Diving accident in Michigan claims Oak Harbor attorney

[MXGratefulDiver]

And stay close to your buddy. If you have a MI, survival curves say you need cpr or an aed within 10 minutes or your chances are in the single digits.

Looking at these numbers makes me think the unresponsive diver protocols overly emphasize controlling ascent rate to limit AGE and DCS.

Unfortunately if youre deep and you have MI youre not going to get to the surface and on the boat in time for CPR or use of an AED (has anyone ever seen an AED on a dive boat?).

I didn't know Mark ... but I do know some of the folks he dives with, and who were on this trip with him. They're pretty competent divers, and from what I've heard they did everything possible to get him up alive. Unfortunately, from that depth, your odds are not good.

If you're looking for a take away lesson, perhaps it's just if you're going to go deep you need to understand the risks involved, and accept that if something goes wrong your odds of surviving it are inversely proportional to the numbers on your depth gauge. These guys dive wrecks in Puget Sound in the 250-300 foot range regularly, so I gotta believe they knew that.

Oh, and to answer your question ... most of our local charters have AEDs on board ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Pliny]

@Bob - This dive is certainly way beyond my training and from your description I imagine the respinse was as good as it could be and the depth was just too much of an added complication. It is good to hear that your boats have AEDs. My experience is all warm water.

I'm wondering if cardiac issues are an underdiagnosed cause of the event chain that begins with finding an unresponsive diver and ends in a fatality. From the perspective of the medical examiner, it may not be easy to differentiate between

cardiac event -> LOC -> lose regulator -> drown and

scuba related issue -> LOC -> lose regulator -> inhale water -> drown -> cardiac arrest

Reading the threads in this forum I'm inclined to believe that non-diving MEs are not geting this one right as often as they should.

 

[moneysavr]

It was on the Bradley,
way deep!

 

[Stoo]

An AED is about as useful as a peanut butter sandwich if a diver has a problem at 300+' (or 200' for that matter) and is sent to the surface in a hurry in most cases. Mind you, I'm still scratching my head over the fact that a friend blew off 40 minutes of deco in that Jodrey fatality, and was unharmed. I appreciate that being on a re-breather can be a significant advantage in that sort of scenario due to having the "ideal pO2"... either that or decompression is nothing more than a conspiracy dreamed up by the industry to sell us plastic tables and computers...

As an aside, I have to question the wisdom of someone 58 years old doing a dive to this depth. That's old. (I know because I'm almost there too.) This is the age we should be kicking back and doing sensible dives. I like to think I'm in pretty good shape... for my age. But that's a lot different than being in good shape... period.

 

[SDAnderson]

I didn't know the victim but I do know the charter and they are highly experienced both as deep technical divers and as a charter catering to deep technical divers. Considering that from 350+ feet it's going to take hours to safely ascend to the surface, the likelihood of a successful outcome just isn't very good if anything goes seriously wrong. Very few divers will ever make a dive like this and many can't understand why anyone would. Whatever your personal risk/reward decision, the folks doing dives like this understand the risks and have accepted them. It is - and should remain - their choice. The process of preparing for a dive like this weeds out anyone who doesn't have an incredible amount of determination, time and money.

As Pliny speculated, the authorities investigating fatalities like this typically end up ascribing the cause of death to either drowning or a heart attack. This is the proximate cause of death - but that doesn't mean that something else didn't start the chain of events that led to the fatality. The process of learning what went wrong and how to prevent/avoid/mitigate a re-occurrence is important but also very sensitive and often lengthy. All divers, even those who would never consider a dive like this, have an interest in seeing a successful conclusion to the investigation; sometimes the best way to further the process is to sit quietly and avoid muddying the water.

Meantime, while we wait for information and struggle to avoid speculation, there are some of videos of dives to the Bradley posted on YouTube. They're a good chance to vicariously experience deep diving in the Great Lakes and may help give a perspective on why some would choose to do this. This is one isn't as pretty as the others but does a good job of giving you a taste of what an adventure like this is like - see if you can count how many bottles the divers are carrying:

[video=youtube_share;lqTkgeIi97g]http://youtu.be/lqTkgeIi97g[/video]​

 

[Pliny]

@reefraff. Agree with yoir points. Certainly the tech diving community is better at incident analysis and that part of the process will be worked through. My comment about buddy separation was more in reference to rec divers - who (generally, not all) are more nonchalant about buddy protocols (hey just cesa if you need to) and are at depths where rescuing an incapacitated buddy from mi/stroke/tox/seizure/whatever is feasible.

Unfortunately, applying industrial safety methodology to rec diving isnt going to happen any time soon -- the data simply arent there.

 

[DandyDon]

@reefraff. Agree with yoir points. Certainly the tech diving community is better at incident analysis and that part of the process will be worked through. My comment about buddy separation was more in reference to rec divers - who (generally, not all) are more nonchalant about buddy protocols (hey just cesa if you need to) and are at depths where rescuing an incapacitated buddy from mi/stroke/tox/seizure/whatever is feasible.

Unfortunately, applying industrial safety methodology to rec diving isnt going to happen any time soon -- the data simply arent there.

I do hope you change that attitude as you survive more diving. I've screwed up a few times, but do try to work at good buddy protocols.

 

[Pliny]

@don please reread my posr. Im advocating better buddy protocols on rec dives bcause im hythesizing that (some of the) incidents that are being viewed as "unresponsive diver -- rescuscitation failed -- cause of death drowning" are potential rescues that dont happen because it takes a few minutes for one buddy to realize the other buddy is on the bottom, unconscious.

Regarding aoplying industrial safetly protocols, that approach says you don't just look at the fatalities, you attack the base of the pyramid. You and most of the divers here are honest ans analytical about screw ups. But I dont think anyone knows how many warm water/jacket style bcd/al80 rec dives there are daily in the world, let alone how many end in air sharing ascents, loa, missed stops, overly fast ascents, etc. We dont even know if we have all the fatalities in our sample. Because of this, when I analyze what will make me a better and safer diver, I start by looking at the experience of the tech community. We have, or will have, a good idea what happened in the Jodrey and here.

Anyway, I've commented enough in this thread.

 

[DiverLaura]

a lot of randomness can happen.

A very dear family friend of mine was recently diagnosed with sick sinus syndrome. If you _look_ at him, you'd think he was the healthiest late 50's early 60 something you'd ever meet. heavy weights, hammers on the cardio, etc... he'd recently had a couple episodes of dizzyness but folks told him it was 'probably just dehydration or fatigue'. Luckily for him he was in the OR getting rotator cuff surgery when he had another episode and 'do not pass go, go directly to cardiology and get a pacemaker'.

I guess what i'm trying to say here is i know folks who look super fit, who can simply have some bad genetics. They can do everything possible but still succumb to the process.

on the flip side i have a friend who will turn 60 soon and can cycle up l'alp d'huez in about 48 min and can max his heart rate out at 180.. he was not a professional anything in his prior to retirement life.

no matter what the end analysis, we should indeed use this as a reminder to be in the best possible fitness we can be to execute extrended range dives..

my sincerest condolences... he was a local man and although i did not know him personally, i know his friends and my heart goes out to them right now...

 

[ianr33]

Mind you, I'm still scratching my head over the fact that a friend blew off 40 minutes of deco in that Jodrey fatality, and was unharmed. I appreciate that being on a re-breather can be a significant advantage in that sort of scenario due to having the "ideal pO2"... either that or decompression is nothing more than a conspiracy dreamed up by the industry to sell us plastic tables and computers...

Believe he brought up the deceased then dropped straight back down again to do his deco. Very brave choice from that type of dive.