Ginnie Springs Fatality - Apr 3, 2016 - UPDATE
This year has been a bad one for our cave community. We have lost five divers here in Florida ( that I am aware of ) and several more in other parts of the world. We will probably never have answers as to what happened in most of these accidents and as a result, accident analysis becomes difficult and sometimes impossible.
The accident at Ginnie on Apr 3 of this year involved a rebreather, which meant that opinions about what happened came from all over the world. Rebreather accidents seem to get more than their fair share of exposure!
The gear was returned to me from the local law enforcement folks in late October and the bottom line is, ALL of the gear was working correctly, including the Optima. For those of you who were on the deck at Ginnie when the Optima canister was opened, it was obvious that a small amount of water was present. I am told that this was not enough to degrade the cartridge and also we need to keep in mind that when Mike switched to open circuit, it is possible that some water entered the system. Gas analysis showed all mixes to be correct. Once again, all gear checked out perfectly.
The autopsy results came back in around a month or so but the toxicology tests seemed to take forever. The whole process took around 5-6 months and results are as follows:
Primary cause of death - Drowning
Contributing cause of death - Occluded LAD artery. This was the show stopper! In other words, a heart attack.
In the past 8 months, I have learned more about heart attacks than I ever wanted to know. and one point that the medical folks both here at Shands Hospital in Gainesville and the online sites all agree on, is that an LAD heart attack is the "heart attack of all heart attacks". Maybe that's why it's called the "Widow Maker" It probably goes without saying, that getting medical help after a heat attack is extremely important, but in the case of an LAD attack, they say that 45 minutes is the window. Not to imply that you won't survive if it takes longer to get medical help, but the odds seem to be against you.
Going back to my initial report in April, I wrote that Mike started to experience "unusual" symptoms at the 2500 foot location in Sweet Surprise. From this point, to the MapleLeaf area, took around 45 minutes, so time was running out. It was in and around this location that Mike passed.
I know that a lot of you guys and gals reading this post have a medical background, and if I've said anything that is not correct, don't hesitate to make corrections. We are all here to learn!
One last note: I got around 40 or so PMs, and I thank you all for your kind thoughts and excellent questions and I hope that I gave you the answers you were looking for, given what I knew back in April.
It's a terrible thing to lose a friend, and it hurts even more when the accident takes place when you're doing a "fun thing" I take comfort in knowing that Mike always sought out the required training and kept his skills up to date. On this day, I'm sure he fought until the last breath. Rest in peace, Mike
