Surface supplied air helmet diver drowns

[Allan Woo]

In the operations off Green Island in Australia, there are contingency measures in place for both the stoppage of air and in the event of a flood.

If the air supply is cut of for any reason, the accompanying dive guide has an auxiliary air source in which they can supplement the air that is currently in the helmet. Signs for the stoppage of air flow is a foggy facemask, rising water levels and no exhaust bubbles. The customer has approximately 2-3 mins of air in the helmet without the addition of extra air.

It is basically impossible to flood the helmet. In this case, the helmet is no longer off the customer's head. This is a serious incident and this is mitigated by the shallow water to bring up the customer to the surface.

I've seen these things and I always wondered what happened if your air got cut off.. or you had a flood.

 

[Allan Woo]

I agree with you that your family's safety should be taken strongly into consideration! I have taken my 84 year old grandmother on a tour on Green Island's Seawalker and she loved it so much she did it again!

We have sea trek with those helmets here as a tourist attraction. There is also an attraction where they wear the thing while riding a scooter underwater. Both of them terrify me. As far as I know there have been no accidents but I would never allow my non-diving family members to try either one.

 

[Allan Woo]

I would attribute this to the lack of helmet diving association that sets standards, such as in diving (PADI, NAUI, SSI). In Queensland, the helmet diving operations are regulated by the diving division of Work Place Health and Safety. Although there are some considerations for helmet diving, in a nutshell, helmet diving is subject to the same supervision, training, and operational requirements as a PADI DSD.

I've often wondered at the regulation of, and necessary qualifications for supervision of, snuba diving. Having worked in the dive industry for nearly a decade, I've yet to see any formal requirements stated for the conduct of these activities. It seems as though anyone can buy the equipment and offer the activity at their resort etc.

There seems to be two 'styles'...

(1) The use of a regulator/mask and long hose from the surface:

View attachment 133596

(2) The use of a specially designed helmet:

View attachment 133597

I believe the 'helmet' style is what is used in Boracay and other locations in the Philippines. I don't believe that any training is provided in conjunction with the activity, to either the operators or customers; including emergency procedures or the issue of participant panic.

The helmet style, in particular, does not lend itself to any sort of 'spit and go' reaction to a malfunction. I think the mask/regulator approach enables easier access to the surface. That said, the issue of lung over-expansion remains a critical factor.

Unlike a DSD, there seems to be no standards for the provision of in-water supervision and 'duty of care' by an appropriately trained and qualified professional diver.

Given the lack of training given, lack of waterskills competence required, lack of apparent regulation and lack of safety procedures in the event of malfunction... I've always shared DandyDon's perception that this was a particularly unsafe activity... an accident waiting to happen.

 

[EastEndDiver]

Can you enlighten us on how long ,how many dives per day/week it took to accomplish 200,000 dives with this system.

 

[DandyDon]

Can you enlighten us on how long ,how many dives per day/week it took to accomplish 200,000 dives with this system.

I suppose you are talking to this rarely seen member about this statement...

Green Island, the Seawalker operations has taken almost 200,000 customers without any major incident. This is due to the rigorous training and safety standards of the company. The majority of customers have little to no in water experience, and it is not unusual that they cannot swim.

 

[EastEndDiver]

Don yes ...the math boggles my mind.

 

[Steve_C]

Did one with my non diving wife in Bermuda. You climb down a ladder. You actually do not move very far. Just a few feet and you are holding onto a bar to help stablize you. Only walk on sand. Maybe 10 ft. The helmet just sits on your shoulders. Weight aside it comes off very easy. There was a fellow on scuba right next to us guiding us. There was a second with a video camera. Maybe 5 or 6 down at at time. There may have been an emergency plan but it was not discussed with the customers. Air flowed in and out under the back of the helmet.

 

[Steve_C]

How many boats does the operation have? The one we did was just a couple hours. Easy for a boat to do 2-4 of them a day if they have enough customers.

 

[Doby45]

When I was in St. Maarten and did my DSD, we "toured" the nearby Sea Trek and saw where they did it. There were no people down but they had a very specific course played out on the sea floor that the Sea Trek people walked through. Reminded me of one of those que lines you see to get on a ride at an amusement park. The walk way was about 2.5-3ft wide and there was a PVC handle on both sides. They did not just walk around on coral and so forth..

 

[Shasta_man]

200,000 people walking around on the ocean floor?! Somewhere there is a lot of open sand and few critters. As for the pic above, that seems very strange because walking around on concrete walkways is not at all what I go into the ocean for. Also makes we wonder, if they make so much money doing this whether I could flip this around to do it on land. I'd fill the helmet full of water with a little tube to breathe from and let people walk around in the lines at amusement parks... It'd be great until DandyDon posted his first message about it