Spiegel Incident

[DandyDon]

He was not diving with nitrox. Just a regular tank fill.

Hi Skdevlieger, and welcome to SB even tho I guess you joined today because you know the family? Horrible accident and I do hope the best for Matthew. His young age and good attitude illustrated in you other post on this thread should be in his favor for recovery. I know that it looks grim now; I knew an older lady who took a severe hit a few years ago, was in horrible condition for some time, but did eventually recover that she can snorkel now - even tho scuba is off of her possibilities. Amazing things happen at times and I hope they do for Matthew too.

I saw you posted on the Florida forum...

He was diving with his twin brother,and their Dad. The Dad surfaced earlier, as his tank was smaller. Matthew and Andrew began the ascent at the same time. Andrew, however, has always had problems equalizing, so he naturally went slower in his ascent. Go to carepages.com/matthewdevlieger for daily updates.

Do you happen to know the sizes of the tanks, and why his dad was using the smaller one since it limited him so? And do you happen to know if Matthew was in deco when he incurred his accelerated ascent, missing that obligation perhaps?

My intent is not to blame and such is prohibited by the special rules of this forum, but we do try to learn from accidents here in hopes of preventing some others. I've been watching this thread for information that might turn up, which is seldom available really unless someone like you joins the discussion, and additional info would be helpful if you wouldn't mind.

thanks

 

[iztok]

go to carepages.com/matthewdevlieger for the daily update. Matthew is a 21 year old Junior at Calvin College, from Grand Rapids,Michigan, who was scuba diving at Spiegel Grove in Key Largo, Florida, on December 28,2010. He ascended too quickly, and the nitrogen bubbles, which formed in his bloodstream, expanded, and cut off the blood supply to his spinal cord. This caused a massive Tsunami style stroke to his spinal cord, leaving him a quadraplegic as of January 20,2010. He is at the University of Miami Jackson Rehab center in Miami Florida for the next few months. Please pray for his recovery. Also,if anyone knows of any other divers who have had a similar story, and their recovery story, please go to carepages.com/matthewdevlieger and post it.

Thanks for the post. However is it possible to provide some information? Most of us here are divers and at least should know about DCS, causes, manifestations, and effects. So telling that nitrogen bubbles formed and cut off blood supply and thus damaging spinal cord is not news.

What we don't know is more details. Like size of tanks, what was their profile, how long were at that depth, how experienced diver he was, how come they didn't ascent together sharing air, why mooring line wasn't used for ascent and to control runaway ascent etc...

Don't get me wrong, I am not insensitive here and I do hope he recovers and regains control of his extremities but at least in this forum we are not discussing well wishes and sympathies (another forum for that) but try to gather information so we can all learn from it.

Also, be careful with "feel good" stories of other divers or "not so feel good" ones. Every person is different and what might look about the same issue can be slightly different and either cause false hope (bad) or false despair (also bad).

Just my 2 psi.

 

[inked59]

There are too many unknowns from the article(s) to speculate. I've done that same dive several times and was extremely aware of how much air was in my tanks. Because of the depth, I chose to make an additional 50' safety stop and the required 15' safety stop as well. Sounds to me like this so called experienced diver forgot all his training. It is unfortunate that he is paralyzed because with a little thought it could have been prevented IMHO.

 

[iztok]

I don't think he was experienced diver. Sure he was diving 6 years or so but that doesn't make one experienced diver.

 

[SkimFisher]

I've done 110' on an AL80 and lived to tell about it - didn't even come close to OOA. Most have probably done the same at some point. It can be done safely so long as you know the limits. It always seems like "just another 10ft" - unfortunately it's not that simple.

It would be interesting to see his log book and what kind of depths he's been in prior to the accident. If he was diving air (as the post above states he was) then he was no doubt narc'd a bit (or a lot). That can be a pretty unnerving experience in and of itself.

No disrespect meant, of course.

 

[tomfcrist]

I've done 110' on an AL80 and lived to tell about it - didn't even come close to OOA. .

Yeah we've all probably done 110' on an 80 too.......But when you put yourself in that situation, you know that you arent going to have 40 minutes of bottom time. It seems to me that this could have been prevented with three steps: 1. Monitor and plan your gas consumption. 2. When you find yourself low on air(or out of it), You AND your buddy come up together. Its not an emergency if handled prolerly. 3. Know your equipment and how to use it. I have never forgot to release air from my BC on Ascent, and i doubt that i ever will.

When all is said and done I hope the kid is ok, and wish him a speedy recovery. Has anyone heard how he's doing now?

 

[iztok]

You AND your buddy come up together. Its not an emergency if handled prolerly.

From what I've read the buddy team consisted of 3 people. One of them left alone ahead of time. It might have been part of the plan or not but in general that should be a turning point for all of them not just one.

 

[divebunny13]

normally?

" So we're going to drop down to 185. Normally no one runs out of air"

Interesting way to plan a dive

My resort has been running this dive since 1960 with no problems. Divers are evaluated at 90 and either 120/140 feet for air consumption before being taken down.

I usually surface with 1800 pounds (AL80 with a starting pressure of 3000) after an 18 minute dive.

In two years of doing the dive on average once a week, I have never had anyone go OOG or really come close even.

It's an amazing experience.

 

[idocsteve]

It seems to me that this could have been prevented with three steps: 1. Monitor and plan your gas consumption. 2. When you find yourself low on air(or out of it), You AND your buddy come up together. Its not an emergency if handled prolerly. 3. Know your equipment and how to use it.

Speculation

This accident, like so many others, was completely avoidable on so many levels, and at several points during the dive the chain of events leading to the unfortunate consequences could have been broken.

1- Proper gas monitoring would have avoided the low gas situation in the first place
2- When Matt realized he was low on gas the proper procedure would have been to stay calm and signal to a buddy with the "low air" signal, and proceed to the surface or to the anchor line, in a controlled manner, with his buddy team
3- Matt was part of a 3 diver team, therefore there it's almost certain that plenty of gas was available as well as the means to share it.
4- He was "low" on air, not "out" of air..as he ascended more air would have been available, up to 3x as much as he registered at his max depth, possibly enough to make a normal ascent as well as a safety stop.

Panic kills or seriously injures divers and it's probably the #1 commonality in most diving accidents.

 

[iztok]

Speculation

This accident, like so many others, was completely avoidable on so many levels, and at several points during the dive the chain of events leading to the unfortunate consequences could have been broken.

1- Proper gas monitoring would have avoided the low gas situation in the first place
2- When Matt realized he was low on gas the proper procedure would have been to stay calm and signal to a buddy with the "low air" signal, and proceed to the surface or to the anchor line, in a controlled manner, with his buddy team
3- Matt was part of a 3 diver team, therefore there it's almost certain that plenty of gas was available as well as the means to share it.
4- He was "low" on air, not "out" of air..as he ascended more air would have been available, up to 3x as much as he registered at his max depth, possibly enough to make a normal ascent as well as a safety stop.

Panic kills or seriously injures divers and it's probably the #1 commonality in most diving accidents.

I think this is a good summary of the whole event in terms of how this could have been avoided.