Unknown Polish diver dead - Lake Attersee, Austria

[DandyDon]

59-Jähriger starb bei Tauchunfall im Attersee

STEINBACH AM ATTERSEE. Ein Mann aus Polen verunglückte bei einem Tauchgang im Bereich "Schwarze Brücke".

www.nachrichten.at

Three divers traveled together, two wanted to dive to 100 meters, the third did not want to go that deep so he was essentially solo diving.

Google translation...

STEINBACH AM ATTERSEE. A man from Poland had an accident while diving in the “Black Bridge” area.​

A fatal diving accident occurred on Thursday afternoon in the municipality of Steinbach am Attersee (Vöcklabruck district): a 59-year-old was found floating lifeless in the water. The man died at the scene of the accident, the police said in the evening. The exact background was still unclear.

Accident in the “Black Bridge” area​

All that was known at the moment was that the Pole and two other compatriots had gone diving in the Attersee around 4 p.m. The trio went into the water at the “Black Bridge” entry point. Two group members planned a dive to a depth of around 100 meters, the 59-year-old only wanted to dive to 50 meters.
There may have been problems. Another Polish diving group, which was traveling in the area at the same time, became aware of the diver floating motionless in the water, pulled him to shore and alerted the rescue team. Attempts at resuscitation were unsuccessful: the 59-year-old died at the scene of the accident, the police announced in the evening.

Up to 169 meters deep​

The Attersee is considered the largest lake that is located entirely within Austria. It is particularly popular with divers because the water reaches a depth of up to 169 meters. Experts estimate that around 200,000 dives are carried out in Lake Attersee every year. Diving takes place all year round.
The two entry points “Ofen” and the “Black Bridge” located around 500 meters away in the municipality of Steinbach are notorious for fatal diving accidents. The bottom there is around 130 meters deep. Because of its depth and level of difficulty, the Black Bridge has often been the scene of fatal accidents; wooden crosses line the bank. A memorial and information boards have also been set up at the entry point as a warning. Years ago there was even discussion about closing the diving site.

 

[Shasta_man]

Meaning no disrespect, if wooden crosses line the bank where I am getting in, I think would pass. I did look at some Youtube videos of the diving and it looks as I expected. I am lucky to live near an ocean.

RIP to the diver in this case.

 

[Plutonist]

Meaning no disrespect, if wooden crosses line the bank where I am getting in, I think would pass.

According to this documentary from 2020: (German, auto-translation sometimes OK, sometimes hilarious) they removed the wooden crosses and replaced them by a single monument.

And yes, even after watching the whole video, I still don't get it. All interviewees unanimously state that there is nothing of interest beyond 35 m. I guess in part because they are frustrated from recovering dead tourists? But even the video footage down to 35 m doesn't look very inviting. If I wanted to see beautiful rock formations I would hike the surrounding mountains.

The most interesting part is the interview starting at 25:00 with someone who analyzed many (all?) fatal dive accidents at the lake. Besides the obvious causes such as overconfidence, unpreparedness, lack of training, wrong gas choice (air down to 100 m !?) he notes that most fatal accidents are due to hasty descents to great depths that made technical problems, which could have been easily fixed at lower depths, fatal. A second common theme seems to be stinginess when it comes to safety and safety backups. Quote: "Either you can afford tech diving or you let it be. Period."

By the end, the narrator concludes that the only reason to do deep dives there is to get a three digit (m) number on your computer. Make of that what you will.

 

[Vicko]

The only point of that dive site is to reach 100m, a lot of people use it for hypoxic courses as it's cheap and even more people use it to get that number on their computer.

 

[Shasta_man]

When I started diving I thought the point for the vast majority of divers was to see the amazing critters, but I have since found that is not the case for a larger percentage than I expected. I can see tech diving and cave diving for the places and things you get to see there not just to look at the number on your dive computer, but I guess my life is too exciting or too boring vs theirs.

 

[Germie]

There is a car at 92m. There are tons of trees down there. If you come up, you see the sun from around 80m depth. There is still fish at 100-130m depth. So it is not that there is nothing to see.
It is no big wreck or a nice reef. But there is still something to see.

But it is easier to reach 100m (faster) at Ofen than at Schwarze Brücke.

The Attersee is more popular than the Swiss lake of Thun (Thunersee), here you can reach depths over 100m more easy and faster than at Ofen or Schwarze Brücke. The divesite Fischbalme is a steep wall that goes over 150m depth, where you have to swim sometimes over some less steep places in the Attersee.

I have done my full trimix course for ccr in the Attersee, and after that I did 5 days of diving over 100m (100-128m) there. It was really not boring and it was not only for depth. I have finished my full trimix instructor course in the Attersee (divesite Ofen).
I also have dived Fischbalme at the Thunersee a couple of times till 135m. And there I finished my ccr instructor course.

1 of the things that can be a problem in these lakes is the cold. At surface it can be warm and down it is 3-4 degrees C. So a lot of people don't let their body cool down a little bit before going as soon as possible to 100m. If you do this, it is ok at 100m, but when you go up and start deco, you are really shivering from the cold. I also have experienced this. But when you wait 1-2 minutes below the first thermocline and then go down, you don't get this feeling so much.
In summer you are sweating due to the winterclothes under your drysuit. This makes you cool down faster.
Also the lake is down very dark. You get a nightdive feeling if you go deeper than 50m.

So I think it is an and-and-and-and-and reason that things go wrong here.
But the nothing to see argument, I really don't agree. At Ofen there is around 40m a small 'cave' (a hole in the wall), so again there is something deeper than 35m. Ok, it is no tropical water, but it is not that boring as some state here. And from my country, the Attersee is the nearest place to do a full trimix course, so it will be used of course by people for this. And you don't need a boat. Fresh water can be more complicated than salt water due to thermoclines. But you don't need to rinse the salt off after the dive
I still need to go back to try to find that car again as I now have a camera to take some pictures of it.

This is a sad accident, but we don't know why it happened. Only to mention 'solo' and did not want to go that deep does not tell anything.