One dead, one missing (since found), 300 foot dive - Lake Michigan

[Dan]

British diver breaks rebreather World Record for depth – to 290m

The world record for CCR diving is 290m depth. Took William Goodman 9 minutes to reach 290m or 32.2 m/min (105.7 ft/min) descent rate. A total time of 9 hours and 57 minutes to bounce dive to > 290m (his gauge maxed out at 290m and he went beyond that)

 

[JohnnyC]

30m/min is perfectly acceptable for CCR as long as the ADV is keeping up with the descent.

 

[Vicko]

British diver breaks rebreather World Record for depth – to 290m

The world record for CCR diving is 290m depth. Took William Goodman 9 minutes to reach 290m or 32.2 m/min (105.7 ft/min) descent rate. A total time of 9 hours and 57 minutes to bounce dive to > 290m (his gauge maxed out at 290m and he went beyond that)

View attachment 529298

Starnawski did 303m in Garda last year. One person died a week after that after reaching 315m

 

[RainPilot]

(his gauge maxed out at 290m and he went beyond that)

Ahmed's team at the University of Cairo spent almost a year validating the properties of the tag rope they were using, in order to determine the total stretch and the weight required to get it to hang vertically in the current, it then took the Guinness representative a full day to personally affix all the tags and then secure the rope, then the rope was reinspected the next day before being deployed, then when Ahmed brought up his tag, it was then checked against the rope list (did not say depth on it, had random numbers kept in a list by Guinness person)

A "maxed-out depth gauge" doesn't sound like a genuine method of determining a world record to me. Not to Guinness standards anyway.

 

[Kay Dee]

The above quoted ME’s report has it.. The Winns descended at 1228 and the captain noticed her on the surface at 1323 when he head a splash. So 55 min.

Thanks for that.

So given that elapsed time I wouln't think a fast descent had anything to do with it. But thats just my thoughts.

 

[MykaDives]

The above quoted ME’s report has it.. The Winns descended at 1228 and the captain noticed her on the surface at 1323 when he head a splash. So 55 min.

I believe you have a typo. The report says they descended at 1238 and noticed her on the surface at 1323, so 45 mins.

I hope we find out what was on the husband's computer.

 

[telemonster]

Old thread, but I ran across a posting from a family member with more details on this at divermag.com (Rebreather Fatalities - DIVER magazine.) Turned up in a google search, IIRC it was two rEvos. I'm adding it to this thread for the sake of keeping records together and because it provides more details on the event:


Michelle Cunney
25/11/2019 at 10:45 am
Comment Link

Thank you for sharing this article. My aunt and uncle both died on June 28th, 2019 during a dive to explore the wreck of the SS L.R. Dotty in Lake Michigan at 300 feet deep. They were highly trained, experienced, certified technical divers. They chose to use a rebreather so they could explore the wreck for a longer period of time. I know they were extremely educated and had hundreds of practice hours logged using the rebreathers. They have been featured on the cover as well as being the top story in quite a few scuba diving magazines multiple times. They were asked and paid to perform dives with professional scuba diving photographers for these magazine photos. They have literally been all over the world for their scuba diving adventures and they loved every second of it. About 45 minutes after they started this dive my aunt was spotted floating face down by the boats captain who took them the 12 miles off shore where the wreck was located. He immediately took action with the crew to get to her and try to revive her as well as one member of the crew who went below deck and knocked a specific number of times on a glass window that apparently all the divers are able to hear and know that it means start to surface immediately. They got my aunt from the water onto the boat after removing all her gear and performed CPR until the coast guard rescue boat arrived with a helipad for the helicopter that had been hovering over the boat waiting they were on until they were able to land on the other boat, which immediately got right up against the boat that had taken the divers to the wreck, the team of people who’s job is specifically to do any and all means necessary to revive a scuba diving victim immediately jumped onto the boat and took over compressions and breaths while another man connected my aunt to a CPR machine so they could get her in the helicopter and to the nearest hospital(from what I know they never had a chance of being able to save her life) By this time the other 3 diving buddies had surfaced when one crew member realized my uncle hadn’t. They immediately called for a search but they only way they were able to search was to look for him elsewhere above the water because certified technical scuba divers aren’t easy to come by no one from the sheriffs office or the coast guard could actually search for him near the wreck. After 8 hours the search was called of and began a day and a half later. The team included the Milwaukee sheriff’s department, coast guard and the most amazing non profit organization dedicated to recovering the bodies of drowning victims, called Bruce’s Legacy. They brought a submarine that was built specifically for this purpose… it had robotic arms and was able to pick up something as small as a shoe but was used to bring the drowning victim to the surface. They did recover my uncles body(thank God)… my aunts autopsy showed that her ultimate cause of death was drowning due to water found in her lungs and some sort of mark or popped blood vessel on her face or neck somewhere that appears when people drown. They were unable to find any possible cause of death for my uncle. An investigation was started almost immediately after they had recovered all the equipment that they had lost of my aunts because to get her out of the water they had to remove all of it and it of course sank, they found all my uncles equipment that had been lost sometime while he was in the water. They told us they estimated the investigation would take 2-3 weeks. They had to review all the computer info etc and they sent the tell rebreathers to the manufacturer to be checked for any malfunction etc, well the investigation was finally closed a week ago, the meeting set up with my family to explain what they discover and what their theory regarding what actually happened is. It apparent took so long because my uncles computer was never turned off and I don’t know how long it lasted until the battery died but there was so much information to go through it apparently made an investigation that would have taken a few weeks turn into one that took nearly 5 months. My dad had been in touch with the people in charge of the investigation the whole time and he just told me today that he had been told a few things that he hadn’t shared with anyone other than my mom. They think my uncle passed out… they know that part of one of the scooters fell off(so they think the both tried to find it) which could be a possible explanation for maybe my uncle forgetting to check the gas levels and all that causing him to pass out with no warning signs and no ability to switch from the rebreather to his back up breathing gear(I don’t remember what it’s called). They think my aunt tried to revive him somehow for 20 minutes ( (apparently it can be done, I just can’t understand how you could revive someone underwater, wearing extremely heavy equipment, breathing through a machine and all that but they have audio that makes them think that she was trying to get him back. They said we can listen to but warned us that they didn’t think we should because whatever they heard in the 20 minutes of the recording would be extremely devastating and traumatic and they thought our family had already been traumatized far too much) I guess they think my aunt started to surface and somehow drowned. She didn’t forget to stop every however many feet for the right amount of time while she was attempting to surface and they know this because she didn’t die from decompression sickness etc… my only guess even though I’m not educated at all about any of this stuff to really even have a guess is that she was so traumatized by my uncles death and having to leave him at the bottom of the lake that she was crying so hard and probably having a panic attack leading to her starting to hyperventilate or something and ultimately somehow it allowed water to get in and she could not regain control of her breathing because it’s not easy under normal circumstances once you’ve started to hyperventilate so I can’t imagine being able to stop it after going through what she just had as well as being so deep underwater and all of that so she started basically inhaling water into her lungs.

Anyways, when I was talking to my dad this morning and he told me the few things he had been told and warned me that if I decided to come to the meeting where they explain everything the know for a fact and whatever they don’t know they will explain their best theory about what happened that the would probably place some of the blame on my uncle not being diligent enough and didn’t do the things he was supposed to do like checking the gas levels every few minutes and he knows me well enough to know that even if I know they aren’t actually blaming him or criticizing him I will automatically go into my defensive mode and start screaming at them for making this tragedy his fault in any why shape or form.. on that note I wanted to say that when you called a few of the deaths “natural selection” I think it is incredibly inappropriate that you actually put it in the article regardless that it’s what you think.

Thank you for the article over all, I’m just trying to learn all I can about rebreathers right now because I have to find a way to make sense of this in my head in order to even start to heal, because I’m truly broken over this.

 

[lv2dive]

<Edited to note that I originally thought the family member themselves had posted on here - ignore everything written to them, I’m going to leave it in case they ever find their way here. @telemonster thanks for updating the post!>

You have given us a greater gift than you could possibly know... we have so many fatalities and we so rarely find out what caused them. The vast majority of deaths of deaths in Diving are due to diver error of one sort or another - an error that on a different day, or with a different buddy, Or with a buddy, or without buddy, or with any other minuscule difference, would make for a far different outcome.

You explained what happened. It sounds like your uncle may not have been monitoring his PPO2 (partial pressure of oxygen) as diligently as he should have while they were looking for the scooter part, and he passed out. It would have been like he just went to sleep. And I can certainly understand your aunts reaction. There’s only so much control we have over our emotional reactions.

the reason this is so important to be shared is that it reiterates how important the lessons we learn in our very first rebreather class are. Your aunt and uncle were by all accounts very experienced and well-trained divers, and if your uncle could fall into the trap of focusing more on find a lost scooter part than on monitoring his PPO2, then so could each and every one of us.

there should be no talk of “natural selection” or anything similar on here- if there is, please hit the report button and it will be addressed immediately. Please note, we generally discourage family members from reading these threads, because there often is quite a bit of speculation that can feel antagonistic towards the deceased when it is not meant as such. As divers, we know this sport can be risky, and most of the people who frequent this part of the board are doing so in order to take away lessons others have learned.

again, our most sincere thanks for sharing the results of the investigation with us. I add my condolences to the many others who have expressed them, it sounds like your aunt and uncle were exceptional divers and people.