Wes Skiles Noted photographer's death will remain a mystery, medical examiner says

[Thalassamania]

Ah, but performing a diluent flush as you head for the surface should mean that if you queep out you will, due to positive buoyancy, arrive at the surface rather than be found lying on the bottom ... or is the unit he was using different from the older designs that trained on?

 

[lamont]

Ah, but performing a diluent flush as you head for the surface should mean that if you queep out you will, due to positive buoyancy, arrive at the surface rather than be found lying on the bottom ... or is the unit he was using different from the older designs that trained on?

but once you go unconscious, the mouthpiece should fall out and the unit will flood and drag the diver to the bottom.

 

[Thalassamania]

but once you go unconscious, the mouthpiece should fall out and the unit will flood and drag the diver to the bottom.

That'd all be a question of the weight of the mouthpiece and the diver's body position, but you are correct, that is a real possibility.

Here's another thought that makes a ppO2 hit something that needs to be considered: I know a fair number of CCR divers who run a higher ppO2 than perhaps they should, in order to "clean up" after a series of dives in preparation for the next day's diving or a flight. I was guilty of this, back when I was young and invulnerable, when I had to fly right after a dive, this was fairly common practice amongst people that I knew since we had all done chamber runs to 60 foot on pure O2. I cut this out (well ... dropped back to no deeper than 20 on O2) after the data came out that oxygen tolerance tests were not, in point of fact, a good predictor.

 

[lamont]

Here's another thought that makes a ppO2 hit something that needs to be considered: I know a fair number of CCR divers who run a higher ppO2 than perhaps they should, in order to "clean up" after a series of dives in preparation for the next day's diving or a flight. I was guilty of this, back when I was young and invulnerable, when I had to fly right after a dive, this was fairly common practice amongst people that I knew since we had all done chamber runs to 60 foot on pure O2. I cut this out (well ... dropped back to no deeper than 20 on O2) after the data came out that oxygen tolerance tests were not, in point of fact, a good predictor.

Given the relative silence from the diving community on this accident, I really wonder if this isn't more or less exactly what happened.

 

[Thalassamania]

Shouldn't something in the autopsy or gear inspection permit a determination of hypoxia or hyperoxia?

 

[lamont]

Shouldn't something in the autopsy or gear inspection permit a determination of hypoxia or hyperoxia?

don't think so... ultimately your brain dies of hypoxia either way...

unit floods so there's no gas to analyze...

 

[lamont]

How common is the practice of doing "clean up dives" after big dives in CCR divers? I can understand the attraction of a do-it-yourself table treatment after a big dive to clean up any 'niggles', but this seems to come down on the wrong side of the DCS-vs-hyperoxia risk assessment... If you're going to do something like this it would seem to be safest to treat it like a normal decompression dive, run a 1.2 ppO2 on the bottom and if you spike to 1.6 at 20 feet to have buddies watching you for hyperoxic symptoms just like on a big dive....

 

[Cave Diver]

How common is the practice of doing "clean up dives" after big dives in CCR divers? I can understand the attraction of a do-it-yourself table treatment after a big dive to clean up any 'niggles', but this seems to come down on the wrong side of the DCS-vs-hyperoxia risk assessment... If you're going to do something like this it would seem to be safest to treat it like a normal decompression dive, run a 1.2 ppO2 on the bottom and if you spike to 1.6 at 20 feet to have buddies watching you for hyperoxic symptoms just like on a big dive....

I dunno how common it is, but it's not the first time that I've heard of such a practice. I can't say whether Wes was one of those who practiced it, but it's not unknown for CCR divers doing this.

 

[Thalassamania]

I can't say for CCR per se, but I've done that, going onto my oxygen at significant depth (e.g. 60 feet or less) on the last dive of a taxing series or when I had to fly right after getting out of the water. I know a fair number of photographic types who done the same (time is money, got to get to the next shoot or the next show or the next whatever). I can imagine some folks trying to clean up even if it was little more than feeling tired (very low level DCS). Anyone else have any experience with this to share?

 

[Cave Diver]

I know a fair number of photographic types who done the same (time is money, got to get to the next shoot or the next show or the next whatever).

I would think it's less common for people diving recreationally, whether tech or rec but I'm not surprised to hear of this being more common among photographers or other "working divers" who need to wrap up a last dive and then head out.