Unknown Forensic experts report on three fatal deep dives

[DandyDon]

Very deep studies...

Black box of diving accidents: Contribution of forensic underwater experts to three fatal cases

Diving is a popular activity, largely practiced worldwide. Diving fatalities are not rare events, with drowning being the most common cause of death, …

www.sciencedirect.com

 

[rsingler]

Would love to see a vigorous discussion of these three cases. You can see where "foam at the mouth" might yield a conclusion that the three deaths were similar. Yet after sophisticated analysis, the opposite is proven.
A fascinating paper! Thank you @DandyDon !

 

[steinbil]

I was confused by this statement:

Case#2 was about a 70-year-old woman who died after a cave diving with a friend.

The equipment was clearly not for cave diving, and the profile doesn't seem to match a cave dive?
Also in the introduction of the case studies it says:

Three seventy-year-old recreational divers - two males and a female - went diving with friends to the same stretch of sea between June and July.

Could it have been a just a visit to a sea cave/cavern opening, or maybe even an open air-filled cave at the surface with water beneath?

Anyways, it was definitely an interesting read. Just looking at the two profiles of Case #2 and #3 is enough to give me shivers...

 

[John the Pom]

I'm not a CCR diver, so it may be obvious, but I was confused about the configuration of the gas supply for Case #3. It seems he had two 3l tanks, one of which is referred to as the "main" tank and the other as "diluent", although both of them contained gas mixtures with ~20% O2 (the "main" tank trimix and the "diluent" tank heliox).

After the accident, the "main" tank showed 0 bar pressure. The report states that he realised the "main" tank had dropped to 0 bar at a 10m deco stop and tried to switch to a "secondary" oxygen tank. He was unable to do this and it seems he lost buoyancy in the attempt and sunk to ~33m.

He also had 2 bail-out tanks, both with plenty of gas.

Does this make sense? I thought a CCR would have one tank with a high percentage of O2 and another with the diluent gas, but according to the report both tanks had mixtures with ~20% O2.

Maybe a CCR diver could interpret this report a bit more clearly.

 

[nadwidny]

I'm not a CCR diver, so it may be obvious, but I was confused about the configuration of the gas supply for Case #3. It seems he had two 3l tanks, one of which is referred to as the "main" tank and the other as "diluent", although both of them contained gas mixtures with ~20% O2 (the "main" tank trimix and the "diluent" tank heliox).

After the accident, the "main" tank showed 0 bar pressure. The report states that he realised the "main" tank had dropped to 0 bar at a 10m deco stop and tried to switch to a "secondary" oxygen tank. He was unable to do this and it seems he lost buoyancy in the attempt and sunk to ~33m.

He also had 2 bail-out tanks, both with plenty of gas.

Does this make sense? I thought a CCR would have one tank with a high percentage of O2 and another with the diluent gas, but according to the report both tanks had mixtures with ~20% O2.

Maybe a CCR diver could interpret this report a bit more clearly.

it doesn't make sense.

 

[Subfiend]

It is astonishing to me how difficult it is to persuade the authorities to examine the black box data in scuba diving fatality investigations. The Rob Stewart case is a prime example. NEDU never examined the CCR's black box data, the US Coast Guard had to be forced to download the data - and then they misinterpreted it, and the Medical Examiner never looked at it. The result? Seven years of litigation over the cause of death, which was incorrectly attributed to hypoxia.

I can also tick off a list of cases where the dive computer was removed from the diver and the scene, without any thorough examination of the data ever taking place: Mills, Skiles, Barrett, Robles, etc.