Dutch Springs accident 9/16/07

[wscdive]

I should have pointed out that before the instructors pulled him out the dutch springs boat had pulled him to shore with the help of the point lookout and a throw bag..looked impressive from my vantage point!!

 

[Doc Intrepid]

Those damned wetsuits shrink.



the older I get, the faster they shrink too...

 

[Thalassamania]

Every winter, while you use your drysuit, your wetsuit sulks and shrinks.

 

[all4scuba05]

hearsay has it that his hood appeared to have been too tight. According to who? Did the diver say that before passing out? Is it still a guess as to what might have been the true problem?
It seems to me that in order for a hood to cut off my air flow it would have to crush my trachea(windpipe). Just wondering.

 

[wreckchick]

Carotid Sinus Reflex. It's a description of a reaction by the body to increased pressure on the carotid artery tricking the body into the thinking that there is an increase in blood pressure, to compensate the body decreases blood pressure which can then lead to unconsciousness. As we all know, passing out while underwater is bad.

Rachel

 

[all4scuba05]

So was it airflow cutoff or carotid? To me the cause hasn't been stated yet. Only a guess was stated at the beginning of this thread.

 

[Scubakevdm]

So was it airflow cutoff or carotid? To me the cause hasn't been stated yet. Only a guess was stated at the beginning of this thread.

It's hard to wear a hood tight enough to cut off airflow, so I'm gonna guess carotid reflex.

 

[z3r0c00l]

I have had a very tight hood on, and while you feel like you are going to die (everyone knows that sour look and fish mouth that people with tight rental hoods have), I dont think it could cut off any blood flow. It is all in the neck, so many cases of deaths due to drysuit neck seals...

 

[shorns76]

It's not about cutting off airflow (you'd have to crush the trachea to do that), or primarily cutting of carotid blood supply to the brain. It would be theoretically possible that if the diver had carotid stenosis or plaques that already reduced blood flow then perhaps a tight hood might push him over the edge. More likely is wreckchick's assessment of carotid sinus reflex. Even so i'm still dubious. A procedure called carotid sinus massage is used in medicine to reverse certain cardiac disrythmias. It does this by fooling the body into thinking blood pressure is high as wreckchick explains. It is however a procedure that requires fairly intense pressure directly applied over the carotid sinus's and i'm not sure a hood would achieve that. Perhaps it may be a combination of things, but my money would be on a primary medical event, cardiac, stroke, something else.