Unknown Diver airlifted to hospital - Venice, Florida

[tekkydiver]

My wife and I were in Venice this weekend diving, Inexperienced diver didn’t check their air supply and was told they were good to go by the boat crew, hopped in and sunk to the bottom. Her husband asked where she was a couple of minutes later and was told she went in. He found her on the bottom after about 5 minutes. Same charter company has lost 5 divers, died, in the last year to 18 months and the Coast Guard still hasn’t pulled their ticket.

Some ops on the east side of FL aren't much better....

 

[NothingClever]

…should every dive take a breath from both primary and secondary…

This x 100.

It baffles me to see rec divers breathe off their primary (without checking their SPG) and not test their alternate, as if leaving it tucked away (in all sorts of awkward manner) will somehow not disturb it and preserve it for when it’s really needed.

 

[NothingClever]

Some ops on the east side of FL aren't much better....

Yeah, the Atlantic coast is crazy. Some can be held up as exemplary industry leaders while others shouldn’t be allowed to operate.

 

[TrimixToo]

This x 100.

It baffles me to see rec divers breathe off their primary (without checking their SPG) and not test their alternate, as if leaving it tucked away (in all sorts of awkward manner) will somehow not disturb it and preserve it for when it’s really needed.

One breath is not enough. Turn on your valve(s). Turn off your valve(s). Breath from one hose until you can't. Count the breaths. Rinse and repeat for the other hose. Use the highest number for your predive check. For me (7' hose) the number is four deep breaths. I don't remember two numbers so I use eight total, one for the primary hose and one for the secondary hose.

 

[TostitoBandito]

Before jumping in I usually take a breath or two out of each reg while watching my pressure, in my case the AI computer on my wrist. If I do this it's super obvious, even before taking a breath in most cases, because the pressure will be far below 3000 psi and will drop precipitously as you breathe. I do also check the tank is on prior to donning my rig, but things can be missed (or boat crew can fiddle) which the breath check quickly catches. Jumping into the ocean with your tank off isn't a pleasant experience, especially if you're fond of negative entries. Still should never be fatal by itself, but can easily compound with other mistakes like being grossly overweighted for example.

 

[boulderjohn]

I don’t know what, exactly, happened in this incident, but why wasn’t this woman able to swim her rig back up to the surface if her air wasn’t turned on?

The simple answer is that if you jump into the water with your valve shut off and the BCD uninflated, you will not get any air when you inhale, and you will not be able to inflate your BCD. If you are as overweighted as most beginning divers are, then you will sink like a stone and be unable to surface.

That's the simple answer, but....

That implies a number of failures before that happened. There was no buddy check, including a check of air pressure and a check of working regulators. In those waters it is standard to inflate the BCD before entering the water, which obviously was not done, either.

On the other hand....

We don't know what happened. We have only a post from someone who described what happened from what appears to be a second hand source, and that description seems to be frankly improbable.

 

[tursiops]

We don't know what happened. We have only a post from someone who described what happened from what appears to be a second hand source, and that description seems to be frankly improbable.

 

[tursiops]

Before jumping in I usually take a breath or two out of each reg while watching my pressure, in my case the AI computer on my wrist.

Since the AI only displays every 5 seconds or so, you have to watch the computer at least that long to see any effect of breathing from the reg.

 

[Watterlogged]

My wife and I were in Venice this weekend diving, Inexperienced diver didn’t check their air supply and was told they were good to go by the boat crew, hopped in and sunk to the bottom. Her husband asked where she was a couple of minutes later and was told she went in. He found her on the bottom after about 5 minutes. Same charter company has lost 5 divers, died, in the last year to 18 months and the Coast Guard still hasn’t pulled their ticket.

Chewing my tongue off in an effort not to speak the certifying agencies name ! but now my fingers are taking ove.........

 

[Blackcrusader]

All of this is so preventable with a simple pre-dive safety check by the DM.

These are BASICS!

every diver must check their own air supply before diving with their dive buddy. In Maldives I went to start a dive, I had a tank with the tank valve on the opposite sides to other divers and a boat crew had closed my open valve by mistake. I caught that mistake by checking my air before exiting the boat. Also a diver should be able to turn on a tank valve even by removing the BCD when in the water.