Fatality in Rockport, Ontario - 4/Feb/2006

[Archangel]

Vandit, now I am no physician, so check this out. But, if I were you, I would keep aspirin with you. They now advocate dosing yourself if you have chest pain. I think the idea is that if you can keep the platelets from sticking together, you can mitigate the damage to the heart muscle. Personaly, I believe in taking fish oil (purified, no heavy metals) daily and 81 mcg asa. Popping an aspirin in the event of chest pain could really help. That 20-30 min of cardio every day at your target rate is another thing I believe in. ask your doc about the aspirin.

Catherine you are right, an 81mg dose of aspirin a day stops your platelets from being sticky. Omega-3 through a complicated mechanism cripples platelet cascade production. Not to get too techical/medical, Vandit your concern is valid.

I would strongly suggest that you go to a cardiologist and have a stress echocardiogram, and well as a treadmill test, and then go to a geneticist and have her look into your lineage.

Finally, in the blood test, they SHOULD look at your homocystiene level, C reactive protein, lipid panel as well as a host of cardiac enzymes to see your baseline as well as once every year/couple of years to chronicle any muscle damage.

I know that this is going to cost a chunk of change, tho' you could have a quiescent hyperlipidemia that will jump up and bite you like it has the men in your family. The geneticist as well as the cardiologist will quickly pick this up.

Take care of yourself, and bless you all,

Doctors suck, tho' we can be helpful sometimes if you lead us down the right path.

Tevis

 

[Butch103]

But how many of us are qualified to pronounce someone dead under water?

And we know that cold water preserves life longer than warm water, even if the person has been unconscious for some time. We should try to recover and rescuscitate if at all possible.

BTW, regarding the comments on "deco obligations". In recreational diving, within NDL's, a safety stop is just that. It is recommended - NOT required. It is up to the individual to make that decision.

I guess a SMB and shore support can be beneficial if the rescuer decides that a safety stop is necessary, and there is no rescuer to surface with the victim.

That dive requires a deco obligation in many cases. The diver was dead. Check your rescue manual, first aid manual they all emphatically tell you one victim, not two.

 

[tkring]

I believe we need to say in a tactful and respectul manner in what we feel is in the best interest of the party. How they receive it is up to them but we have done our part.

 

[Nobby]

If you come across a body here you are meant to leave the scene as untouched as possible, mark the location with a smb/reel or whatever you have and leave the rest for the police divers to recover/record.

Not sure that this is strictly true. You'll see others have also mentioned this not being the case. PADI (not saying they have a monopoly on good ideas) say that if it is SAFE to do so then you should attempt to recover the patient/body (I differentiate because there is a difference). If you cannot assist the diver to the surface with you then even if you were to inflate the BCD and let them rise to the surface this would be better than leaving an unconscious diver under the water (even if it means them getting bent). Bent does not mean dead, but unconscious and underwater without a reg in the mouth and more importantly air does! Surface them everytime!

If you do bring someone to the surface we're told not to touch a thing on the kit, no turning tanks off, undoing clips or connectors etc and leave it in as near to original condition as possible to help a coroners investigation.

This I agree with. The standard process is don't touch anything. The police will want to check for malfunctions and that there is no foul play and if you start messing with valves and clips you'll reduce the chance of them finding critical information out.

Good thread though!