TSandM: Missing Diver in Clallam County, WA

[BRT]

So vertigo MAY have been an issue. In another thread we have been arguing whether to disclose medical conditions. Should vertigo be on the "conditions" list we often fill out before a boat dive? Should it disqualify us from diving? Whether or not it was THE problem, it was a problem Lynne chose to dive with. I have problems I choose to dive with. Almost all of us do as we approach and pass 60. Lynne loved to dive. I do too. It is somewhat dangerous. Some of us will die doing it.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Why are you upset? Are you concerned about Lynne's reputation? GUE's reputation? The question couv poses is fair but should be restated to say "could the failure to adjust trim have contributed to Lynne's accident"? Yes, it definitely did. Why would she be at 130 ft on EAN32? Being near horizontal which is the preferred position for any diver moving horizontally in the water presents a large surface area for a strong down current to act on. The issue isn't whether she could get to proper trim but how fast she could get there. She had no time to adjust before arriving at depth. She lost control of her buoyancy, through no fault of her own, due to an excessive down current that neither of them were expecting. She probably got suit squeeze and overcompensated having to dump gas at 70 ft. I'm not suggesting that the one event, the descent, was the only contributer to the accident but a host of cascading events. Here are the stressors: rapid unplanned descent, suit squeeze, exceeding safe depth for 1.4 atm on EAN32, loss of buoyancy, physical stress of swimming against current, rapid ascent followed by possible vertigo (she had history and a possible fear of riding it out on the bottom given the depth limitations), stress of buddy seperation, stress of swimming against a lateral current at 70 ft. All these stressors act together to give a total effect greater than the sum of individual stressors. All of these stressors could have led to a medical event preventing a safe ascent to the surface.

Speculation is all well and good ... if it leads to some useable takeaway lessons that can help someone else avoid such an incident.

That said, I'm going to take exception to the bolded statement above ... you have no way of knowing what occurred, and therefore no legitimate way of making that claim. Furthermore, some of your premises are wrong ... and I'll base that on my knowledge as someone who spent lots of time diving with her. I think I know both her skills and mindset way better than you do. Lynne had no obsession with horizontal trim. She had superb control of both her position and her buoyancy state ... I've watched her, literally, dance underwater. Furthermore, several of the stressors you list were unlikely in her case ... this wasn't her first rodeo riding out an unexpected current ... down or otherwise ... and she'd be thinking and acting every second of the way. Lynne was practiced to the point that she'd be doing so almost on automatic pilot, while using her mental bandwidth to be responding to questions such as "where's my buddy", "what's my depth", "which way are my bubbles going", and knowing Lynne probably a few questions I wouldn't even think to ask in such a circumstance (and I've faced a few of those rides too ... they're not particularly uncommon where we dive).

I don't know what happened. I'm the one who brought up the vertigo, because it's something I've seen her experience before ... although it's not a given that it happened in this particular circumstance.

We all would like to understand how something like this could happen to such a skilled, conscientious diver ... but let's please not let our imaginations run wild and ascribe to her traits she didn't have or motives that live only on the internet. That will help no one ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[EFX]

Obviously, I can't speak for NetDoc or Peter, but the suggestion that she was specially affected by the current due to some obsession with remaining horizontal is very far-fetched. The experience and training she had contradict this thought directly.

For one thing, she was a cave diver with experience in the caves of north florida. Any diver trying to run a reel out of a cave with moderate flow (e.g. Ginnie Springs or Little River) while remaining perfectly neutral and horizontal will get blown out of the cave. That fact that she had done this kind of dive is enough to know that she was perfectly aware that being horizontal is not always the best orientation in the water, specially on the face of significant vertical current.

So the fact is that it is very unlikely that the accident had anything to do with her trying to be horizontal or even that her training had somehow made her think that horizontal trim is always the best posture.

First, I think you missed my point. I'm not suggesting Lynne was obsessed with or trying to maintain horizontal trim. She was after all an accomplished cave diver. All I'm saying is that she was *probably* horizontal not because she had to be horizontal but because this is how most divers (however ill-trained or unskilled they are) swim horizontally. My point was she was caught *unexpectedly* in a down current and by the time she adjusted trim and began to swim up she found herself at 130 ft. I'm not sure you can read in to couv's post that she was somehow obssesed with maintaining horizontal trim in the face of an unexpected current. Who isn't motivated to maintain horizontal trim swimming horizontally *before* you get caught in an unexpected up or down current?!!!

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

So vertigo MAY have been an issue. In another thread we have been arguing whether to disclose medical conditions. Should vertigo be on the "conditions" list we often fill out before a boat dive? Should it disqualify us from diving? Whether or not it was THE problem, it was a problem Lynne chose to dive with. I have problems I choose to dive with. Almost all of us do as we approach and pass 60. Lynne loved to dive. I do too. It is somewhat dangerous. Some of us will die doing it.

No ... it should not disqualify us from diving. Vertigo can happen to anyone. It's not something that will happen every time under a given condition. It's more like narcosis, in that it can hit you on one dive and not on another under the same circumstances. Some people are more susceptible to it than others. I've experienced it myself a few times. Those of us who do generally learn how to cope ... because let's face it, when it hits you HAVE to. But it is no more a medical condition than narcosis is.

Yes, it may have been a contributing cause ... but none of us will ever really know whether it was or not. I tend to think not, as I believe as long as she retained consciousness, Lynne would've been calculating how to get her butt to the surface, and even in a compromised state would've taken action to get there.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[EFX]

Its an absolutely preposterous notion to suggest that trim is what caused this.

Caused what? Her eventual demise? No, and I said that. It was a contributor. Her horizontal trim caused her to descend faster and deeper than if she were vertical.

 

[PfcAJ]

Caused what? Her eventual demise? No, and I said that. It was a contributor. Her horizontal trim caused her to descend faster and deeper than if she were vertical.

At present we have nothing to indicate that the current induced descent and ascent had anything to do with the accident at all.

Stating 'it was a contributor' is baseless.

 

[dgfishy]

The vertigo hypothesis strikes me as the least frustrating explanation outside of a cut-and-dry medical emergency, but even that would only be a contributing factor. Even with vertigo in play, however, I think Lynne probably would've had the bandwidth to at least signal that something was wrong. Whether that meant banging her tank, or getting her light into Peter's FOV, I think it's unlikely she would've failed to signal that something was amiss.

One of the many things that makes this so profoundly upsetting (aside from losing a wonderful person) is that it will be extremely difficult to ever ascertain exactly what happened.



Part of me wonders if buddy separation emergencies might be simplified if communication wasn't cut off by visual range.

Follow me for a moment... this will be controversial.

I find myself wondering if a pod-style full face mask with radio communication (E.G.: M48) might have helped things. Definitely not a "classical" FFM, due to the litany of introduced gas donation problems, but my understanding of pod-style setups is that the lower end releases with a button push, and that from there, long hose donation can proceed pretty much as normally, albeit with a slightly bulkier primary.

I see two possible advantages with this system:

1) If Lynne was conscious at the time of separation, she would have been able to communicate whatever problem she was having.

2) If Lynne was not conscious at the time of separation, we would know, as she would have failed to respond to the radio call.



I do not believe that it would have helped in this case (as I believe that whatever befell Lynne was, in all likelihood, independently fatal) but for unconscious, separated divers in many other situations, drowning would be prevented for long enough to possibly facilitate a rescue when one would otherwise be extremely unlikely.

Thoughts?

 

[John C. Ratliff]

Caused what? Her eventual demise? No, and I said that. It was a contributor. Her horizontal trim caused her to descend faster and deeper than if she were vertical.

EFX, there is no way you could know that this is a true statement. Let's stick to the facts of this accident!

SeaRat

 

[Nirvana]

First, I think you missed my point. I'm not suggesting Lynne was obsessed with or trying to maintain horizontal trim. She was after all an accomplished cave diver. All I'm saying is that she was *probably* horizontal not because she had to be horizontal but because this is how most divers (however ill-trained or unskilled they are) swim horizontally. My point was she was caught *unexpectedly* in a down current and by the time she adjusted trim and began to swim up she found herself at 130 ft. I'm not sure you can read in to couv's post that she was somehow obssesed with maintaining horizontal trim in the face of an unexpected current. Who isn't motivated to maintain horizontal trim swimming horizontally *before* you get caught in an unexpected up or down current?!!!

Couv stated the following:

Gauging from what I have read on this board, one of the cornerstones of proper diving technique with the above group of divers, is to maintain "perfect trim" at all times. "Perfect trim" if I understand correctly, is having buoyancy and ballast balanced and the diver's posture is essentially parallel to the surface.

I think we can all agree in most cases, maintaining perfect trim is desirable. However, in some instances-and possibly in Lynne's, it can cause problems. One of those cases would be in a down current as experienced by Lynne and Peter. We know from Peter's post Lynne was first pushed 10-15 feet deeper than Peter who managed to stabilize at 85 feet, and then she found herself 10-15 feet above him. That's a 20-30 foot margin of difference in depth between dive buddies.

He defines "perfect trim" as staying "parallel to the surface". Though this could mean parallel to the wall in front of her, in a vertical position, I take it he means horizontal. In addition, he mentions maintaining perfect trim at all times, which he says could lead to problems while dealing with a down current. So, yes, I believe he was thinking she might have tried to deal with the current while remaining horizontal.

Again, I do not believe that she tried to always remain horizontal. I also do not know how she was oriented when she first felt the down current. I do find it unlikely that, when faced with it, she did not orient herself in the direction of the current.

 

[Kevrumbo]

Alternobaric vertigo is most pronounced when the diver is in the vertical position; the spinning is towards the ear with the higher pressure and tends to develop when the pressures differ by 60 cm of water or more.^[4][5]Ear clearing may be a remedy.

A similar vertigo can also occur as a result of unequal heating stimulation of one inner ear labyrinth over the other due to diving in a prone position in cold water - the undermost ear being stimulated. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternobaric_vertigo