Virginian diver dead at 190 feet - Roaring River State Park, Missouri

[RandallP]

The official NSS report just released.

Accident Analysis - NSS CDS

nsscds.org

 

[Whitrzac]

Was bringing tanks to 190 part of the initial plan or added later on? I dont understand why someone would plan a dive that deep without HE

 

[hehatemefrisbee]

Did diver 3 and the victim both have (what they thought to be) EAN 24? Granted I don't know a ton but from the report it would seem that would have been unsafe to go to 190 for either of them. And if they didn't have the same gas set up, why not? You would think a team would have a standard set of gas if the divers are working together on the same project?

 

[L13]

Was bringing tanks to 190 part of the initial plan or added later on? I dont understand why someone would plan a dive that deep without HE

Isn't one of the main advantages of CCR that HE can be used below 100 ffw at reasonable expense.

I am not a CCR or trimix diver, but I would think for that dive (planed 190 ffw, floor 200 ffw) you would want a trimix with END <= 100 ffw at depth of 200 ffw, and O2 MOD >= 200 ffw for BO (and therefore DIL).

 

[Vicko]

If I am reading the analysis correctly the victim used o2 to manage his loop volume as he was going deeper?
How easy is it to differentiate the o2 mav from the dill mav?

 

[Ski_Lounge]

Not a technical diver, but hoping to learn from the collective wisdom here -- is it standard or best practice to use similar gases for both diluent & bailout bottles?

 

[Bierstadt]

I was wrong. I don't understand why he would have gone to 190' on what he thought was EAN24. Normalization of deviance? As divers we put in safety margins to dive safely. No helium, planned dive to the razor's edge of oxygen toxicity... there was no margin. Just none. Geez. Dive safe guys.

 

[stuartv]

Sure would be nice if the report included a graph showing what his ppO2 was throughout the course of the dive. What was the max he actually had? How long was he at the max?

Previously, I read that he was at a ppO2 of 1.8 for a "while". Was he at 1.8? For how long? And how long at 1.6 or over? It just says he was "above a PO2 of 1.6 for several minutes." NOAA tables allow for 45 minutes at 1.6 (if I'm recalling correctly). He exceeded 1.6, but by how much and for how long?

The report tells us what happened. But, I still don't understand what process led up to doing that dive with EAN26 for dil. Did other people on the team know that's what he was doing? Were they doing the same thing? Why?

 

[Marie13]

If I am reading the analysis correctly the victim used o2 to manage his loop volume as he was going deeper?
How easy is it to differentiate the o2 mav from the dill mav?

Did the victim have a dil MAV? I didn’t find that in the report. Per the KISS website, an O2 MAV is standard with an ADV for SW.

 

[PEDiver]

Sad to see that the NSSCDS report confirmed a lot of the speculation. Seems to boil down to bad gas planning and misanalysed tanks, along with little oversight of the gases used on these deep dives (why aren't they using standardized mixes?).

But, I still don't understand what process led up to doing that dive with EAN26 for dil. Did other people on the team know that's what he was doing? Were they doing the same thing? Why?

That's what I would like to know too. Did they have a SOP in place for confirming mixes prior to diving? Was this just an unfortunate oversight? What was diver 3 using as dil/BO?