

[Divetech99]

Burhan, thank you for the report. With the profile data, it seems that the diver was using a computer. Did it go into deco? Did the diver skip his deco obligations?

 

[Jumana Ameeri]

Thanks for the story

 

[BoltSnap]

Burhan, thank you for the report. With the profile data, it seems that the diver was using a computer. Did it go into deco? Did the diver skip his deco obligations?

He was using a "Free Diving" computer NOT a true "Dive" computer. The Free Diving computer doesn't calculate any deco information for the free diver at all. It is essentially a "bottom timer" with log capabilities, not much more.

---------- Post added October 20th, 2015 at 03:06 PM ----------

According to the tables, he should be well and truly bent. However, an average depth of only 18m suggests a multilevel or triangular (fast descent to max depth, then a gradual ascent over the course of the dive) profile, not a square one which the tables assume.

Without knowing his actual profile, it's of course difficult to analyze his N2 loading, but I did a rough, back-of-the-envelope type calculation with the only simulation tool I have available: Suunto's Dive Planner v.1.0.0.3. I assumed a max depth of 29m, two-level profile with 10min@29m, then 29min@15m (18.6m ave) and a safety stop of 5min@6m. The software suggested about 75% saturation of the medium-fast compartments, lower for the faster and slower compartments. So there's a very decent chance that he never went into deco on the first dive.


Again, I had to guess his profile, but I went for 10min@29m, then 29min@20m (22.3m ave). This is where Suunto's algorithm says he went into deco, still owning quite a bit at the end of the SS.



This is in no way intended to subtract from the basic message of your report (which I support fully), but I find it interesting to see how much the tables from computer calculations when you dive other profiles than the square ones the tables suppose.

I understand what you are saying here and this is what probably made his hit survivable but it was luck not planning on his part. He told me that he totally forgot about "decompression" and exceeding "no decompression limits" until he felt the pain. He never received any training on scuba, decompression, dive tables or anything related to scuba. His third dive that was supposed to be a "in-water-recompression" dive was a fiasco also.

 

[danvolker]

To me, the biggest issue here is that this freediver "chose" to ignore the entire concept of nitrogen saturation, and tables.....And this is strange to me, because most good freedivers I have met, have enough of a grasp of the concept of scuba divers using tables and computers, for them to know that if they were to do a scuba dive, that they would need to follow a max duration for any given depth they would want to dive.
The reality is, for a good freediver, all they really need is to be told how long they can stay down at a depth, and how long their SI needs to be before they can go again....They can easily read this, or compute it themselves. And once told about lung over expansion issues( which most should have known long before this interest in scuba diving) , they are not at risk for lung over expansion.

So we are dealing with a small population of people ( freedivers) that really should be fine to scuba dive, as long as they are smart enough to do a tiny bit of prep work, just prior to their scuba dive.
I think this suggests some serious dysfunction in the way this particular individual deals with getting through his normal day....I think most freedivers would have done some research on the tables, and should have found scuba diving to have absolutely no challenge to them, from dive number one, on.

In other words, this was not about a freediver not being able to do a scuba dive without a scuba cert --it was really about a Darwin Awards Contender, that just reached one of his highest levels of incompetence, for choices on a given day.

 

[Macan]

To me, the biggest issue here is that this freediver "chose" to ignore the entire concept of nitrogen saturation, and tables.....And this is strange to me, because most good freedivers I have met, have enough of a grasp of the concept of scuba divers using tables and computers, for them to know that if they were to do a scuba dive, that they would need to follow a max duration for any given depth they would want to dive.
The reality is, for a good freediver, all they really need is to be told how long they can stay down at a depth, and how long their SI needs to be before they can go again....They can easily read this, or compute it themselves. And once told about lung over expansion issues( which most should have known long before this interest in scuba diving) , they are not at risk for lung over expansion.

So we are dealing with a small population of people ( freedivers) that really should be fine to scuba dive, as long as they are smart enough to do a tiny bit of prep work, just prior to their scuba dive.
I think this suggests some serious dysfunction in the way this particular individual deals with getting through his normal day....I think most freedivers would have done some research on the tables, and should have found scuba diving to have absolutely no challenge to them, from dive number one, on.

In other words, this was not about a freediver not being able to do a scuba dive without a scuba cert --it was really about a Darwin Awards Contender, that just reached one of his highest levels of incompetence, for choices on a given day.

It's easy for us to say that the victim should have done this or that else they are Darwin Award Contenders. But perhaps, we need to put things in perspective. The country is Libya, a third world country in many respects where access to information is still in a primitive state.


As the OP mentioned, he is only one of a handful of legitimate dive instructors and he is trying to help build a proper dive industry in his country. That includes consumer education and diver (certified or not) education. Imagine what diving was like in the US in the 50s and early 60s. That seems to be the state of diver education in Libya today.


To the OP, I applaud what you're trying to do and wish you the very best.

 

[danvolker]

In the early 60's, you would buy scuba gear at a local sporting goods store....look at the no-deco tables....remember that you can do 60 feet for 60 minutes, 80 for 20, and a few others...and you were good to go.
Most of these divers were just fine...they did NOT die like flies, and the majority did not get bent.

It did not take that much effort, to discover the key basics to survival with scuba. In other words, I would expect that even in Libya, these basics would have been available.
At some point, you need to be able to blame the individual for stupid behavior.....If not, you end up as a place like the United States, where a person can sue for the Coffee not being clearly labeled - as hot enough to burn if spilled!