Eagle's Nest Accident

[Scuba_Rob]

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"She was obviously in trouble, hemorrhaging from her eyes and ears, foaming from her mouth," Pelland recalled. They cut Bedard out of the harness that held her scuba tanks and pulled her up onto the dock. She wasn't breathing. She had no pulse. Banks and Pelland began CPR. After 15 to 20 minutes, Pelland said, her heart came back to life.

Pretty scary stuff. She was an experienced certified cave diver. They think it was an equipment malfunction. She is in critical condition.

 

[H2Andy]

i've done various searches to see if anything new has happened, but
no luck so far

 

[bobmaggi]

Our prayers are with her. . . .Bob and Maggi

 

[Dr. Doug Ebersole]

The following is secondhand information!!!

I spoke with a local expert cave diver who is very familiar with Eagle's Nest and has spoken to the area divers about what happened. He also knows the victim. According to him, the problem was with her bottom mix which was supposed to be 10/50 trimix. Apparently her isolation valve must have gotten closed after her helium fill so that one cylinder (presumably her left cylinder with her backup reg) was 10/50 while the other (presumably her right cylinder with her primary reg) was 100% helium. She apparently felt "funny" on the surface after breathing the bottom mix but attributed it to the hypoxic mixture of 10/50. She then descended on her travel gas of EAN 36 and at depth switched to her bottom gas. Apparently this resulted in her breathing pure helium causing her to rapidly lose consciousness from hypoxia.

Apparently she has severe hypoxic brain injury and has not regained consciousness. Please everyone pray for her family an friends in this very difficult time.

 

[H2Andy]

man... that's just terrible

 

[Taipeidiver]

I saw this report of a recent accident in Eagle's Nest in the 'States.

There are definitely some lessons to be learnt from this tragic accident.

 

[Dive-aholic]

Good info. I don't know how experienced she could have been. Lots of errors made. Very sloppy.

 

[MikeFerrara]

It's way worse than sloppy.

 

[Web Monkey]

There were a bunch of mistakes, but the biggest one was that she didn't analyze her own tanks before using them.

I see a lot of "trust our gas" dives on recreational dive boats, but never expected to see it with cave divers.
Terry

I saw this report of a recent accident in Eagle's Nest in the 'States.

There are definitely some lessons to be learnt from this tragic accident.

 

[HBDiveGirl]

I saw this report of a recent accident in Eagle's Nest in the 'States.

There are definitely some lessons to be learnt from this tragic accident.

Thank you, Taipeidiver, for posting this link on ScubaBoard. My heart and prayers go out to all involved.
There is always so much to be learned. We all strive to balance boldness and enthusiasm with caution, knowledge, and consistency.
What a heartbreaking event.
Thanks for posting the final accident analysis.