SUMMARY
Diving fatalities generally arise from a combination of factors, none of which alone would have caused disaster.
The contributing factors show an emerging pattern which needs to be addressed by diver education and training. For example,
the majority of deaths were in divers who were medically unfit to dive or had a LOA or OOA element.
Competent and repeated dive medical examinations are essential. Diver training and re- training should result in proper planning, buoyancy control and air supply monitoring. Most of the deaths in recreational divers were preventable.
Case Report 34.1 A composite diving fatality might unfold as follows:
A young, inexperienced, slightly overconfident, indifferently trained, male diver undertakes a dive in open water under conditions with which he is relatively unfamiliar. He is healthy but does no regular exercise apart from occasional diving. He has a vague dive plan which he does not discuss with his equally casual buddy. He is mildly anxious because of the unfamiliar conditions. He follows his usual practice of using a generous number of weights, initially inflating and then deflating his B.C. on the surface, to allow his weights to help him descend. Fascination with the environment leads him and his buddy to descend to 40 metres, deeper than they originally intended. He checks his contents gauge and is alarmed to find he is close to his reserve. His anxiety is increased by the realisation that there may be a decompression requirement for this dive, but he may have insufficient air to complete even a safety stop. He is unsure of the decompression requirement, if any, and he did not bring any tables with him. He had not chosen any of the more conservative options on his decompression meter.
He activates the inflation valve on his B.C. but gets so little response that he swims for the surface. He heads for the surface alone with some urgency, unable to communicate with his buddy who is some distance away and preoccupied with other marine life. His air supply runs out during the ascent and he arrives at the surface in a state of panic.
He has extreme difficulty staying afloat but in his frenzied state, neglects to ditch his weight belt or orally inflate his B.C.. His predicament is aggravated by inhalation of sea water and the loss of one of his fins. He becomes exhausted trying to remain on the surface, because of his negative buoyancy and reduced propulsion.
A search team later found his body on the bottom – directly below where he surfaced. They have difficulty in surfacing the body, until they release the weight belt.
The most significant factors in recreational diving fatalities are:
•
diving with disqualifying medical conditions • stress responses -panic and fatigue
• salt water aspiration
• environmental water movement
• buoyancy problems
- inadequate air supply - LOA or OOA
- adverse sea conditions
- failure to ditch the weight belt when in difficulty
- ignoring or misapplying the buddy system
- improper use of equipment
- failure of equipment.
Chapter 34-15:
http://www.divingmedicine.info/Ch 34 SM10c.pdf
