Woman critical after West Van scuba diving accident - Canada

[DCBC]

I'm sure that the rescuers and medical professionals have done and continue to do their best. My prayers for the victim and her family.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Backup on the Lion's Gate on a Sunday afternoon is typically about 15-30 minutes ... and even if you're an ambulance with lights and siren blaring, people on the bridge have nowhere to pull over to let you pass.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[joolz]

Just questioning the decision making. Isn't that what we do in order to learn and improve responses to accidents and injuries?

Opportunities may have been missed in this case.

I wouldn't make that inference based solely on Google. From my vantage point on the beach, it was a very well executed rescue scenario, despite the fact that the outcome will in all likelihood not be good.

From what we've heard, the missing diver went without air for 11 minutes. That means it took 11 minutes from the time her buddy signaled for help to the time other divers were able to swim out to his location, drop down to 45', execute a search pattern, locate the victim, and bring her back to the surface. That's not bad.

The Coast Guard Auxiliary (all volunteers) got her out of the water -- and pulling unconscious divers on to a boat isn't as easy as it sounds. They were able to start performing CPR on the way back to shore, and saved at least 5-10 minutes in towing/egress time (which would have been hindered by the slimy, rocky bottom at low tide). The West Van police were there before the boat reached shore, followed by the fire dept and ambulance. Then the hovercraft and helicopter. And fishguy

Part of being a rescue diver is knowing when to defer to professionals who have more knowledge and experience. If the paramedics on the scene decided that it was best to continue performing CPR in the CGA boat when there was a helicopter 20' away, who am I to second guess that decision? There are plenty of things that clearly should have been done differently, but how the emergency personnel responded definitely isn't one of them.

 

[tonka97]

Good information and analysis.

Thank you.

Yes, however, asking questions and making insinuations or suggesting that transport was delayed or that transporting the patient with ongoing CPR / BLS (Proven to be insufficiently effective) would be better then waiting for an Airevac based on a google map is very different. What you have suggested was done so on the basis of a google map and assumptions or presumptions and almost no fact.

I admit I get defensive and angry when people make assumptions and suggestions without all of the facts, local knowledge and education, for this I apologize in advance. So lets change this to educational.



We can always do things better ....





Whytecliff may appear close, and google maps may suggest a 29 minute drive, however, this is at best a 40+ minute transport time (not including extrication) with lights and sirens. The city is dense, with a large number of traffic lights and on an early Sunday afternoon in the summer there is no such thing as light traffic in Vancouver. Google is not always correct.

You must also factor in the extrication times. Whytecliff has a fairly steep and lengthy hill / steps from the beach to the parking lot. In this case, packaging + carrying the patient while doing CPR (which again would be ineffective and detrimental) would take at least 10-15 mins (The Helicopter landed on the beach).

The helicopter was launched the moment the calling party identified this as a diving accident. As a side note Ground ALS arrived at roughly the same time as the helicopter and the patient was not on the beach for 35 minutes before the helicopter arrived.

The priority in this situation is Quality CPR (Emphasis on Quality, not done while hiking up a steep incline / stairs or in the back of an Ambulance "Speeding" down the road, continuously accelerating and decelerating at every intersection) and Ventilation followed by ACLS with an end goal of ROSC (Return of Spontaneous Circulation) ASAP. This is best done at the scene in a stable environment and not in the back of a moving ambulance or helicopter.



As important as AED's are (Very IMHO) the vast majority of OOA emergency's (Hypoxia), AGE (Cardiovascular Collapse / Neuro / PE) and DCS result in a PEA / Asystole. These are types of cardiac arrest where an AED is ineffective and Quality CPR / ACLS is required.

Although ACLS can be provided enroute in a moving ambulance and is done so routinely, in a situation where the ground transport time is greater then that of waiting for an airevac and providing a higher quality of care at the scene is possible, it is better to wait. It is also worth mentioning that the helicopter landed on the beach before the first responders and BLS ambulance would have been able to get the patient to the parking lot.

Tonka, your comments although meant as a learning point cast doubt and insult ALL of the responders and yet you had almost no information when doing so and that is where I take offense on behalf of the emergency responders. Realize that your comments maybe taken as reasonable and gospel by others who know no better.

I wish the patient the best of luck and thank ALL of the Emergency Responders, Rescue Divers and all those involved for helping one of us!


Clark,

Advanced Care Paramedic (12 Years in Vancouver)
HCP BCLS/ACLS Instructor
Rescue Diver

 

[MarkH]

The day before the accident it took me a full hour to drive from Whytecliff Park to downtown Vancouver. The Lion's Gate bridge took 45 minutes to cross. I didn't have a siren though.

 

[tonka97]

Here's another link to the story.
CTV British Columbia - Diver saves unconscious woman 14 metres underwater - CTV News

I haven't found updates on the victim's condition.
Our prayers are with her and her family and friends.

Here is photo from CTV of Whytecliff Park.

 

[DennisH]

Hey guys, I was on the beach that day too, with a friend I was taking on his first dive in the ocean after being certified in Saskatoon the week before. He saw the whole thing which is a hell of a way to start your day's diving, especially if you are on your very first dive after certification. On the plus side, he learned the graphic way to ALWAYS know how much gas he has.

As has been mentioned, the response from Coast Gaurd, BC Air Ambulance helicopter, fire and police was extraordinarily fast and seemed well co-ordinated. If anyone hears an update on the diver's condition I would appreciate hearing about it -- we are all, of course, hoping for a good outcome for her, her buddy, and her family.

For those of us in Vancouver, the guy who found her did so by deflating his BCD and floating down with the current. His name is Chris and he is an instructor at UBC. Next time you see him, thank him. He sure as hell deserves it.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

In accident prevention we sometimes use what is called the "Five Whys" method of analysis to get toward root causes of accidents. In this case, here are some questions we can raise.

1. Why was she found at 14 meters instead of at the surface?
Answer: She was negatively buoyant.

2. Why was she negatively buoyant?
Answer: She apparently had problems at the surface, and was in an OOA situation. At the surface at the end of a dive, she should be neutrally buoyant. She must have been overweighted.

3. Why was she overweighted?
Answer: Unknown. We can only speculate here.

We have only gotten to our third question. So without knowing, how can we go further in this mental inquiry? How can we got further to root causes? Well, rather than focusing on this particular accident for the fourth and fifth question, we can look toward our overall diving situation. So in order to learn more, we need to focus a bit differently for this question, and the next two.

Being overweighted is one thing, being negatively buoyant in an OOA situation is another. We do not know her equipment, but we can ask ourselves about how we would handle a similar situation. For instance:

4. Do we have emergency alternative air supply? If she had, probably this would not have happened. Some have suggested that she should have better monitored her air or "gas," assuming it may have been nitrox. Well, that is fine except if something happens to that supply. When diving deep, consider these aspects of diving.

5. How can we become positively buoyant in a like situation? Can we dump weight? (Some put their weights into undumpable areas.) Can we drop a weight belt? I always can, but some cannot.

More after supper...

 

[Crush]

2. Why was she negatively buoyant?
Answer: She apparently had problems at the surface, and was in an OOA situation. At the surface at the end of a dive, she should be neutrally buoyant. She must have been overweighted.

5. How can we become positively buoyant in a like situation? Can we dump weight? (Some put their weights into undumpable areas.) Can we drop a weight belt? I always can, but some cannot.

I find this accident difficult to understand - not so much the OOA part (which is easily avoided), but what happened afterward. An OW diver knows that, when dealing with a diver in distress at the surface, one of the first things you do is persuade them to drop any ditchable weight or do it for them. Seeing as how this was a new diver, I will venture to guess that she had a BC with integrated weights, so ditching would have been easy. Any rescue diver (or an OW diver from a good training program) would have known that a rescuer makes the casualty positively buoyant and the rescuer remains slightly negatively buoyant. In the case of an inadvertent loss of contact, the casualty makes it to the surface via physics while the rescuer deals with getting positive and getting to the surface.

My sincere congratulations to the rescuer - he or she is a hero. However, we can all learn from this - make sure a victim is very positive at the surface. The cost of a lost belt and some twenty pounds of weight is not worth a life.

 

[DandyDon]

Failure to drop weights when encountering buoyancy issues on the surface is an all to common problem in these threads.