Spiegel Incident

[Puffer Fish]

The currect was light that day, so it would have been practical to go down to the sand, but in general, I've not seen many people do that on the Grove...

I was on the Bibb that day, and the sand was actually 133 ft... if you were laying on it (which I was at one point)...so I would doubt, even if they went to the sand, they were below 130.

But my guess is they were more likely around 100 ft at a maximum.

Nitrox? Air? Obviously it is possible to get a custom mix, but if they were on the rather standard 32%.. their maximum bottom at 100 ft would have been something around 25 minutes.. which would been about the time an 80 cubic ft tank would have lasted.

On air though, going into deco would have been fairly easy to do...

So my guess is that it was an air dive... using either an 80 or 100 and that he was either into or right at the deco limit. Then all one has to do is surface really fast.

How fast did he surface? Well swimming and not dumping your vest from around say 90 ft would be really, really fast at the surface...scary fast.

What puzzles me is that this is one of the "Don't ever do the following" safety issues,

Looking back on my dive that day, my no deco accent from 105 ft was 15 minutes, but I was on 50% O2 from around 50 ft and up.

Gosh, I sure wish people would not do stuff like this.

 

[ptyx]

What puzzles me is that this is one of the "Don't ever do the following" safety issues

Gas management (which is rarely taught) lead to a small incident.

In theory, training kicks in and incident gets resolved - in that case by sharing air or a slow controlled ascent.

Way too often, and especially for deep dives on air narcosis kicks in if not already there, analysis and training go down the drain and an incident which is easy to dismiss as ridiculous on the surface degenerates into something awful.

I guess that's an occasion to plug another great article about deep diving. Oh well, they're all good - read them all!

 

[Bob DBF]

For those interested, I will try to summarize the reports as I read them:

The diver, a college student, was on the Spiegel Grove with a max depth of 135fsw. He was diving with his twin brother and his father. His father ran low on gas and ascended while the brothers continued the dive. At some point, the victim realized his gas level was too low for his liking and began an ascent at a more rapid rate than safety would allow. The report says he ascended from 135fsw in about five minutes and without any stops. His own words tell us that he was finning to ascend, and that he failed to adjust his bc and became too positive on the way up. His brother apparently had more gas left and ascended behind him without incident.

To put my statement in perspective, I am a Solo Diver, but when I dive with buddies we go down together and we go up together. If one of us is low on gas both of us are low on gas and we go up together. I believe that narcosis, panic and, more importantly, the breakdown of the buddy system precipitated this tragic event.

Bob
------------------
Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

 

[TSandM]

Even given the small amount of information available, it's not hard to analyze this event:

1) There was a lack of gas planning. Even before entering the water, it would have been possible to calculate how much bottom time there would be, given known data points on consumption rate and depth. If they knew when they went down that they only had, say, ten minutes of time at 100 feet, they might have watched their gauges more closely.

2) Possibly a lack of, or a poor dive plan. If, in fact, he was in deco, that was something that should have been planned, or if it wasn't intended, the no-deco time available at the proposed depth should have been part of the dive plan.

3) Lack of gas monitoring. It should never come as a suprise that you are low on gas. Simply checking the gauge every five minutes will give you lots of warning.

4) Lack of monitoring of dive time and deco status.

5) Possible influence of narcosis, which may have contributed to #3 and #4.

6) Panic.

7) Failure to execute a competent, controlled ascent, possibly due to #5 -- although, as he went up, that should have cleared, and one would have thought that at some point, he would have regained control. Unless he was truly OUT of air, in which case he may not have wanted to slow.

I think it's worth pointing out that two of the biggest likely mistakes were made ON THE BOAT. When people give me a hard time for going through a formal dive plan for a ten foot dive, I smile, because I'm consolidating a good habit. Nobody ever got hurt for taking the time to make an unnecessary dive plan, but people sure do get hurt for failing to make one in a situation like this.

 

[TSandM]

If there is any learning point to a tragic incident like this, it's in how it could have been prevented, and I will stand on the fact that better dive planning and awareness before leaving the boat will go a long way to prevent things like this from happening. When there are simple steps to take, why not encourage people to take them?

 

[Indian Valley Scuba]

I agree that the team, at least from the report, did not operate well together (as evidenced by the independent ascents) but who knows, maybe they do that all the time, and communicated to that effect? I send buddies up and continue my dive alone at times, for any of a number of reasons - they are bored, low on air, cold, whatever, and I am not ready to ascend. Good judgement and prudence is the key, and who knows if in fact both of those were not practiced on this incident and just something else happened?

 

[GatorJoe]

kinda weird that his TWIN brother was not in the same situation regarding air as the one who got injured. i know everyone is different but twins usually have the same body types etc...

 

[lamont]

Something clearly went wrong, and I don't really need to get 100% accurate information to know that having paralysis as the result of a recreational dive means that the execution of the dive, by the divers, was seriously flawed. The fact that a diver wound up paralyzed on a recreational dive is a fact, not speculation or "micro-analysis". And maybe if we didn't act so PC when divers got hurt, we could reduce some of these fatalities and accidents...

 

[Puffer Fish]

Something clearly went wrong, and I don't really need to get 100% accurate information to know that having paralysis as the result of a recreational dive means that the execution of the dive, by the divers, was seriously flawed. The fact that a diver wound up paralyzed on a recreational dive is a fact, not speculation or "micro-analysis". And maybe if we didn't act so PC when divers got hurt, we could reduce some of these fatalities and accidents...

Lamont, I am complete agreement with you. The little bit we know for sure is that he stayed too long and made an accent too fast. Deco, not deco.... air versus Nitrox...ran out of air, had air left really don't matter, other than filling in the minor details.

Of all the accidents I have read on SB, this one's cause is the easiest to understand, even with the little information we have. Following a reasonable dive plan, using the buddy system, some simple gas management and not bolting to the surface and this event never happens... actually doing just one of them and this event never happens.

 

[McCainiac]

kinda weird that his TWIN brother was not in the same situation regarding air as the one who got injured. i know everyone is different but twins usually have the same body types etc...

They are TWINS, but doesn't mean their tanks had the same amount of air when they started the dive???