Multiple deaths diving off NC coast May 10, 2020?

[uncfnp]

its was donated upside down according to the helmet gopro of the husband reviewed by the medical examiner
which caused her to gag and/or spit it out (breathing wet)
then she drowned in front of him

In Anthony in NC’s post he stated the James donated and Carla put it in upside down. Was this clarified later?

So "things that cause people to gag" like moulded mouthpieces in the wrong mouth are totally relevant here. If you go with primary donate, then as a buddy you have an obligation to not gag your buddy. Test your custom mouthpiece in their mouth if you can or use a standard mouthpiece on your primary reg.

Irrelevant to this case but in general I agree that if one dives with a specific buddy one should insure that buddy can tolerate the mouthpiece long enough to safely surface. Eric hates using my mouthpiece on the occasions we practice, which admittedly is too infrequently. But we both are also solo divers so perhaps we are not as conscientious of buddy courteous as we should be.

 

[johndiver999]

Not gagging your dive buddy is a worthy thought.

But, let's not lose sight of other important facts. She ran out of air. Then, apparently, she basically did not use any of her husband's air, because she gagged, vomited, etc., as soon as she tried to use her husband's air. Then, her husband ran out of air himself, on the way to the surface (while not even sharing with anyone else). So, she ran out and he was critically low at the same time (as you might expect of a compatible dive buddy - to both get low at about the same time).

The gagging sounds like a contributing factor that is of much lower importance, overall, than the fact that they were both out or critically low on gas..

I do not think there is necessarily enough information to draw the conclusion that the husband was critically low on air. Without more details from the video, I was initially tempted to draw that same conclusion, but then thought about the possibility that she or he pressed the purge button in an attempt to resolve the choking and/or vomiting. He might even have tried to hold the regulator on her mouth and purge it while he initiated the ascent. If so, this would also have been another error in the accident chain.

I think holding the purged regulator to panicked victim's mouth would be something I would do if they were choking and rejecting it (as I would be motoring to the surface). There is a chance that this accident might serve to remind us not to do that when low on air.

 

[Couch]

A somewhat off-topic question since I don't have a lot of experience with different computers. iphones and digital watches often have haptic alerts (physical buzzing) to alert you to something -- you're not walking far enough, you have a message, etc. The tech seems simple and common enough. I wonder if any wrist mounted computers have that? Plug in your plan, and the computer gives you a buzz ten minutes before you're scheduled to ascend, two buzzes five minutes... It seems like such a thing could prevent a lot of accidents -- if it worked, it'd be pretty hard to ignore. You would have to give some thought (or get some training) to know when you'd exerted yourself too much and you might be lower on air than you'd normally be.

Or what about a small LED strobe on the SPG set to trigger at some predetermined pressure? Would any of that be practical and useful?

 

[Saniflush]

I use one. Only downside is having to remold after every new crown.

If I was in an out of air situation, a molded mouthpiece would be absolutely no deterrent to me getting a breath from a working regulator. A very different response to a controlled reg swap in a pool.

Or freeflow it and take your breaths that way. I'm with you @tridacna , I will find a way to get my breaths!

 

[AfterDark]

SPECULATION! SPECULATION!

THEORETICAL POSTING! THEORETICAL POSTING!

Clouded judgement from being low on air, narced, task overload, 1 divers low on air becomes 2 divers low on air.

depending on where the trouble started. Were they far from the up line and had to swim to it, exerting themselves. breathing the 1st stage, hard.

in an attempt to prevent being lost in the current and drifting off they thought the best chance of survival was to get to the up line and follow it up.

a free ascent in current (I believe I have read up thread that this dive had current) would have been scary and add more challenges, in their minds.

personal thought here is I would have done a free ascent and pop a smb asap.

A diver in our group got off the wreck in the current diving in NC he found some rocks to feed his spool line thru shot his SMB, then took the reel with him on his ascent. The Capt. sent a DM to the SMB to assist the diver who detached the SMB and reeled in the line, recovering the line, and smb while he was recovered. Pretty slick IMO.

 

[AfterDark]

Will be interesting to see how it plays out. There certainly can be current out there and on the Schurz there isn't much to get behind to get out of it. Like anywhere, there is a lot of pressure to return to the upline (and the embarrassment factor to go along with it if you don't), but people popping up away from the anchorline happens all the time down there. Most don't even bother with a bag - they just pop up wherever. I've seen people ascend the anchorline, get back on the boat, start taking off their gear and talking about how great the dive was and then all of a sudden realizing they are looking at a bunch of unfamiliar faces. Then it dawns on them that they ascended the wrong anchor line and are now on the wrong boat. That surface swim of shame back sucks.

Not for me I descended to 25fsw and nav'd back to the correct boat!

 

[Dan]

I think if they carried that tiny Spare Air (SA), this accident would have been avoided. She would have just pulled the SA off her BC, calmly suck a couple of breaths while finning to her husband and signaling thumbs up to ascent. Her husband then would have given his SA to her when she ran out of air in her SA as they are ascending to the surface.

 

[Barnaby'sDad]

A somewhat off-topic question since I don't have a lot of experience with different computers. iphones and digital watches often have haptic alerts (physical buzzing) to alert you to something -- you're not walking far enough, you have a message, etc. The tech seems simple and common enough. I wonder if any wrist mounted computers have that? Plug in your plan, and the computer gives you a buzz ten minutes before you're scheduled to ascend, two buzzes five minutes... It seems like such a thing could prevent a lot of accidents -- if it worked, it'd be pretty hard to ignore. You would have to give some thought (or get some training) to know when you'd exerted yourself too much and you might be lower on air than you'd normally be.

Or what about a small LED strobe on the SPG set to trigger at some predetermined pressure? Would any of that be practical and useful?

If someone is so focused/in the zone on a diving activity (ex. Hunting) that they aren’t routinely monitoring their gas consumption, I don’t think they’re going to notice a flashing LED light or a buzzing/vibrating computer.

That and your dive plan (ex. NDL) is only part of the issue here. What you’re proposing would only be useful in a situation like this if the computer had air integration and was somehow programmed with a “ascend now” gas level...to tell the diver to call the dive.

What you’re proposing would be a false sense of security to divers, as some would assume that the values fed to the computer for your gas requirements are accurate given the dive profile.

What happens if the diver was more active than their usual dive for that depth and their gas burn rate was higher than normal? Is the computer going to analyze their previous dives, monitor their exiting gas burn rate on the fly, and reach the conclusion for the diver that they in fact have to turn to head up the line and ascend X minutes earlier than expected?

 

[dfcliff]

If someone is so focused/in the zone on a diving activity (ex. Hunting) that they aren’t routinely monitoring their gas consumption, I don’t think they’re going to notice a flashing LED light or a buzzing/vibrating computer.

That and your dive plan (ex. NDL) is only part of the issue here. What you’re proposing would only be useful in a situation like this if the computer had air integration and was somehow programmed with a “ascend now” gas level...to tell the diver to call the dive.

What you’re proposing would be a false sense of security to divers, as some would assume that the values fed to the computer for your gas requirements are accurate given the dive profile.

What happens if the diver was more active than their usual dive for that depth and their gas burn rate was higher than normal? Is the computer going to analyze their previous dives, monitor their exiting gas burn rate on the fly, and reach the conclusion for the diver that they in fact have to turn to head up the line and ascend X minutes earlier than expected?

My dive computer does that computation on the fly. It is air integrated and it's constantly calculating Dive Time Remaining (DTR) based on NDL, O2 accumulation, and Air Time Remaining.

Whichever has the lowest value (least time remaining is displayed on the screen as DTR. For the air time remaining, it's recalculated every 60 seconds based on current depth, current air consumption, and any stops (deco if NDL violated and safety). It's also calculated for you to be on the surface with whatever reserve air amount you program in.

At 5 minutes of ATR, it will sound an audible alarm and again at 0 ATR. But even at 0 ATR, you should have enough air at current consumption level to make a safe ascent with all stops and arrive at the surface with planned reserve.

 

[stuartv]

If someone is so focused/in the zone on a diving activity (ex. Hunting) that they aren’t routinely monitoring their gas consumption, I don’t think they’re going to notice a flashing LED light or a buzzing/vibrating computer.

That and your dive plan (ex. NDL) is only part of the issue here. What you’re proposing would only be useful in a situation like this if the computer had air integration and was somehow programmed with a “ascend now” gas level...to tell the diver to call the dive.

What you’re proposing would be a false sense of security to divers, as some would assume that the values fed to the computer for your gas requirements are accurate given the dive profile.

What happens if the diver was more active than their usual dive for that depth and their gas burn rate was higher than normal? Is the computer going to analyze their previous dives, monitor their exiting gas burn rate on the fly, and reach the conclusion for the diver that they in fact have to turn to head up the line and ascend X minutes earlier than expected?

Umm, yeah.... Those computers already exist. Even my old Oceanic Atom 3.0 did all that (and did it well). You set it for whatever psi you want to hit the surface with and it tracks your depth and your consumption rate over the last 90 seconds and tells you how much Gas Time Remaining you have. If you stay down until GTR hits 0, then ascend at exactly 30ft/min to the surface, continuing to breathe at the same rate the whole way, you will arrive with 500 psi (or whatever Reserve you set) in your tank.

I think my Atom only beeps. No vibrate.

But, my Teric has a very similar feature and it will do beep, vibrate, or both.