Who Fact Checks “Oxygen-Breathing Diver”?

Journalists often do their research by reading reports by other journalists. This can lead to inaccuracies when information falls into the hands of the ill-informed.

For example, a 20-year-old Indian woman living in California was severely injured in a July scuba diving accident in Hawaii, but it was widely reported that she fell into a coma after her oxygen mask fell off. From reading this, someone who knows diving would be unclear whether she was receiving therapeutic oxygen after a diving accident or if she suffered a near-drowning when she lost her regulator (air supply) while underwater. Sadly, she later died. (decanherald/thenewsminute/bangalormirror.com)

In May, Undercurrent reported the story of a Spanish diver rescued from a cave on the Spanish island of Mallorca. The BBC got hold of the story in July and retold it in an online news magazine, but while the journalists got the facts correct, the headline writer couldn't stop himself claiming that the man was trapped in an underwater cave and running out of oxygen. (www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-405580670)

Even the journalist writing for www.enjuris.com, a legal advice website that asked guidance from Undercurrent regarding diving fatalities, talks of 'bad oxygen' and managed to write "If you're underwater and all of a sudden your equipment malfunctions or your oxygen tank stops working, you are out of luck," despite being forewarned. And, how does a tank stop working?

What is this love affair that ill-informed writers have with oxygen? Is it because it's seen as lifesaving in a hospital environment? Is it that they just don't know? Alas, few of these journalists know that pure oxygen would be lethal to a diver within sport diving limits.