Scuba diver dies after being found floating at Kurnell, NSW, Australia

[MB2013]

If we're learning from her mistakes then Marcia's death was not in vain. Using this to make our own diving just that little bit "tighter" is the best way we can honor her memory now.

R..

Diver0001 well said.

 

[Abdullah]

I've read 651 posts, and maybe I missed something. It has been reported that she was found in 2.5 meters of water. If she were standing on the bottom, she would already have been half way to the surface. If she was at all healthy when the trigger occurred, she should have been able to launch off the bottom to reach the surface for a gasp of air. Perhaps she wouldn't be able to resolve the issues in one go, but could have over several tries. Or, at least maintained a survivor skill long enough to be rescued.

The weighting and dry suit issues notwithstanding, it would seem something else was going on at the end of the dive.

 

[Crass3000]

It seems pretty obvious what happened here assuming no medical problem. I really don't think this needs to go so many pages on something that seems so bad but so obvious what happened.

 

[Diver0001]

The weighting and dry suit issues notwithstanding, it would seem something else was going on at the end of the dive.

It would seem so. The autopsy didn't indicate anything though... If a diver dies in shallow water, over-weighted, out-of-air, separated from their buddy and having not dropped weights, and the autopsy reports no medical issues....

Then I think (regardless of how painful or hard to believe it is) it behooves us to surmise that there were likely some mistakes made.

R..

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Of course it is not analogous. It was claimed that you could only last 30 secs on an exhalation breath hold. I challenged the claim and tried to illustrate that the calmer and less panicked you are, the longer you will last. If you can last 90 secs in a totally un-panicked bath tub situation maybe you could strive to improve your emergency breath-hold from 30 secs to a full minute. Up until now nobody was bringing up intense physical exertion (eg running up stairs). Obviously, you will burn more O2 if you are physically exerting. I don't think anybody will dispute that.

DD, how many OW divers include "bring down my heart rate", as an item in their emergency procedures?

... but it isn't the amount of O2 in your blood that triggers your breathing instinct ... it's the amount of CO2. And you will offgas more CO2 with a full set of lungs than you will an empty set, due to the gradient difference between the gas on either side of the alveoli.

Different people will react in different ways to the intensity of their instinct to breathe ... it will induce a sense of panic in some much quicker than in others. To a degree you can manage it through training and adaptation ... but your emotional state and personality place a huge role as well. It's directly related to how well you manage stress in general ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

---------- Post added October 18th, 2013 at 04:42 AM ----------

Except that several minutes (at least) of gas seem to have been just a few inches away, accessible via her wing's oral inflation option.

... and it's much easier to think of these things from the comfort of a keyboard, or the structure of a class, than it is to do so in a real-life stress moment. That's why practice and conditioning are so important ... people who rely on remembering something they were taught in class in a SHTF moment are kidding themselves ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[buddhasummer]

I've read 651 posts, and maybe I missed something. It has been reported that she was found in 2.5 meters of water. If she were standing on the bottom, she would already have been half way to the surface. If she was at all healthy when the trigger occurred, she should have been able to launch off the bottom to reach the surface for a gasp of air. Perhaps she wouldn't be able to resolve the issues in one go, but could have over several tries. Or, at least maintained a survivor skill long enough to be rescued.

The weighting and dry suit issues notwithstanding, it would seem something else was going on at the end of the dive.

Im sure it's harder than you think, heavily(?) overweighted, tired, panicking(?), water resistance etc...

 

[clownfishsydney]

Until someone gets to download her computer, who will know if she did not actually get to the surface but then sank again when not able to achieve positive buoyancy? Personally, I doubt that the police will do this as they did not even know that it could be done when our friend died in early 2011. I ended up getting approval to download the computer and provided it to the police and coroner.

 

[Farback]

"...When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose lives are filled with the fear of death, so that when time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home."
Tecumseh[/COLOR]

That's a great quote.

 

[Abdullah]

Im sure it's harder than you think, heavily(?) overweighted, tired, panicking(?), water resistance etc...

Pushing off the bottom gives you a lot more thrust than finning in the water column. Given a need to breathe and the surface not that far away, one would think it would be doable for someone with the watermanship skills of a long time instructor.

I may be reaching for a more palatable cause, but she would have known how shallow she was, and getting to the surface gives her options that aren't available on the bottom.

 

[nimoh]

This was covered many posts ago. To summarize, with balanced regulators you get no warning that your air is about to run out. with unbalanced regulators you get some warning as the work of breathing increases. It has nothing to do with the age of the regulator.

My Apeks XTX FSR is a balanced regulator and when I deliberately ran my tank out of gas in 5 feet of water, I had about 20 hard breaths before I had nothing.