Diver dies at Molokai on Maui dive boat

[TheCraigFish55]

I agree with boulderjohn. No one has seen a police report or a news report so no point in blaming either party. I do think in conditions like what was described if the technical divers should have followed the same profiles as the open water divers. That would avoid having to wait for the long decompression stop in an emergency situation in the future.

 

[Dan]

...Molokai is a long and rough trip. I used to work as both a captain and dive guide for Extended Horizons which also runs out of Lahaina. We'd do Molokai about 3 or 4 times per year when the passengers were good enough (and we knew it, not taking their words for it) and conditions were mellow enough. It just didn't happen very often. When I left Maui in 2008, LD was just starting their weekly guaranteed Molokai trips. My first thought was "well that is about the dumbest idea I've heard in a long time." The LD boats are a little bigger than EH, but it's still a rough crossing.

In Hawaii, as the day gets later, the seas come up. Just because it was possible in the AM, doesn't mean they'll be able to get back out in the PM. So leaving a diver out there to go back in an emergency is basically abandoning that diver for the next 24 hours. I could have a deco diver tell me personally to leave them behind in an emergency and I still wouldn't do it. First rule of rescues: don't make more victims...

-Chris

This kind of diving trip reminds me of Flower Garden Banks in Gulf of Mexico, 100 miles off Houston/ Galveston coast. In the last 10 years I've been going there, about half of the trips were cancelled due to weather. We won't know if it's a go or not until the morning before leaving. If the wave will be > 6', the trip will be cancelled.

I was in one trip when the weather turned to worse on the next day with 8' wave. That was a rough day of diving. It was be OK underwater, but getting on the boat was not easy. I can't imagine with 10-12' wave.

 

[KevinNM]

I'm told that the wave interval is very important to determining just how ugly it is, not just height. But I've never tried to dive in anything like that.

 

[EricTheDood]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

Yes, there is a lot of blamestorming going on in this thread, and yes, it is against the rules. Unfortunately, we did not realize it until now, with the thread almost having run its course. This leaves us in a tough position. Accusations have been made, and those accused have responded. To go back and delete 75% of this thread after it has almost run its course would deprive the ones accused of their chance to respond. At this time, we are going to leave the previous posts in and remind people of the rules. Our minds could be changed with further discussion, though.

To avoid blamestorming, you can speak of issues in a generic sense, discussing what was learned without attacking specific individuals. For example, the wisdom of having different dive groups with different timed dives on a boat in general would be a good topic of discussion.

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I'm not so sure what's been posted on this thread would really be characterized as "blamestorming". This is completely different from a more typical accident thread, like a drowned student diver, where fingers are pointed at the student, the instructor, or someone else closely involved.

In this case, the thread starts out with a critical review of a dive op that raises two primary concerns: the validity of the criticism (whether true or not) and the accuracy of the witness' account. Even if we ignore the latter, it's interesting that a lot of people here don't agree with the criticisms anyway.

 

[TheCraigFish55]

I'm not so sure what's been posted on this thread would really be characterized as "blamestorming". This is completely different from a more typical accident thread, like a drowned student diver, where fingers are pointed at the student, the instructor, or someone else closely involved.

In this case, the thread starts out with a critical review of a dive op that raises two primary concerns: the validity of the criticism (whether true or not) and the accuracy of the witness' account. Even if we ignore the latter, it's interesting that a lot of people here don't agree with the criticisms anyway.

True. It appears many people don't agree with the criticisms; however, it's also interesting how many questions this sort of situation raises. If we were to remove most of the fluff of the witness' account, we are left with some interesting problems: should open water and technical divers be on the same boat in such a remote area following completely different profiles? If so, should there be a dinghy attached to the boat or another boat to follow just in case this situation happens (one boat can wait for the technical divers and the other boat can jet to the harbor)? There needs to be some kind of a better plan.

Secondly, if the captain and dive professionals did leave the management of the scene up to the passengers, that needs to be addressed. The professionals can ask for the assistance of the passengers, but the passengers should not be leading the CPR. The one witness claims her friend started CPR (and continued for 2 hours) and this friend had to push Nick away because he kept trying to put the patient in the recovery position even after CPR started; whereas Nick claims he started CPR. How embarrassing would this have been for Nick, who supposedly holds a higher qualification then the friend who did the CPR if this were true? Nick claims he started the oxygen and the CPR and helped the witness when she was sick all by himself. Sounds like a miracle worker. The guilty people tend to boast the loudest. Some emergency refresher training might do this company's staff some good.

Too bad all of the criticism seems to have frightened away the one witness who was on the boat and talking about it. I checked the Maui news and I still can't find anything.

 

[Shaun Delport]

Do you mean that the dive op would exclude people based on this data, or just that the divers should use their judgement whether or not to do the dive based on the local conditions? Having done a lot of charters for our dive club and having discussed this with our lawyers, I know that "vetting divers" greatly increases your liability, since if someone has a problem and you "cleared" them for the dive, that implies extra responsibility.

Of course, all divers should honestly assess any dive before undertaking it, and make a call based on their conditioning, experience and training, but not sure how that would help optimize this operators procedures.
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I'm not sure if ALS means something different in your country, but in the US it's a pretty advanced course involving things like endotracheal intubation, tracheotomy, and algorithms for the use of intravenous medications like epinephrine, adrenaline and potassium. That would be a pretty high bar for the dive boat business in terms of equipment, training and recertification, and I kind of doubt that it would make a big difference to the average dive emergency. Maybe someone having a witnessed cardiac arrest due to pre-existing heart disease? We don't require ALS providers to be available on site in most other topside recreational activities, not sure why this would be different.

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A BLS provider should be able to detect a carotid or femoral pulse as well as an automatic BP monitor. If the pulse is so weak in an unconscious patient that it's not detectable by palpation, I don't think that withholding CPR based on a monitor would be appropriate.
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These thoughts I based on the difficulty factor of the dive itself and the distance to the site. It was specifically for this dive site and based on the scenario given of what transpired that day.
There should be a minimum requirement pertaining to experience and certification for this dive. Advanced age and fitness should be up to the diver discretion.
ALS is intensive and ongoing with refreshers, I agree, and cost of equipment is high. Taking a paramedic and training him as a skipper would be a cheaper option.
Would CPR help a weak pulse or would it interfere with the rhythm of the heart and cause it to stop? Not sure, hence the question.

 

[KevinNM]

The paramedic scope of practice in Hawaii is pretty huge IIRC, but you need medical control to do much. Which means a physician employed by the dive op and whole lot of other stuff.

 

[Kevrumbo]

FYI

The Hyperbaric Treatment Center of the John A. Burns School of Medicine is among the nation’s most active dive accident treatment facilities for recreational divers, serving the entire chain of Hawaiian Islands, 24 hours a day. . .The facility along with full Emergency Dept Advanced Life Support is located in Oahu Honolulu at the Kuakini Medical Center.

The Coast Guard Air Station at Barbers Point Oahu should have been responding with a MH-65 Dolphin Recovery Helicopter, with ETA of 40 minutes to the approximate dive site around Molokai or rendezvous with the diveboat (distance is roughly 80 nautical miles from Barbers Point Oahu).

Unfortunately, it appears that USCG rescue assets were stretched thin as they were looking for a missing Freediver that same day Oct 14.

Still though, couldn't USCG call for an inter-armed service medevac (Navy helo) to cover for a litter urgent dive casualty?

 

[Bob DBF]

I don't believe that AED use is part of PADI training.

It was when I took rescue a few years back. Of course l guess it could have been an addition by the instructor, I'll have to find the training materials and check, but may take a while since I just moved.


I am concerned that NDL and deco divers are on the same boat at a remote site. I doubt that the NDL crowd understand, or are even advised that the skipper can not abandon any of his divers in the event of an individual emergency, which case professional care can be a long wait which may be too long. I'm not opposed to the practice, but the fact that some have no understanding of the risk involved and cannot make an informed decision to participate.


This is one incident I would have liked to see a newspaper report even though I would cringe when I read about the oxygen tank involved.


Bob

 

[Steelyeyes]

It was when I took rescue a few years back. Of course l guess it could have been an addition by the instructor, I'll have to find the training materials and check, but may take a while since I just moved.


I am concerned that NDL and deco divers are on the same boat at a remote site. I doubt that the NDL crowd understand, or are even advised that the skipper can not abandon any of his divers in the event of an individual emergency, which case professional care can be a long wait which may be too long. I'm not opposed to the practice, but the fact that some have no understanding of the risk involved and cannot make an informed decision to participate.


This is one incident I would have liked to see a newspaper report even though I would cringe when I read about the oxygen tank involved.


Bob

My rescue instructor was a nurse for 16+ years and the instructor that taught the CPR and O2 administration part is a hyperbaric medicine specialist so they may have added more than what was required by PADI but every CPR recert class I've had for at least 5 years has included the AED. Those little gadgets have saved a lot of lives, including a friend of mine. They're not that expensive and I think every dive boat should have one that is in good repair and functional right next to the O2 kit.