Do not ever say you are a rescue diver

[BlueTrin]

boulderjohn,

In my thinking, it depends. If the diver has embolized, seriously has bubbles in the circulation of the brain, death will be very, very quick, perhaps quicker than would happen with drowning. I'm not a doctor, but I think looking at the physiology, if the lungs were dry, and the diver dead, death was not from drowning. A diver on the surface is in a vertical position, in which those circulatory bubbles would go directly to the brain. I don't think this diver's body, Christine as I recall, was evaluated for an air embolism. It's easy to say "drowning," but more difficult to look deeper into the cause of death.

Now, years ago (1980s) I tried by inventing the Para-Sea BC to make a case for a front-mount BCD that could save the life of an unconscious diver, but the diving industry wasn't interested. They wanted wrap-around and back-mounted BCDs on the scuba unit. Your statement about an unconscious diver drowning is true, but did not have to be true. The below diagram comes from my patent.

SeaRat

Out of curiosity how do you prevent someone from being upside down with a front BCD?

 

[SlugLife]

As a side note, I think I’d skip two minutes deco on the last stop if I had a worry that my buddy wouldn’t make it.

To my knowledge Castillo, at the time, did not have reason to assume Gauci wouldn't make it. She blew her deco early. So that leaves us at either:

1. it's ok to blow your deco early, and Gauci should be mostly fine.
2. it's not ok to blow your deco early, and Castillo would be identically injured if he followed Gauci

We have to pick one or the other. No matter which one we pick, the logical conclusion is Castillo did nothing wrong.

A giant problem with the prosecution and judge's argument is they try to do both #1 and #2 at the same time, depending on which one suits their argument. Castillo is supposed to know #2 Gauci is in trouble because she blew her deco, but #1 it's safe for Castillo to blow his deco? It's a complete contradiction.

 

[BlueTrin]

To my knowledge Castillo, at the time, did not have reason to assume Gauci wouldn't make it. She blew her deco early. So that leaves us at either:

1. it's ok to blow your deco early, and Gauci should be mostly fine.
2. it's not ok to blow your deco early, and Castillo would be identically injured if he followed Gauci

We have to pick one or the other. No matter which one we pick, the logical conclusion is Castillo did nothing wrong.

A giant problem with the prosecution and judge's argument is they try to do both #1 and #2 at the same time, depending on which one suits their argument. Castillo is supposed to know #2 Gauci is in trouble because she blew her deco, but #1 it's safe for Castillo to blow his deco? It's a complete contradiction.

Yea maybe I should have clarified better but I was not talking about this case. This is why I said “as a side note”.

It is unclear to me if the defendant has a reason to surface.

 

[SlugLife]

You are making some assumptions. If close contact had been maintained, the rapid ascent may have been prevented. But the other assumption in the Malta case is that the diver could have assisted on the surface to prevent the "drowning." I was showing that without specific treatment and recompression, this diver in Malta probably would have died no matter the buddy's actions after she surfaced.

But I was talking more to a different situation described in the beginning of this thread whereby divers on a boat would not respond to a diver who entered the water and went deep. So far as "not endangering yourself," I've had specific training way beyond what others even in a rescue diver course could have had, and so that doesn't really apply to many situations for me.

SeaRat

Ok, got it. I've been participating in numerous threads about the Malta Gauci/Castillo incident. Now that this particular thread is talking about both, that's how the mixup happened.

 

[boulderjohn]

To my knowledge Castillo, at the time, did not have reason to assume Gauci wouldn't make it. She blew her deco early. So that leaves us at either:

1. it's ok to blow your deco early, and Gauci should be mostly fine.
2. it's not ok to blow your deco early, and Castillo would be identically injured if he followed Gauci

We have to pick one or the other. No matter which one we pick, the logical conclusion is Castillo did nothing wrong.

You are making a couple unwarranted assumptions:

• DCS is predictable. We know exactly what will happen if a dier blows off 2 minutes of deco.
• DCS affects everyone the same. If Person A dives a specific profile, if PErson B dives the same profile, then they will both have the same effect.

In all likelihood, if a person with a 2 minute deco obligation blows it off, there will be no ill effect. The likelihood of DCS is a curve. The more you go past the standardard, the more likely you are to have a problem, but there is no known bright line, and decompression algorithms like to have a pretty safe margin of error.

In all likelihood, if there is a DCS hit after blowing off a 2 minute obligation, it will be minor and will take time to develop. When I had my DCS hit, I was within limits, and it took about 3 hours for me to start feeling pain in my scapula.

 

[SlugLife]

You are making a couple unwarranted assumptions:

• DCS is predictable. We know exactly what will happen if a dier blows off 2 minutes of deco.
• DCS affects everyone the same. If Person A dives a specific profile, if PErson B dives the same profile, then they will both have the same effect.

In all likelihood, if a person with a 2 minute deco obligation blows it off, there will be no ill effect. The likelihood of DCS is a curve. The more you go past the standardard, the more likely you are to have a problem, but there is no known bright line, and decompression algorithms like to have a pretty safe margin of error.

In all likelihood, if there is a DCS hit after blowing off a 2 minute obligation, it will be minor and will take time to develop. When I had my DCS hit, I was within limits, and it took about 3 hours for me to start feeling pain in my scapula.

Correct, I over-simplified.

The same concepts still apply, in that whatever risk there was to Gauci, equally applies to Castillo. We could even have a scenario where Gauci is fine, but Castillo is injured.

I must point out that the prosecutor claims his computer's deco was set to "aggressive." In other words, that 2-minute deco sounds like a minimum. (We're also operating on an assumption that it was a 2-minute deco obligation, the translation was weird, something like "2 minute obligation at 5-minutes")

 

[boulderjohn]

2-minute deco obligation, the translation was weird, something like "2 minute obligation at 5-minutes")

My interpretation was that whoever wrote it saw something like 2 min at 5 m and figured the second m was minutes, too. Another explanation was that the person had a brain fart and wrote minute when it should have said meters. I have made that sort of mistake hundreds of times.

 

[Bob DBF]

To my knowledge Castillo, at the time, did not have reason to assume Gauci wouldn't make it. She blew her deco early. So that leaves us at either:

1. it's ok to blow your deco early, and Gauci should be mostly fine.
2. it's not ok to blow your deco early, and Castillo would be identically injured if he followed Gauci

We have to pick one or the other. No matter which one we pick, the logical conclusion is Castillo did nothing wrong.

A giant problem with the prosecution and judge's argument is they try to do both #1 and #2 at the same time, depending on which one suits their argument. Castillo is supposed to know #2 Gauci is in trouble because she blew her deco, but #1 it's safe for Castillo to blow his deco? It's a complete contradiction.

Another theory is that the judge and prosecution have no concept of deco diving, and their experts were never asked. They thought that deco stop and safety stop are the same thing, at which point Castillo abandoned his buddy, which should be punished by the state. An understandable mistake, which the defense should have corrected, if he was allowed a defense.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Out of curiosity how do you prevent someone from being upside down with a front BCD?

‘Good question. I tested many, many different BC and harness combinations to find one which would in most instances result in an unconscious diver in a face-up position once the CO2 inflation, oral inflation or power inflation was accomplished. Here’s the abstract of the patent:

Abstract​

A flotation vest in the form of a buoyancy compensator for divers or a PFD (personal flotation device) for canoeists and the like including a collar and waistcoat assembly secured to the body of a user by a modified and simplified parachute style harness. The vest and harness configuration assure that a user will float on a water surface in a stable, head up and out of water position. The buoyancy compensation invention is inflatable and includes connectors for securing a scuba backpack directly thereto, thus eliminating the usual waist buckle of the backpack. The buoyancy compensation invention may include an auxiliary equipment strap, a front mounted equipment pocket and a pair of side pockets for trimming weights and/or an extra second stage of a regulator. The PFD invention is filled with a buoyant foam material and includes a lateral fold between the collar and waistcoat to assure proper and comfortable fit of the PFD against the user's body.

The Para-Sea BC is one I have been using (one of the prototypes) now for over forty years. The harness and couplings to the scuba are unique. You can see more by examining the patent:

US4623316A - Flotation vest - Google Patents

A flotation vest in the form of a buoyancy compensator for divers or a PFD (personal flotation device) for canoeists and the like including a collar and waistcoat assembly secured to the body of a user by a modified and simplified parachute style harness. The vest and harness configuration...

patents.google.com

SeaRat

 

[Angelo Farina]

Out of curiosity how do you prevent someone from being upside down with a front BCD?

For several years I did use a Fenzy. You see it in my Avatar. It was labeled "le parachute du plongeur".
It was NOT a BCD: no connection with the tank, no power inflator.
It had to be kept empty in normal conditions, and inflated with its small air tank just in case of an emergency.
Wearing a full Fenzy you float head up. No risk of drowning...
Of course I did modify it, installing a hose for filling it from the main tank and using it also as a BCD.
But I maintained the small tank and its safety function.