North Carolina Optima fatality

Dave Sutton

Just got this from personal interview:

One of the LDS's that I work with (and ran for 7 years) had a charter this week out of Morehead City NC. On Monday they found bad vis on the U-Boat and went inshore to a shallow wreck where they found two boats tied, one on each end of the wreck. As the boat maneuvered to moor midships they found two rebreather divers on the surface, asked if they were OK, and the answer from the one was that his buddy was dead.

The divers were brought aboard and CPR started on the mishap diver. A USCG helo arrived, but after it was determined that the diver had expired left scene and the deceased diver was broughgt to the dock by boat.

Divers buddy reported that they were on deco at about 50 feet when the mishap diver went to bailout, ascended 20 or so feet, re-descended, then bolted to the surface where he became unresponsive. The end result was as described above.

Second hand information describes that the divers were from Canada and were on holiday.


Not a good week. Waiting now for a respected EXPLORER dive-team member to arrive back from the Doria trip where another diver died so we can ask him what happened there. Be careful out there folks.



Dave

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Pawel Szopinski

Mixaddict

Wow, this is really unbelievable. Two divers in one week! I feel really terrible about this. I wish all involved my sincerest condolences. Dave, if and when you find out some more specifics, please share, so that we can all try to limit our own and our buddies exposure to these tragic mishaps.

Regards,
Randy

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Randy Thornton
CCR Advanced Trimix Instructor - Hammerhead, Sentinel, Inspiration, Evolution, & Optima
www.diveaddicts.com
www.cavecountrylodging.com
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firemandiver

Such sad news. My thoughts and prayers are with the family and freinds.
FD

se2schul

That makes it 3 divers in 3 weeks - 2 of the divers being Canadians.
Very sad...

netmage

3 rebreather divers? There were also two fatalities here in Florida associated w/ the lobster mini season.... but thats OC recreational....

se2schul

Sadly yes, 3 rebreather divers.
July 13 (I think) in Tobermory, Ontario Canada on a Prism.
Then these 2 most recent deaths mentioned by Dave.

Jordan

Sorry to hear this.

The inshore wrecks (Indra, Sulloide, Hutton) are all 60 feet deep or so. I don't know you'd make a deco stop at 50 feet on one of these wrecks. Maybe they were on one of the "intermediate" wrecks such as the SPAR (sp?) or Aeoleus where 120 feet is obtainable.

gerstl_ossi

Very sad news. My condolences to family and friends.
Oswald from Italy

AD_ward9

Each one of these is sad family tragedy. When the name is released, we all owe our condolences.

I was getting relieved that it is a safer than average year: we have listed just 10 Rebreather fatalities so far this year (4 in July, 1 June, 1 in May, 1 in April, 2 in March, 1 in February).

2007 reached 14 accidents by this date, 2006 reached 15, 2005 reached 17, and 2004 reached 11, if this is any consolation. I hope this lower trend during the first 7 months can continue until the year end, and the safety messages and equipment improvements produce some results.

We don't know the causes of most of the 2008 accidents yet,but the only possible good that come out of this spate in July is to sober us to take double care to not dive solo with a rebreather, change the cells annually, the scrubber ever 3 hours max, and do those pre-dive checks with a checklist.

Alex