Think your weekend of diving sucks / Read this!

[medical1]

Lake Michigan diver survives 2,500-foot trip through pipeline
July 3, 2005, 12:02 AM

PORT SHELDON, Mich. (AP) -- A 40-year-old Lake Michigan diver was found in a retention pond Saturday after being sucked into a power plant's intake system and pulled through 2,500 feet of pipe.
The Grayling woman, whose name was not released, was taken to North Ottawa Community Hospital for treatment of minor injuries, Ottawa County Sheriff's Department deputies told The Holland Sentinel.
She was diving off Port Sheldon with three others when she was sucked through the 8-foot-wide pipeline. Sgt. Jeff Somers said the other divers called for help when they discovered she was missing.
Consumers Energy workers found her in the pond. It was the first time in 25 years that someone had been sucked into the intake pipe, said Dennis McKee, a Consumers Energy spokesman.
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Information from: The Holland Sentinel, http://www.thehollandsentinel.com

 

[abitton]

If it hadn't been so dangerous, it would be funny...

 

[ShakaZulu]

Wow, that must have been scary.........

 

[medical1]

God was on her side!

Scuba diver sucked into pipe survives

PORT SHELDON, Michigan (3 July 2005) -- Forty feet below the Lake Michigan surface and a third of a mile off shore, one moment diver Joan Eddy was there.

And then she wasn't.

As her three frantic companions feared the worst, Eddy on Saturday was sucked through an 8-foot water intake pipe for the Consumers Energy J.H. Campbell power plant near Pigeon Lake in Ottawa County.

Eddy, 40, of Grayling, tumbled in total darkness through the pipe nearly a half-mile before she emerged seven minutes later in an open-air canal inside plant property.

Her only injury: a bloody nose.

"She was very lucky," said Dennis McKee, Consumers Energy's director of public affairs for power plants.

McKee confirmed that the pipe located 1,700 feet off shore has no grate on it nor warning signs nearby. He said a diver should avoid danger by staying clear of the pipe.

"It is a diver's responsibility to use all due caution whenever they dive, whether it be in a shipwreck or in caves or near an intake for an industrial facility," McKee said.

McKee said it is the only incident of its type in 25 years.

Diving with her husband and two others, Eddy disappeared shortly after 11 a.m. They surfaced and called 911. Search and rescue divers were called and an extensive air and water search began.

Consumers also was notified. An employee spotted her climbing up the banks of the plant's intake canal, a body of water about a quarter-mile long in a fenced-in area. She was assisted with removing her diving equipment and given medical attention at the site, McKee said. Rescuers said her only injury was a bloody nose.

An hour later she was reunited with her husband at the Pigeon Lake boat ramp, where he arrived with the 38-foot Chris-Craft boat from which they had been diving. Even before he stepped out of the boat, the two embraced tightly.

Through Port Sheldon Deputy Fire Chief Mike Ter Vree, she declined to talk about her ordeal.

"She's been on a helluva ride," said Ter Vree, who made headlines in 1996 when he made a dramatic rescue of an 8-year-old girl swept into Holland's street sewer system.

The extensive rescue operation also included sheriff's deputies, the county dive team and marine patrol, the U.S. Coast Guard, a helicopter, and rescue boats from area townships.

McKee said there is no warning sign near the mouth of intake pipes because they would be quickly overgrown with weeds.

"The incident is under review," he said.

Consumers brings in water from Lake Michigan to cool turbines and generators that produce electricity. Water flows in the pipe at six feet per second, McKee said.

Consumers is one of many companies that have intake pipes in Lake Michigan.

Holland has bars across its intake pipe for the Board of Public Works treatment plant near Tunnel Park. The bars are about a foot apart on the 42-inch-wide pipe, which is 45 feet below the surface and 4,500 feet from shore.

"I don't believe a person could fit through it," said John Van Uffelen, water plan director.

Veteran diver Jim Broersma, 35, of Zeeland, said he was diving with a buddy at a wreck site near Saugatuck when they heard radio traffic about the missing diver. They offered assistance and reached the scene after Eddy had been found.

Broersma said he doesn't understand why the pipe is not protected.

"They should have had a grate on it. When you are in an enclosed environment like that, there is no escape. Let's say the woman was just about out of air. She would have been in trouble."

SOURCE - Grand Rapids Press

 

[OliveBone]

I read the same report on a diving accident email notice I get, I can't belive that there were no warning signs or a grate on the intake pipe. What a ride, I am glad she is O.K. and did not spit out her reg in a panic.

 

[ShakaZulu]

I can smell a law suit coming...........wooot.

 

[serapis]

Mr.Toads got nothing on that one. Glad shes ok, and oh yea some lawyers going to sink thier teeth into this one.

 

[TheDMan]

"It is a diver's responsibility to use all due caution whenever they dive, whether it be in a shipwreck or in caves or near an intake for an industrial facility," McKee said

It sounds like they are already preparing for a lawsuit by blaming it on the diver.

 

[derwoodwithasherwood]

God was on her side!

Scuba diver sucked into pipe survives


McKee confirmed that the pipe located 1,700 feet off shore has no grate on it nor warning signs nearby. He said a diver should avoid danger by staying clear of the pipe.

"It is a diver's responsibility to use all due caution whenever they dive, whether it be in a shipwreck or in caves or near an intake for an industrial facility," McKee said.



SOURCE - Grand Rapids Press

Ummm, yeah, riiiiiight... The diver is at fault because she should have stayed away from the unmarked, unprotected hazard hiding 4,500 feet from shore and sucking a current of 6 feet per second through a 42" pipe. That works out to 21,647 US gallons per minute. Pretty good vacuum I bet. She definitely should have turned around and swam the other way when the current first grabbed her.

 

[markfm]

6 feet per second x 3600 seconds per hour = 21600 feet per hour = 3-1/2 knots. In other words you're totally borked if you go above it, using the rule of thumb that an average person can only make headway against 1-2 knots, plus it's not even a standard current -- you're swimming horizontally and suddenly get a 3-1/2 knot "downdraft"