Right. Her death was solely caused by her decision to go back down for a missed safety stop.
By Terry Rodgers UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER February 7, 2001
A prominent San Diego marine biologist drowned as a result of unsafe diving procedures and the apparent failure of a weight-release device that would have allowed her to surface quickly.
That's the conclusion of a team of diving experts asked by the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office to examine evidence gathered after the Jan. 7 death of ocean scientist Mia Tegner.
Tegner, 53, an expert diver and researcher with UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, had been diving at Wreck Alley off Mission Beach to chart the growth of marine life. She was with four other divers, including her husband, Eric Hanauer.
The report by the Diving Death Review Committee, chaired by San Diego Lifeguard Lt. Brant Bass, provides the following account of Tegner's last dive:
Tegner, who was on her second dive that afternoon, was exploring a shipwreck in 85 feet of water with her husband, who was her diving partner. After being down for 20 minutes, Hanauer started to run out of air, and he surfaced.
Tegner continued her dive alone. Shortly thereafter, her air supply also became low, and she ascended.
Upon reaching the surface, Tegner told someone aboard the boat that her diver's computer was telling her she needed additional decompression time. She grabbed another diver's partially depleted air tank, which still had a buoyancy vest attached, and descended with it under her arm.
About four minutes later, the air tank and buoyancy vest bobbed to the surface.
Tegner's husband immediately went down to look for her, but ran low on air before he could find her. A San Diego lifeguard diver later discovered her body on the ocean floor.
The expert panel believes Tegner ran out of air before completing her "safety stop," a final pause of three to five minutes in 15 to 25 feet of water. It's a routine procedure to provide an extra margin of safety to eliminate any remaining nitrogen bubbles in a diver's blood.
It appears Tegner used some of her limited air supply to inflate the buoyancy vest attached to the second air tank, which probably slipped from her grasp, the report stated.
She couldn't rise to the surface without inflating her buoyancy vest or injecting air into her diving suit, the report states, which wasn't possible because her own air tank was depleted.
"Her motor skills may have been impaired by diving decompression sickness or an arterial gas embolism, which may have led to her losing her grasp of the second tank, which was most likely her only source of air and buoyancy at the time," the report states.
Tegner also was carrying 40.5 pounds of weights, which may have been too much, the report suggests.
Tegner could have saved herself by releasing the diver's weights attached to her buoyancy vest. However, an examination of her weight device -- a case containing lead balls rather than the traditional dive belt -- found that the release pin "was bent to a degree that the weights would have been very difficult to release," the report states.
Having run out of air and sinking, Tegner was unable to unbuckle and remove her weights. The report says decompression sickness -- also called the bends -- may have impaired her judgment.
An autopsy found she had an air embolism, but that could have occurred after death when divers recovered her body, Bass said.
The report concluded the accident could have been avoided if at least four procedures had been followed:
If Tegner had "maintained her gear in such a way that dropping the weights could have been accomplished." If she had been diving with less weight. If she had stayed with her diving partner. If she had "managed her air and her dive profile in a way that would have left adequate reserves for a decompression safety stop and buoyancy."
A prominent San Diego marine biologist drowned as a result of unsafe diving procedures and the apparent failure of a weight-release device that would have allowed her to surface quickly.
That's the conclusion of a team of diving experts asked by the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office to examine evidence gathered after the Jan. 7 death of ocean scientist Mia Tegner.
Tegner, 53, an expert diver and researcher with UCSD's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, had been diving at Wreck Alley off Mission Beach to chart the growth of marine life. She was with four other divers, including her husband, Eric Hanauer.
The report by the Diving Death Review Committee, chaired by San Diego Lifeguard Lt. Brant Bass, provides the following account of Tegner's last dive:
Tegner, who was on her second dive that afternoon, was exploring a shipwreck in 85 feet of water with her husband, who was her diving partner. After being down for 20 minutes, Hanauer started to run out of air, and he surfaced.
Tegner continued her dive alone. Shortly thereafter, her air supply also became low, and she ascended.
Upon reaching the surface, Tegner told someone aboard the boat that her diver's computer was telling her she needed additional decompression time. She grabbed another diver's partially depleted air tank, which still had a buoyancy vest attached, and descended with it under her arm.
About four minutes later, the air tank and buoyancy vest bobbed to the surface.
Tegner's husband immediately went down to look for her, but ran low on air before he could find her. A San Diego lifeguard diver later discovered her body on the ocean floor.
The expert panel believes Tegner ran out of air before completing her "safety stop," a final pause of three to five minutes in 15 to 25 feet of water. It's a routine procedure to provide an extra margin of safety to eliminate any remaining nitrogen bubbles in a diver's blood.
It appears Tegner used some of her limited air supply to inflate the buoyancy vest attached to the second air tank, which probably slipped from her grasp, the report stated.
She couldn't rise to the surface without inflating her buoyancy vest or injecting air into her diving suit, the report states, which wasn't possible because her own air tank was depleted.
"Her motor skills may have been impaired by diving decompression sickness or an arterial gas embolism, which may have led to her losing her grasp of the second tank, which was most likely her only source of air and buoyancy at the time," the report states.
Tegner also was carrying 40.5 pounds of weights, which may have been too much, the report suggests.
Tegner could have saved herself by releasing the diver's weights attached to her buoyancy vest. However, an examination of her weight device -- a case containing lead balls rather than the traditional dive belt -- found that the release pin "was bent to a degree that the weights would have been very difficult to release," the report states.
Having run out of air and sinking, Tegner was unable to unbuckle and remove her weights. The report says decompression sickness -- also called the bends -- may have impaired her judgment.
An autopsy found she had an air embolism, but that could have occurred after death when divers recovered her body, Bass said.
The report concluded the accident could have been avoided if at least four procedures had been followed:
If Tegner had "maintained her gear in such a way that dropping the weights could have been accomplished." If she had been diving with less weight. If she had stayed with her diving partner. If she had "managed her air and her dive profile in a way that would have left adequate reserves for a decompression safety stop and buoyancy."
