Equipment Near Drowning off Ft Lauderdale, full face snorkel mask

[lowwall]

And now looking back at her actions and reactions, good chance she was experiencing hypercapnia and/or hypoxaemia.

That would be my second concern (after making sure there wasn't water in the mask), so I would have tried pretty hard to get the mask off of her. But I was also a lifeguard and I know it's not easy to get cooperation when you have someone on the edge of panic.

 

[jadairiii]

But I was also a lifeguard and I know it's not easy to get cooperation when you have someone on the edge of panic.

Correct. I could tell, being 100 yards off shore, this could turn ugly, and she was responding so, get her to the beach. If I had had a cutting tool, that would have been off in 2 seconds, no argument!

 

[johndiver999]

Correct. I could tell, being 100 yards off shore, this could turn ugly, and she was responding so, get her to the beach. If I had had a cutting tool, that would have been off in 2 seconds, no argument!

Great job on the rescue. If she declined to voluntarily remove the mask, I would not take it off her unless I had no option.

I tried one of those mask to see how they feel. It was amazingly horrible and I was super claustrophobic. Learning to use a normal mask and snorkel sure seems easier to me.

 

[Subfiend]

In early 2018, HEAD/MARES tested the safety of a variety of full face snorkel masks (“FFSMs”), and these tests concluded that very few FFSMs on the market were safe. The company made the results of this testing available to both the Hawaii authorities investigating the matter and to the public. Since then, HEAD/MARES has performed further testing on FFSMs in cooperation with a German diving magazine and an independent lab in the United States, Divelab, Inc. Divelab’s independent testing on its own equipment verified the test results obtained by HEAD/MARES. HEAD/MARES provided this information to the Hawaii authorities and it offered to assist them with further testing and study of the issues surrounding these masks.

The attached statement was provided to Hawaii authorities conducting a study to determine the cause of snorkeling deaths in the state (the highest in the U.S.) and to the media.

 

[John the Pom]

I'm going to copy the parts of the following posts related to FFMs for those who didn't last to page 7 of this thread: ROPE - I have not heard of this snorkeling problem

by @Dr Simon Mitchell
...Full face snorkel masks have been raised in this thread several times. You may be interested in a study we recently published exploring their propensity for generating hypoxia or hypercapnia in comparison to a normal snorkel. See attached or https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10735670/pdf/DHM-53-313.pdf ...

[snip]

... IMO, these full face masks are dangerous and defective when used for their intended purpose.

The paper from Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine is a really important link - I'm going to share it as widely as I can. IMO it is a potential life-saver.

J