The Australians have just released
more case studies of recent diver
deaths. We reprint some of them here;
others will appear in the next issue.
Several of these cases, as reported by
Douglas Walker in the March 1997
issue of the South Pacific Underwater
Medicine Society Journal,
involve situations most divers might
find themselves in. Two, however,
are quite unusual: one suicide and
one shark attack.
Suicide
Three friends were snorkeling
in a popular diving area.
One looked down and saw a
scuba diver below. The diver was
not moving, and no bubbles
were coming from his regulator.
Police divers found him chained
and padlocked to a concrete
block; they had to use bolt
cutters to remove him. Suicide
notes and the padlock’s key were
later found in the diver’s car. He
had attempted suicide before,
but this time he had taken great
care to eliminate all possibility
of failure, waiting to drown
when his tank became empty.
Shark Attack
Though shark attacks on
divers are rare, this attack on a
honeymoon couple, both
experienced scuba divers, seems
particularly unjust. Five divers
were diving from a boat near
some small rocky islets in Byron
Bay (near New South Wales’s
Gold Coast) — three divers in
one group, and the couple. After
an uneventful dive for 25
minutes at 60 feet in good
visibility, the couple saw a large
shark swim away when they were
at 30 feet.
After surfacing some distance
from the dive boat, they
remembered that they should
have made decompression stops,
so they returned to 30 feet. After
three minutes, they ascended to
10 feet. A large shark approached
swiftly. The husband was a little
behind and below his wife. The
shark took him in its jaws and
swam away, leaving not even
blood in the water.
The wife quickly surfaced
and cried for help. As the boat
approached to pick her up, one
diver risked his own life by
jumping in to help her. The
other divers were making a
decompression stop; one made a
courageous dive to see whether
he could retrieve the victim. A
large shark swam about 20 feet
in front of him, so he surfaced.
Fishermen later hooked a shark
that vomited out the victim’s
torso before making its escape.
The Disappearing Buddy
A live-aboard dive boat
(Australian authorities refused
to divulge its name to us)
traveled to Cod Hole, off Lizard
Island in the Great Barrier Reef.
Among the 26 divers aboard, 4
didn’t speak English and required
the assistance of the
interpreter aboard. All held Advanced Diver certification,
obtained after making a total of
9 dives, and they had subsequently
made, respectively, 9, 22,
26, and (the victim) 20 dives.
The instructor gave a talk about
the dive conditions and the
interpreter translated.
After entering the water,
they swam in the wrong direction,
to the stern rather than the
bow. They held onto the mermaid
line and adjusted the
straps of their equipment, then
descended.
The first two divers descended
easily and watched the
third slowly descend — without
the fourth. He had waited for
the fourth, who appeared to be
experiencing buoyancy problems.
Visibility was poor; the
fourth did not arrive and,
hearing the dinghy’s outboard
motor overhead, the third
assumed the fourth had returned
to the surface and been
retrieved. He continued his
descent and joined the others,
believing they intended a group
dive.
It was not until a roll call
after the divers returned that
anyone was aware that a diver
was missing. Although they
made an immediate search, no
trace of either the diver or his
equipment was ever found.
Odd Man Out
A dive shop arranged a dive
package, checking that those
who signed up had certification,
but didn’t check their experience
level. The divemaster left it
up to the seven divers to decide
their dive groups, advising them
not to exceed 100 feet. The
victim, being a stranger to the
others, joined a buddy pair, but
entered the water before his
buddies, then came rapidly back
to the surface because his air was
not turned on. He then started
his descent without waiting for
his buddies.
As they descended, they
could see him at the bottom
(115 feet), then saw him ascend
rapidly, hand over hand up the
anchor line. They were at 70 feet
and signaled him to slow down,
though they observed no signs
of panic and his breathing
appeared normal. They thought
he would reach the surface
safely so continued their descent.
He had waved his octopus
regulator at them as he passed,
but what he meant is unknown.
The man in the boat was
surprised to see someone back at
the surface less than five minutes
after the dive began. The
diver floated face up and failed
to answer his call, so he swam a
line to him. The victim was
unconscious and not breathing,
so he started in-water CPR.
Although alive when he reached
a hospital, he never regained
consciousness, and died.
He had been wearing a
heavy weight belt when he
encountered his buddies during
his ascent but it was absent at
the surface. The rescuer attempted
to inflate his BC but
failed, learning later that there
was a leak where the inflator
hose attached to the vest. He
had a small left pneumothorax,
air in the left ventricle, and
mediastinal emphysema. Both
eardrums were ruptured, and
sinus barotrauma had occurred.
He probably descended
uncontrollably rapidly, due to an
inoperative buoyancy vest,
suffering severe pain in his ears
and sinuses. Failing to drop his
weights, he had to pull himself
up the anchor line to return to
the surface. It would be easy in
such a situation to forget to
breath correctly during the
ascent and consequently suffer
pulmonary barotrauma and
embolism.