Diver dead in Font Estramar, France

[Miyaru]

Statement from Saami Paakkarinen:

Descripition of a cave dive accident in Font Estramar, France 10.6.2017.

Team of 5 cave divers from Finland travelled to Southern France for a cave diving holiday. Plan was to spend 2 weeks in the region and dive caves that they had been diving already before.

9-10.6.2017 plan was to dive Font Estramar cave located in Salses-le-Château. First dive day was a setup day where all safety tanks are installed to the cave and check up for the conditons of water and line system. Second day was supposed to be the deep dive to approx. 200m depth. Team consisted from 2 deep divers, 2 support divers and from one surface person.

On the setup dive morning of friday 9.6.2017 maximum depth was 160m for the deep team and 70m for the support team. Total of 20 safety tanks were installed to various depths for the next day. Water conditions were good, clear visibility and 18 degree celsius temperature. After the dive, teams rested and started to prepare for next day.

Saturday 10.6.2017 deep diving team (Divers 1 and 2) started their decent approx. 09:00, during the decent they installed additional back-up rebreather to 100m. When they arrived to 200m depth, Diver 1 heard loud noise behind him, when turning around he saw that scooter of Diver 2 had imploded and was dragging Diver 2 deeper. Scooter is attached to the diver with a pulling cord and a clip, Diver 2 was not releasing the negative scooter and was trying agressively swim up. Diver 1 swam after him to help and was able to cut the towing cord in 214m depth and they stopped decending, imploded scooted continued to decend. Visibility went very bad during this event and divers had to look for the lost guide line, during their search they found themself in a dead end. After a quick search Diver 1 found the guide line and was able to help Diver 2 also to the line, but Diver 2 already suffered from reduced ability to work. Soon the situation escaled when Diver 2 got stuck on the loose guide lines. Diver 1 tried to cut the guide lines and told Diver 2 to calm dow, but he was already suffering from reduced level of consciousness and very soon he went unconscious. Diver 1 could not any more help his friend and was forced to leave in order to save himself.

Diver 1 started his decompression from 130m and total deco load was 450min at this point. Safety divers started their dive 100min after the deep team start, and when meeting Diver 1, they received the information what had happened. Diver 1 was escorted to shallow water and kept under a surveillance during the decompression. Message about the accident was brought up and surface person made the emergency call. Police and Fire department arrived before Diver 1 was surfaced and fire department divers took the safety diver responsibility for the rest of the decompression. Diver 1 finally surfaced after 500min of dive time in good physical health.

Investigation of the accident is now done by French military police, Gendarmerie.
​

 

[Finn_Diver]

So, at the depths there were loose guidelines from divers who had been there previously and the deceased got entangled to them...

 

[mnjhuz76]

Statement from Saami Paakkarinen:

Scooter is attached to the diver with a pulling cord and a clip, Diver 2 was not releasing the negative scooter and was trying agressively swim up. Diver 1 swam after him to help and was able to cut the towing cord in 214m depth and they stopped decending, imploded scooted continued to decend.​

Maybe a silly question from me as a simple recreational diver, but isn't there some kind of emergency release for the scooter? I mean, I have horses and the ropes we use usually have a panic snap (for example like this HILASON WESTERN TACK 11/8in X 41/4in STAINLESS STEEL PANIC SNAP W/ TWIST BODY | eBay ) that can be easily opened even if the horse freaks out and pulls like hell. Might also be helpful if the electronics on a scooter breaks in a way, that keeps it running at full throttle beyond control (not sure if that's technically possible at all, but I've heard of weirder things before...)

Cheers,
Peter

 

[FinnMom]

Thanks for the excellent report Miyaru! "Sami" Paakkarinen was the writer's name.

The Finnish Divers Federation report (Finnish) is here
https://www.sukeltaja.fi/files/uplo...esta Font Estramariin Ranskassa 10.6.2017.pdf
if anyone cares to Google translate it. Sami (Miyaru's post) already did an excellent job.

*************************************************************

Scooters I have used/seen (that's not many) were secured using a pistol-type snap, usually fairly large so it can be easily opened even with drygloves/numbed fingers. For safety, the kinds of clip-on things are usually secured with ties of a material that can be cut.

I would imagine the diver didn't get it unsnapped/cut himself because he was too stunned, so immediately focussed on fighting the sudden intense downward force. A terrible situation and classically eveything happening so very, very fast.

 

[Patoux01]

You can easily cut the leash with any of the cutting devices.
You could argue that you want a loop on it similar to what is used in kitesurfing like this.

Where you just pull the big red part forward and the whole thing drops away. They also exist as a velcro version.
But when things get cluttered, or you get a lot of sand/salt/**** in there, it can work against you. If you suddenly drop the scooter that is pulling you up in such a situation, you're f*cked. And if you pull on it but it doesn't drop, you're f*cked as well.

In any way, if there's no bottom under you and your scooter floods at 200m depth, seems to me you're pretty much done for...

 

[mnjhuz76]

Ah, thanks for enlightening me!

Has the scooter been retrieved, yet, so the cause of the defect can be investigated?
I find it extremely disturbing, a device so vital to that kind of diving simply fails like this out of the blue...

My sincere condolences go to his/her friends and family, will send a prayer when I get past this spot Thursday morning on my way to Spain, it's right next to the highway I'm travelling

 

[Miyaru]

The other diver managed to cut the towing cord pretty fast. Looking at the whole chain of events, the sinking scooter was just the first one. Trying to counteract the descent with swimming up caused a high carbondioxide production. Elevated CO2 levels will cloud your decision making.

There's footage of a Sky News cameraman experiencing CO2 poisoning at 20m depth, impairing his judgement. He manages to bailout, but doesn't ascend.
Imagine what happens at 200m depth. From Sami's translation of the Finish report, it looks like the surviving diver did everything he could to save his buddy unfortunately without succes. I think getting off the loop to bailout gas might have had a different outcome, but judging on actions sitting behind a computer is way easier than making decisions at 200m depth.

Diver 1 had 500 minutes under water after the fatality and nobody to talk to. That's over eight hours! He managed to surface alive. I have a lot of respect for that.

 

[Patoux01]

Has the scooter been retrieved, yet, so the cause of the defect can be investigated?

The logistics involved in the initial dives used over 20 tanks and back-up rebreathers.
They dropped below their target depth, which is a big issue in the first place, and the scooter dropped even further, that place goes to at least 250m from what I can find.
I'm not even sure they recovered their friend, the scooter is the least of their concerns.


IOW, I suspect it will never be brought back up, and recovering the diver may prove almost impossible as well.

 

[mnjhuz76]

Diver 1 had 500 minutes under water after the fatality and nobody to talk to. That's over eight hours! He managed to surface alive. I have a lot of respect for that.

Very true, such a horrible imagination to have to go through this

The logistics involved in the initial dives used over 20 tanks and back-up rebreathers.
They dropped below their target depth, which is a big issue in the first place, and the scooter dropped even further, that place goes to at least 250m from what I can find.
I'm not even sure they recovered their friend, the scooter is the least of their concerns.

You are absolutely right. Not being involved in that kind of diving made me forget about the effort it would take to do that, sorry. More than seven hours of decompression are a clear language.

Is 'imploding' or flooding a common problem with scooters as, let's say, a frozen regulator in cold water and is there any relation to a regular maintenance of the device or is this just a case of brown matter that just happens and you can't do much about it?

 

[Jack Hammer]

200 meters us about 656 feet. That's pretty deep and a lot of water pressure, it doesn't take a lot to cause a failure. My scooter has a claimed max depth of 200 meters, I wouldn't trust it on the edge of its limit. Things happen.