GregT943
Contributor
I have been meaning to post this incident for a long time and just haven't gotten around to it until now. All names of people involved and dive operations involved have been left out.
Like the title suggests this incident happened the morning of Christmas Day 2010. We were doing a double dive out at Chumpon Pinnacle, one of our best dive sites. For those not familiar with the site, it is about 45 minutes away from Koh Tao. It is a rock Pinnacle that rises from the sea bed at around 30 meters to a depth of about 15 meters. There were 3 boats out on the site that morning. Our boat, another boat, and then Crystal Dive was tied up at the far end of the site a good distance away, and they had no part in this incident.
The conditions at the dive site were a little unusual. Usually there is no current or very very little current, but on this day the current was relatively strong. I actually ended my dive early because I could tell the customers I was leading were getting tired. The viz was normal, about 20 meters with a thermocline at a depth of around 25 meters where the viz was reduced to around 10 meters.
It was during our surface interval, we had finished our first dive about 20 minutes prior. I was sitting up on the top sun deck of our boat talking to some customers when two divers from the other boat surfaced. One diver began towing the other back to their boat. They didn't seem to be in any distress at all (other than the obvious fact one diver was being towed), they didn't yell for help or anything, he was just calmly towing the other diver back to the boat. The diver who was being towed was moving and at this point was conscious. I signaled to them asking if they were OK, the diver doing the towing looked at me but made no effort to communicate back. So I just assumed that the diver was just tired from battling the current during his dive, and went back to talking with the customers. (There were about 20 people on our boat, this included a couple of DMs and 3 or 4 instructors. Myself and the few customers on the sundeck were the only ones who observed the divers surfacing and being towed. Everyone else down below didn't see this.)
The ladder on the other boat was on the far side of the boat and out of our view. So the diver towed the other diver to the ladder and out of our view. A few minutes later a woman on the other boat starts yelling to our boat. She didn't speak English very well and no one knew what she was yelling. I immediately knew something was definitely wrong having seen the diver being towed to the boat. I jump down to the first deck to see everyone else just looking over at the woman confused. I say to the head instructor on our boat (lets call him Bob) that the woman is yelling for help. He immediately jumps in and starts the 20 meter swim to their boat and I am in the water right after him.
(The only people on the other boat was a woman (non-diver) and the Thai captain. Everyone else was still in the water diving.)
I swim around the front of their boat to see the diver who was being towed propped up on the ladder unconscious, labored breathing, with his eyes rolled back in his head. Now this diver was very big and clearly in very poor physical shape, 6 feet tall, about 250 pounds. The diver who towed the victim to the boat had removed the victims gear but wasn't strong enough to get the victim up the ladder. Bob gets underneath the victim and I climb up the side of the ladder up onto the boat to help lift the victim into the boat. We get him on the boat and I immediately yell to the captain to get their oxygen out. The victim was going in and out of consciousness and having a hard time breathing. The diver who towed the victim and the woman on the boat didn't speak english and clearly didn't have any rescue training. Not knowing what exactly happened, the only thing we really could do was put the victim on O2 and monitor his vitals. The captain pulls out their oxygen kit which Bob quickly begins to assemble. We quickly realize that their OXYGEN KIT IS INCOMPLETE!! Their pocket mask was missing the top valve piece and they had no demand valve, which is what we needed in this situation, because the victim was taking deep but labored breathes. The only working option they had was the non-rebreather mask with the bag for weakly breathing victims. We put this mask on the victim and every breath he took would completely collapse the bag. We called over to our boat and had them pull up next to the other boat. We grabbed our oxygen kit and set it up with the demand valve and administered it to the victim. Another instructor on our boat called the clinic to let them know that there has been an incident and to be waiting at the pier.
By this time the divers of the other boat began to surface and were extremely surprised to see one of their divers lying on the floor on oxygen. Unfortunately the victims 16 year old daughter was one of those divers who surfaced and did not react well to seeing her father in that way. The instructor on the other boat surfaced and immediately started asking us questions, which we didn't have any answers to. The victim was breathing and on oxygen and we couldn't do anything else for him on the boat. The only thing left to do was to get the victim back to land. Myself and Bob jumped back on to our boat and the other boat took off back to the island. Our boat stuck around to pick up the other boats remaining 2 divers who were still in the water.
We then returned to the pier because we no longer had emergency oxygen on board which meant we couldn't do a second dive.
Once we got back to the pier we were able to get the details about what exactly happened. They looked at the victims dive profile and it was fine. Turned out the victim was in diabetic shock and was not suffering from DCI. The doctor gave the victim a shot of insulin or something and then he was completely fine. But this incident brought up a couple of issues.
Always check to make sure the operator you are diving with has up to date and a complete oxygen kit. Especially in other countries like Thailand where regulations are not the strictest. What if the diver was suffering from DCS and we weren't there to help?
The other issue that this issue made me think about was a hole in dive training.There were many PADI rescue divers on our boat who did nothing because they admitted they didn't know what to do. Why is more extensive O2 training not include within the PADI rescue diving course? What good is it when you have the training to get the victim out of the water but after that can't do anything? Does PADI not include more extensive O2 provider training in the rescue course simply so they can make you pay for more training? Or is there a legitimate reason why they leave that out of the rescue diver course?
Like the title suggests this incident happened the morning of Christmas Day 2010. We were doing a double dive out at Chumpon Pinnacle, one of our best dive sites. For those not familiar with the site, it is about 45 minutes away from Koh Tao. It is a rock Pinnacle that rises from the sea bed at around 30 meters to a depth of about 15 meters. There were 3 boats out on the site that morning. Our boat, another boat, and then Crystal Dive was tied up at the far end of the site a good distance away, and they had no part in this incident.
The conditions at the dive site were a little unusual. Usually there is no current or very very little current, but on this day the current was relatively strong. I actually ended my dive early because I could tell the customers I was leading were getting tired. The viz was normal, about 20 meters with a thermocline at a depth of around 25 meters where the viz was reduced to around 10 meters.
It was during our surface interval, we had finished our first dive about 20 minutes prior. I was sitting up on the top sun deck of our boat talking to some customers when two divers from the other boat surfaced. One diver began towing the other back to their boat. They didn't seem to be in any distress at all (other than the obvious fact one diver was being towed), they didn't yell for help or anything, he was just calmly towing the other diver back to the boat. The diver who was being towed was moving and at this point was conscious. I signaled to them asking if they were OK, the diver doing the towing looked at me but made no effort to communicate back. So I just assumed that the diver was just tired from battling the current during his dive, and went back to talking with the customers. (There were about 20 people on our boat, this included a couple of DMs and 3 or 4 instructors. Myself and the few customers on the sundeck were the only ones who observed the divers surfacing and being towed. Everyone else down below didn't see this.)
The ladder on the other boat was on the far side of the boat and out of our view. So the diver towed the other diver to the ladder and out of our view. A few minutes later a woman on the other boat starts yelling to our boat. She didn't speak English very well and no one knew what she was yelling. I immediately knew something was definitely wrong having seen the diver being towed to the boat. I jump down to the first deck to see everyone else just looking over at the woman confused. I say to the head instructor on our boat (lets call him Bob) that the woman is yelling for help. He immediately jumps in and starts the 20 meter swim to their boat and I am in the water right after him.
(The only people on the other boat was a woman (non-diver) and the Thai captain. Everyone else was still in the water diving.)
I swim around the front of their boat to see the diver who was being towed propped up on the ladder unconscious, labored breathing, with his eyes rolled back in his head. Now this diver was very big and clearly in very poor physical shape, 6 feet tall, about 250 pounds. The diver who towed the victim to the boat had removed the victims gear but wasn't strong enough to get the victim up the ladder. Bob gets underneath the victim and I climb up the side of the ladder up onto the boat to help lift the victim into the boat. We get him on the boat and I immediately yell to the captain to get their oxygen out. The victim was going in and out of consciousness and having a hard time breathing. The diver who towed the victim and the woman on the boat didn't speak english and clearly didn't have any rescue training. Not knowing what exactly happened, the only thing we really could do was put the victim on O2 and monitor his vitals. The captain pulls out their oxygen kit which Bob quickly begins to assemble. We quickly realize that their OXYGEN KIT IS INCOMPLETE!! Their pocket mask was missing the top valve piece and they had no demand valve, which is what we needed in this situation, because the victim was taking deep but labored breathes. The only working option they had was the non-rebreather mask with the bag for weakly breathing victims. We put this mask on the victim and every breath he took would completely collapse the bag. We called over to our boat and had them pull up next to the other boat. We grabbed our oxygen kit and set it up with the demand valve and administered it to the victim. Another instructor on our boat called the clinic to let them know that there has been an incident and to be waiting at the pier.
By this time the divers of the other boat began to surface and were extremely surprised to see one of their divers lying on the floor on oxygen. Unfortunately the victims 16 year old daughter was one of those divers who surfaced and did not react well to seeing her father in that way. The instructor on the other boat surfaced and immediately started asking us questions, which we didn't have any answers to. The victim was breathing and on oxygen and we couldn't do anything else for him on the boat. The only thing left to do was to get the victim back to land. Myself and Bob jumped back on to our boat and the other boat took off back to the island. Our boat stuck around to pick up the other boats remaining 2 divers who were still in the water.
We then returned to the pier because we no longer had emergency oxygen on board which meant we couldn't do a second dive.
Once we got back to the pier we were able to get the details about what exactly happened. They looked at the victims dive profile and it was fine. Turned out the victim was in diabetic shock and was not suffering from DCI. The doctor gave the victim a shot of insulin or something and then he was completely fine. But this incident brought up a couple of issues.
Always check to make sure the operator you are diving with has up to date and a complete oxygen kit. Especially in other countries like Thailand where regulations are not the strictest. What if the diver was suffering from DCS and we weren't there to help?
The other issue that this issue made me think about was a hole in dive training.There were many PADI rescue divers on our boat who did nothing because they admitted they didn't know what to do. Why is more extensive O2 training not include within the PADI rescue diving course? What good is it when you have the training to get the victim out of the water but after that can't do anything? Does PADI not include more extensive O2 provider training in the rescue course simply so they can make you pay for more training? Or is there a legitimate reason why they leave that out of the rescue diver course?