Hemmoor Accident Report

caveseeker7

I received a PM from Matthias Pfister (matt) allowing me to post the translation of his accident report that he posted on taucher.net. Thanks for sharing the information and experience with us, Matthias.

If some of it sounds a bit wooden my apologies, it's the translation rather then the original. :o

Report from Hemmoor

A group from the vicinity of Esbjerg arrived on Easter Monday around 9:30 am. Four Inspiration and one OC diver. All rebreathers were equipped with ADVs, backplate and wings were used instead of the stock harness, buoyancy gas (argon) for drysuit separate, 7 liter alu OC bailout tanks with additional LP hose for wing. Unfortunately filled with compressed air.

Shortly after arrival the first dive went underway to a depth of about 55 meters, duration about an hour, ended between 11:00 am and 11:30 am. After a short surface interval three of the group decided to dive at Entry 3 from the Rüttler to the apnea platform. All three on Inspirations. The target depth was about 56 meters.

Shortly after leaving the wall, the deceased experienced a stress situation. His physical size was about 190 cm in my estimate, the counterlungs of his loop were sized M - due to the small volume of the counterlungs and the increased RMV the ADV opened on every inhalation and the rest of the diluent gas was depleted. The diver switched to OC, the full 7 liter stage, which was also very quickly depleted. Both dive buddies tried to calm him and passed another 7 liter stage and started to ascend together. During ascent the three divers got separated, but all reached the surface. Two of the divers ditched their units on the surface, why remains unclear.

In the end the cause of death was the battery cable of the canister light, connected to the lamp head at the diver's forearm. The deceased failed to remove the lamp head from his forearm first and was dragged down by his gear.

Below my personal experiences, told as I experienced them. Anyone who doesn't want to deal with the recovery of a corpse should not read further.

Divers of the Hamburg Fire Department were called in and did a better than good job in my opinion, the guys had their mission and had to do it with the means available to them. In addition the operation leader requested a ROV to search the quarry bed, didn't do any good other than reduce the visibility.

A group of FD divers located one of the dropped rigs, and with information from the divers I marked the unit with reel and lift bag. The further search for the missing diver was without success due to zero visibility. After 45 min of bottom time a traversing line was laid to the steep stairs and the dive concluded.

During this time the German Red Cross team from Hannover arrived. The area around the marker was searched with dogs trained to locate human remains. According to the dog handlers the dogs did respond, but they were unable to pinpoint a location. Later, the area was searched by sonar, after evaluating the images 3 three possible locations of the body were pinpointed. Those areas were searched with another ROV throughout the night, ending unsuccessfully around 5 am.

On Wednesday morning a further search was conducted on trimix, but due to bad visibility also unsuccessful. After further discussions it became obvious that only a search by feeling along the bed would be successful. For recovery divers surely easier due to experience, but a 55 meters with zero visibility a shock to me at first. Later in the afternoon the search was officially stopped and the press and camera people were striking the sails.

Around 16:30 hours the boat was loaded and the dive started around 17:40 hours. The hope that the visibility was better after that period and the corpse could be spotted remained wishful thinking. The marked unit with the white pole could only be seen from a meter's distance. I didn't want to perform a search by feeling, I was unable to do that, and a meter could be enough after all. With a spool with marker knots every 2 meters I started my search eastbound, towards the sonar marking that had the same signature as the discovered rig. I didn't want to believe this, as that unit was lying with the backplate facing up in the mud. Couldn't imagine that the corpse wouldn't change the signature, hoped that the diver would be facing down and the yellow lid and the stage be visible.

After a few minutes I found a different scene, the stage was pointing upwards, nothing else visible, my breathing quickening and my heart beat pounding inside my body. At first I wanted to turn the dive, the TX with 50% He was not of any help in this situation. After a couple of careful fin strokes could make out the fins of the deceased and the unit lying next to him. I didn't expect that as nobody had mentioned that he too had ditched his gear. The emergency doctor in charge had given me the advice to secure the corps around its ankle so I thought at that moment you don't have to see him, you can do that.

I could see light wrist band on the right arm, computer I thought at first, but it was the lamp head, the spiral cable went under the body to the unit. Right then I realized the tragedy that happened to the man, everything disconnected, gear ditched and he was pulled to depth by it, no chance of removing the lamp head, and the spiral cable extended - no chance.

The attempt to disconnect the cable at the battery failed, so there was no other option than to remove it from him, the first contact was hard, after I removed the lamp it became more routine (please don't misunderstand me or consider me impious).

Around 18:00 hours the recovery was over and I ended the dive with my thoughts on accident. At Entry 1 the two friends of the victims and the deceased were waiting, they had just returned from the hospital, one is still in an artificially induced coma, he additionally developed pneumonia. The other one is recovering and reported the accident as described on top. Both were relieved that their friend had been recovered and thanked me quietly.


Unfortunately the accident showed again that air as a deep gas is not adequate, 2 x 7 liter bailout in combination with stress or panic doesn't last long, not even talking about the 3 liter diluent of the rebreather (2nd dive - not refilled). Sufficient sleep before demanding is surely not a bad idea, also one could think about having to do two deep dives in one day. The own gear configuration is to be re-evaluated, maybe take one course or another and keep on training regularly what is learned.

Unfortunately this accident again won't help the majority, only a few involved will learn from, many will go back to the status quo and the 'greed is cool' mentality and sometime down the line someone will have to experience what I'm just trying to deal with.

Today we will try to recover the two units and a missing dive computer, the visibility here at Hemmoor is still bad thanks to the ROVs, I hope it will work. Entry 3 will be closed until the recovery.

Good night
Matthias Pfister



And the update on the gear recovery:


The recovery is now completed, around 14:00 hours both Inspirations and the stages were back at the surface, all lines used to secure the gear removed.

The visibility at depth is still limited, at the recovery area almost zero, as both rebreathers were in sediment up to their wings and bid farewell to the quarry in cloud of silt. The police seized the unit and stages of the deceased.

The configuration I already described above, of note was only that both units had open DSVs, diluent and O2 tanks were at 0 bar, lamp canisters were made from stainless steel, home build, with the spiral cable not separable. The inflator hose of the deceased was disconnected, unfortunately the stages were empty, too. The mount of both lamp heads were identical on both, on the unit of the survivor the rubber bands were open though. The deceased had the same facility, but the hook and loop closure was under the lamp head and inaccessible to him, which in my opinion he paid for with his life.

The bags on his belt contained open SMBs, a reel was also there, what use do they have when the regulator doesn’t deliver gas anymore. If a closed SMB would have helped is questionable, my little Halcyon raised one unit just above the bed, but didn’t generate enough lift, the second unit ascended only after the large Halcyon was full (I think it has around 180 lbs lift) and I pulled on it. With a line connecting both units it was possible to raise them both.

I called the search for the dive computer after 20 minutes, and don’t believe it can be found, the sediment is very fine and digging through it useless, the area to cover is about 600 - 1000 square meters, like a needle in a hay stack.

The expenditure considering gas cost isn’t worth it anyway, the computer costs only 300 Euro, so treasure hunters, forget about it.

My condolences to the family, the deceased leaves behind a wife and children, and to friends and dive buddies.

I hope I gave you some thoughts to contemplate, I would be happy if that is the case.

Wish you all a good weekend
Matthias Pfister

__________________
Cheers
Stefan



"Political Correctness is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority,
and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media,
which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.!"

narked at 90

Stefan, Matthias my heart goes out to all those involved and i wright this with tears in my eyes we have lost to many friends this year and this incident is far to close to my incident today, which has really given me a kick and i think for my buddy too, i will post about this some time soon but i really hope people can learn from this......i have.....
with sincerest regards john routley


www.narkedat90.co.uk

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Johnny Christensen

This is very scary reading. I hope that the people involved, is able to move on with time.
Is it known what caused the initial stress in the deceased ?
Was he using air as an diluent in the rebreather and possibly got _really_ frightned under the influence of narcosis ?

My sympathies to the ones left behind, and the ones that had to do the searching and recovery.

With a sad heart
Johnny

db8us

Yes AIR as diluent, as i already suspected in my previous post. And of course doind deep-air.
And have a stupid thing (lamphead tied to forerarm) and so on....

But of course this has nothing to do with the accident.
Also that the groupd arrived from Denmark and i was "only guessing" they would do a deep-air dive.
Hell, why should people from Denmark visit Hemmoor if not to dive deep.
And of course with cheap air and insufficent Bailout.

If no buddy would habe been there they would have called it heart-attack.
But of course now everyone says i am only throwing shit at dead people...
But thats not true. Once more i am just raising my word against deep-air and stupid configurations, against insufficent bailout and skills.

And yes, i know that i can also die using a breathers, but at least i never trust a breather, cause one day it will try to bite me in the butt.

Michael

A big thanks to Matthias Pfister And Michael Deckert for the informations and also for helping out there !

PCDiver

Does somebody know what caused the stress situation?

Mark Chase

A valid thing to fight for but from reading the report I was wondering if any one could clarifie the "from leaving the wall" comment. What depth was that? Also I can see that the divers were badly prepaired for the dave and made lots of mistakes but in the end a simple light chord being atached to the diver caused the fatality.

As you say, re breathers are dangerous things and should be respected at all times. The problem with your arguments is not in the content but in the presentation. Most will know you as a DIR diver and RB80 (or clone) diver and as such you have a natural aversion to CCR. As a result you will get flack from CCR divers who are aware of your back ground. When I am arguing against some of the daft things the DIR mob get up to (even the RB80 divers) I have to remember that only calm logic will make an impact.


ATB

Mark Chase

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See my "Doing It Chasey" video where I'm locked into a padded room, naked, with two ball bearings and within an Hour, I manage to lose one and break the other!!!

Kevin Juergensen 16/11/08
[/quote]

db8us

Hmm i thought my logic was calm :o

No Mark, you are right, i should sometimes maybe just take a chill pill.
But here my temper was raised by the fact that someone put in a light that
they "did a dive to 20m and sunk down most likely". If you see people traveling longer distances to Hemmoor you know WHY they are there !

And fixing something to yourself like he did with the lighthead is a no-no IMHO.

But you are right, i will step down from the soap-box.

Greetings to you

Michael

Tim Cashman

I just learned something from this.
If the divers torch was strapped on his wrist, and caused the diver to be pulled below the surface, the same problem could also occur from the wrist mounted handset of a Vision / Meg / Hammerhead / Oroboris / others?
If I ever should need to ditch my Rebreather in the water I will need to remember to take off the handset first!
Sympathies to all concerned. I recovered a body once, also from a deep air dive (75m) that went wrong. Its grim for everyone and so unnecessary. Well done to the search and recovery diver.
Tim

Beanie

Same goes for drysuit hose as well and VR / HS if its plumbed in.

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Decodiver

Very valid points Tim.

That is why both the handsets on my Boris and Meg use the VR3 straps that pull off no bother!

Cheers,

Dave.

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