Diver dies at Molokai on Maui dive boat

[Dan]

Here are the situations that I gathered from reading the previous posts:
1. He surfaced early.
2. He was able to climb the ladder of the boat from the 10-12' waves.
3. He was able to sit on bench.
4. His eyes were red.
5. He face was blue.
6. O2 was given to him.
7. He passed out.
8. CPR was given to him for 2 hours.

 

[eelnoraa]

+1 more
LD allowed rec and tec profile divers on the same charter => tec profile diver deco time causing delay of the return bound.

No dog in this fight here either. I wonder if we will ever know the cause of death, and if any of the aspects can be change to save a life. ie, would a fully O2 botton make a difference? a AED kit make a difference? or without the tec diver deco delay make a difference? or different procedure in CPR make a difference?? ....

I purely want to know how to make things better and safer. This is probably the best we can make out of this incident. Or maybe next time, any of us going onto a boat trip, we can ask for these thing before boarding

 

[Steelyeyes]

Any time you are on a boat 90 minutes (on a good day) from help the odds of survival from a life threatening condition are very low. I know some EMT's with all of their available gear and training that have pulled off near miracles but that equipment is not available on any dive boat I've ever seen. First aid and CPR are great to know but are basically only good for short term care until EMS arrives.

Maybe CPR could have gotten some kind of a heart movement and an AED could have bootstrapped that up into a useful heartbeat, or not.

 

[Kevrumbo]

Here are the situations that I gathered from reading the previous posts:
1. He surfaced early.
2. He was able to climb the ladder of the boat from the 10-12' waves.
3. He was able to sit on bench.
4. His eyes were red.
5. He face was blue.
6. O2 was given to him.
7. He passed out.
8. CPR was given to him for 2 hours.

Report also stated that patient was put in recovery position as First Aid for Drowning/Near Drowning or Water Aspiration Scenario.

Extreme physical exertion fighting the surge and the 10-12' swell getting back to the diveboat, possibly hanging onto a thrown current line as a crewmember hauled the line in to bring him back to the boat ladder (? -speculation, not stated in report).

Rule Out Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome due to any of the following or in combination:
-Hypercapnia (at depth and/or at surface);
-Salt Water Aspiration on surface;
-Swimming induced Pulmonary Edema.

Diving disorders - Wikipedia

 

[Jack Hammer]

I don't believe the 10'-12' waves were verified, just listed in the OP. Any one bother to look at the wave reports for that day?

 

[doctormike]

+1 more
LD allowed rec and tec profile divers on the same charter => tec profile diver deco time causing delay of the return bound.

OK, this has been brought up several times, and I think that the point should be made that this is a problem with tech diving, it has nothing to do with mixing tech and rec. If the boat had been all tech divers, and the exact same thing had happened, it would have been the same outcome. The issue is that if anyone on the boat is incurring a deco obligation, then that means that you may be in a situation where you can't just recall the divers and head home. It doesn't matter if some of the divers are rec or not.

Now the important lession is that rec divers should understand this issue before they go on the dive, but it's not the mixed charter that increases the risk.

 

[Joneill]

Now the important lession is that rec divers should understand this issue before they go on the dive, but it's not the mixed charter that increases the risk.

My takeaway is that a mixed charter absolutely increases the risk! When you mix rec divers that are staying within NDL (as they should ) with tech divers that will have deco obligations and are not always easy to recall due to depth, a rec diver in distress can get screwed waiting for the Tech guys to surface. It seems like a really bad idea to mix these types of divers...

 

[doctormike]

My takeaway is that a mixed charter absolutely increases the risk! When you mix rec divers that are staying within NDL (as they should ) with tech divers that will have deco obligations - a rec diver in distress can get screwed waiting for the Tech guys to surface. It seems like a really bad idea to mix these types of divers...

Right. I was just saying that a tech diver is just as screwed in that scenario. If the victim in this case had surfaced after a technical dive, he would have been in the exact same situation. So it's not the mixing that creates the risk, it's the deco obligation of ANYONE on the boat. Even on an all tech charter.

In many cases, mixed groups like this have the tech divers do one long dive while the rec divers do two dives with a surface interval.

But you are correct, a rec diver who choses to go on a charter with any tech divers does incur a very remote but real risk of not having the opportunity for immediate evacuation. And it should be up to them if they want to restrict themselves from those dive charters, basically trading that small risk for the opportunity to get to some dive sites, where there might not be enough divers to support separate boats.

 

[Jack Hammer]

I used to crew on a boat and have seen plenty of rec divers ignore a recall... avoiding mixing rec and tec is no guarantee of a speedy departure in an emergency

 

[Frontpointer1000]

I used to crew on a boat and have seen plenty of rec divers ignore a recall... avoiding mixing rec and tec is no guarantee of a speedy departure in an emergency

I have an associate with a ridiculous SAC rate - he can routinely do a 1 hr 40 min dive off an alum 80. (When most everyone else is surfacing at around an hour) When he is diving on a boat - he lets everyone know they will be waiting for him. It certainly angers some people, but in his mind, he's paid the same as everyone else, so...

On a more important note, I agree there is an inherent assumed risk one must accept when mixing tech and rec diving on the same boat. There should be some obvious protocols used to protect everyone, but I don't think one should automatically call all tec/rec mixed diving as blatantly dangerous. It looks like this had been a practice for quite some time at this dive site especially. I would assume (although I don't know this as a fact) that before the boat leaves, everyone knows there will be tec divers down for the duration - and each diver must accept the associated risks with such a dive plan.

Here are the situations that I gathered from reading the previous posts:
1. He surfaced early. I would say "earlier". "Early" is difficult to define, and in this context, we don't know what that means.
2. He was able to climb the ladder of the boat from the 10-12' waves. 2 things: we don't know if he climbed the ladder or if he was assisted. The OP was still in the water when the victim got onto the boat--we don't know how that happened. Additionally, we don't really know what the size of the waves were, nor the frequency of the waves.
3. He was able to sit on bench.
4. His eyes were red.
5. He face was blue. His face became blue at some point, after having been on the boat for awhile. We assume this was cyanosis, but we don't know.
6. O2 was given to him.
7. He passed out. He became unresponsive. I'm not sure if anyone ever actually commented on whether a pulse was identified or not.
8. CPR was given to him for 2 hours.

I'm nit-picking here (and certainly not being critical of Dan T's post - it is very linear and informative), but for the sake of the validity of an accident analysis, let's focus on fact vs. assumptions. See red comments above.