Medical One dead, two injured - Des Moines, Washington

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DandyDon

Umbraphile
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Location
One kilometer high on the Texas Central Plains
# of dives
500 - 999
A scuba diver died Monday night, Aug. 25, 2025 at Redondo Beach Park after experiencing a medical emergency underwater during a night dive, South King Fire & Rescue said.

Crews were dispatched to the waterfront at about 9 p.m. after reports of a possible diving incident. Fellow divers had already pulled the victim to shore and attempted to assist before firefighters arrived.

“During a night dive, one of the participants experienced a medical emergency at depth and was quickly brought to the surface,” Capt. Brad Chaney told The Waterland Blog. “The patient was then swam back to shore, where our firefighters met them. Crews took over and performed several rounds of CPR, but unfortunately, the patient was pronounced dead at the scene.”


Two other divers were transported to local hospitals for observation after making a rapid ascent during the rescue attempt, according to fire officials.

South King Fire also addressed rumors circulating online about possible electrocution.

“To clarify some misinformation on social media, statements were made that this was a possible electrocution,” Chaney said. “The area was experiencing a power outage at the time of the incident. There was an electrical fire incident just before the CPR incident at 8:53 p.m., located at 272nd and 16th Avenue South, that most likely caused the power outage.”

Chaney noted that the electrical fire and subsequent power outage were unrelated to the scuba incident.

The victim’s identity has not yet been released.
 
I'm super bummed to hear about this, saw this on FB as well.

That was our home dive site for a few years and so many of my early dives, so I suspect I know (or at least know of) this person in the community.

That site gets down to ~90' real fast
 
Very sad. I didn't know the diver impacted. If you do a web search the name of the diver has been published. I won't name them in my post at this time. I didn't recall it, but there was another fatal accident at the site in 2009.

This is a very popular dive site (just south of Seattle) especially July and August when the Sixgill Sharks are frequenting the location. Probably a 100+ divers a week for the season. It's still popular the rest of the year as an easily accessible muck diving site and training location. As mentioned, it has an extensive shallow terrain with various objects and habitat planted. In the 80–100-foot range there are several sunken boats and century old middens of glass bottle that are great for little critters. To look for Sixgills you need to be in that 80–100-foot range.

In the wintertime the hot attraction is Pacific Spiny Lumpsuckers. But it's always full of red octos, stubby squid, gunnels, and the occasional GPO.
 
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