Freediver dies providing safety - Blue Hole Arch, Egypt

[Kay Dee]

For the record, I know a number of serious tech divers who descend that fast or faster on a regular basis and mostly they come up to their "off-gassing point" or around half their max depth or somewhere near their first deco stop (totally depends on the person and the dive) that fast, too. For descents, pointing a DPV at the bottom and hitting the trigger seems not at all unusual among deep (>200ft/60m) wreck divers.

Seeing this old thread has been brought back to life, I'd like to 'comment' on the above.

First, re the now underlined, MEA CULPA!

When we were diving USS Atlanta (Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands) in the 90's, we would reach 120m / 390ft in two minutes, or just over on Aquazepp scooters. For ascent we'd point our scooter up, hit the trigger and only take it off at out first deco stop at 66m / 216ft (where we would switch to our as our first deco gas which was ........air!) The name of the game back then was to get out of the deep area and off the bottom mix (of helium) as fast as possible, and we certainly did our best to accomplish that.

So yes it was done, have done it, but in hindsight I certainly would not do or recommend that kind of ascent now (and choose a better deco gas for 66m also).

 

[Kay Dee]

It is no the descend that is the problem if on scuba. It is the ascend. At the deepest point the scuba diver has a lung full air at say 6 or more ATM. Free divers basically ascend as fast as possible and they are streamlined. Sounds dangerous for some one on scuba to shoot up from 180 ft.

Yes but............that (experienced) scuba safety diver is not going to (or should not) hold that breathe on that ascent. As long as he continually exhales (as his lungs expand) on his ascent he will not, or should not, get an air embolism, nor get bent if he has only been at that depth for a minute or two. Besides, there should be more than one safety diver (and IMO that should not be another free-diver!) on a dive like on which the accident occurred, positioned at no more than 25m to 30m max apart on the ascent to hand off 'responsibility' to. After all, accidents often happen when doing it 'on the cheap' and / or setting your own safety rules (a recent case in point is the Titan submersible disaster).

Be that as it may, condolences to the deceased's family and friends.

 

[BlueTrin]

One thing they mention in the “documentary” is that the safety diver has to close the mouth of the victim: a bit like the pistol grip when you rescue a scuba diver.

So you’d need to accompany the diver to the surface.

It seems implied that he lost consciousness at the surface but nobody was there to keep him face up.

It seems that the original failure was due to the safety diver being 20 seconds late compared to schedule, this is mentioned in the official report linked above too.

 

[Vicko]

Scuba divers have been used as safety divers for the last 20 years. I have been one in a number of record attempts.You don't ascend with the victim, you attach a lift bag and send him up or you attach him to the main line and bang on it to signal that they should start the recovery device.

Any expenditure of energy at the bottom part of a freedive costs you a lot, your muscles have already switched to anoxic processes and lactic acid is building up at a staggering rate compared to surface condition. Having safety freedivers bellow 30m is for show only, there is almost nothing they can do safely.

Commercial freediving has exploded 5 years ago and this is the price.
To save 50 euros for a scuba safety at the bottom a person has died.

 

[Kay Dee]

I watched the documentary last night and was simply stunned that they did not have something as simple as a strobe on the upline at the exit from the arch so she could see the upline, which she couldn't find (because SK was late getting down for the meet-up) and which in turn lead directly to the death of SK. That dive had a lot of very loose ends, to say the least, yet those folks were VERY experienced divers. Just goes to show, relying on everthing to go as planned, or just plain complacency, often kills.

 

[Shasta_man]

I would imagine freedivers have to wage a constant fight against complacency because their successful completion of amazing tasks makes it easy to think everything else is not a big deal.

 

[LFMarm]

What is surprising to me is not having safety divers on SCUBA or CC for such a difficult dive. Nobody can know for sure but there is a good chance it would have avoided the tragedy.

Despite the bad reputation, it a fairly easy dive with the proper gear, even if you need to rescue a lost diver at the deepest point.

Some pictures from last month.