Fatality in Rockport, Ontario - 4/Feb/2006

[Cacia]

Floater, I am was always led to believe small bubbles mean nothing significant....Is there a greater chance of catastrophic failure if you have a small leak? Also, I had to emergently ascend from 80 ft once (Rhone) and they way the air expanded, I cannot imagine drowning because I was never "short of air" in the process.

 

[FreeFloat]

First time in a dry suit? Very sad.

Nowhere does it say it was the diver's first time in a drysuit. I believe it was reported that the diver was fairly new to the suit, but that says nothing about his actual experience level with drysuits in general.

 

[DandyDon]

Nowhere does it say it was the diver's first time in a drysuit. I believe it was reported that the diver was fairly new to the suit, but that says nothing about his actual experience level with drysuits in general.

From the first full post....

This was only the guys 3rd dive in a dry suit

 

[*Floater*]

Floater, I am was always led to believe small bubbles mean nothing significant....Is there a greater chance of catastrophic failure if you have a small leak? Also, I had to emergently ascend from 80 ft once (Rhone) and they way the air expanded, I cannot imagine drowning because I was never "short of air" in the process.

Small bubbles may lead to a bigger problem later on - better to deal with them if you can. However I've also done dives with small leaks because even though we noticed them on the surface there was no wrench or other equipment to rectify the situation and the dm said to go ahead anyway - during those times nothing bad happened and air consumption wasn't significantly affected. On another dive the guide had small bubbles, maybe the size of the tip of my little finger, coming out of his first stage. I told him so once I noticed it and he gave me the okay sign, so we went on, but at the end of the dive when I still had my tanks about 2/3rds full he had almost run out of air (we were very shallow though and he was constantly looking at his spg, so there was no danger) - but anyway, I think the leak probably doubled his air consumption or maybe he was just an air pig.

 

[Archangel]

Yes very true, a drowning in cold water is all the more reason to attempt a resuscitation. Cold water temperatures and hypothermia protect the brain against hypoxic damage and until the body has been rewarmed to a core temperature of at least 32 C one should not assume the person has expired. CPR should be started and continued until the core temperature is confirmed with a low reading rectal thermometer and in fact there is no pulse. This can only be done in the hospital setting or in some areas the medics carry the low reading thermometers out in the field.

Pufferfish is right on the money, they taught us in medical school, "they're not dead until they are warm and dead."

Tevis

 

[luft]

I agree that it's too early to really talk about the facts of what happened, we don't know them all of them yet. I do however find it interesting and a learning experience reading peoples ideas of what may or may not have happened during this tragedy. My heart goes out to the family and local dive community of Rockport.

 

[darkstar]

It only takes a few hundred psi to make a straight ascent to surface from 80 ft in open water ... Maybe the guy's equipment leaked ... Another possibility is some medical problem or convulsions ...

...

What did the victim's buddy say?

Here we have a case where we have very good information from two excellent divers who posted only the facts and still we get wild speculation. Sorry to pick on you Floater, but this is a good example of why this forum is much less useful than it should be.

- The guy was found within sight of the wreck (a 12 to 20 minute swim at 80 feet for an experienced diver)
- His tank was empty, his BCD empty, his drysuit empty
- The divers who found him took in excess of 30lbs off of him and still had trouble floating him
- He or his buddy told others before the dive that the plan was to turn at 1500psi
- The locals only shore dive this wreck with doubles or rebreathers, yet this guy had a single 80.
- The buddy said that they got seperated during the dive.

If you can't deduce how this guy could have prevented his own death from those facts, then you might want to take some refresher training before entering the water again.

 

[*Floater*]

...


Here we have a case where we have very good information from two excellent divers who posted only the facts and still we get wild speculation. Sorry to pick on you Floater, but this is a good example of why this forum is much less useful than it should be.

- The guy was found within sight of the wreck (a 12 to 20 minute swim at 80 feet for an experienced diver)

...

If you can't deduce how this guy could have prevented his own death from those facts, then you might want to take some refresher training before entering the water again.

Hey, no need to be rude. I still don't understand why the guy didn't dump his weights, inflate his bc and drysuit and make a direct ascent to the surface when he realized that he didn't have enough gas to make the 20 min swim at depth. If it's obvious to you then please just spell it out.

 

[darkstar]

Hey, no need to be rude...

Sorry. Not trying to be rude. I just don't think that there is any need for speculation to learn from this guy's unfortunate accident.

.... why the guy didn't dump his weights ....

Only the victim knows. The fact that he didn't may have been one of the many things that killed him, though doing a polaris from 80 feet wouldn't be good either.

We also know:
- that diving the Kinghorn from shore on a single 80 is a mistake and that he didn't have the proper equipment for the dive
- that he didn't plan to follow the rule of thirds
- that after getting seperated from his buddy, he didn't search for at most 2 minutes and then surface

There is no question that this accident was preventable if the victim had just done what he was trained to do. That's a good lesson. No need to speculate any further.

 

[mattroz]

There is no question that this accident was preventable if the victim had just done what he was trained to do. That's a good lesson. No need to speculate any further.

Agreed... Although it would be nice to find out exactly what happened we probably never will. Theres no use critisizing the victim nor the rescuers as they did a great job. They helped the victim as much as they could without putting themselves in danger. My condolences to the family