Three dead and one in recompression chamber in Italy, Tuscany

[boulderjohn]

Hello DandyDon,
I am looking into this event and others in order to learn and avoid others' mistakes. I am a pilot and I am used to study incident investigations and I find unfortunate that most of the times there is no organisation investigating these diving events thoroughly and looking into prevention and not prosecution/liability compensation. Sometimes national bodies do a good job in investigating/reporting these events. Unfortunately, in case of Italy there is no such body (as far as I know) for non-work-related diving .

There is pretty much no such body doing it anywhere that I know of.

There was a group in Australia a while ago, and a group out of the United States that did it for a decade or so before relinquishing the duties to DAN. DAN America did it for North America for a number of years, but they have not released a report for a number of years.

I wonder if one reason could be related to to the publicly stated reason that another investigative group, the IUCRR, stopped releasing reports. The IUCRR is a Florida, USA, group that trains divers for body recovery and accident analysis for cave diving. In the past, after they would complete a recovery, investigation, and analysis, they published a report. Visit their web site and you can see those archived reports. You will also see that there have been no such publications for years. They still do the body recoveries. They still do the investigation and analysis. They still write the reports. They will not publish them, though. The reports are submitted privately to the local police, and if you want a copy, you have to file a request through the Freedom of Information Act. This change in policy came under advice of attorneys, who said that saying the wrong thing in a published report, such as disclosing some private medical issue, could result in a lawsuit from the family of the deceased.

 

[fsardone]

Hello DandyDon,
I find unfortunate that most of the times there is no organisation investigating these diving events thoroughly and looking into prevention and not prosecution/liability compensation. .

There was a group in Australia a while ago ...

This is what I was referring to in my original post

... under advice of attorneys, who said that saying the wrong thing in a published report, such as disclosing some private medical issue, could result in a lawsuit from the family of the deceased.

Blame and liability I was mentioning ... and this goes against safety and prevention. Knowing the causes and the environmental and circumstances in which and accident or an incident happened will help preventing more.
In flight safety though the reports are anonymized if published. Otherwise if they contain name time and aircraft registration are limited to "need to know" recipients.
Sometime there is also voluntary report of violated rules and regulation and they are granted exemption from disciplinary action if the violation was not otherwise brought to light
ASRS - Aviation Safety Reporting System

Can't we do something like that in the diving world ?

Just my 2 cents here.

Fabio

---------- Post added August 17th, 2014 at 08:20 AM ----------

Yesterday the funerals of the 3 deceased.
Sub morti alle Formiche di Grosseto, funerali in Umbria. Gli inquirenti analizzano le bombole

The news-article on the funeral adds nothing new on the causes (google translate, with a little help):
Meanwhile, investigations continue to elucidate the causes and dynamics of the death of the three sub. To the scrutiny of investigators instrumentation and in particular the tanks with which they were diving to the Formiche Giaimo, Trevani and Cioli. It excludes, in fact, that the divers have died of an illness or drowning: they may have died of poisoning. But it is to understand what is the chemical that might have caused the death. The attention of the investigators is also on the air found in the cylinders of the sub.

Fabio

 

[Landlocked123]

Fluent in italian. grew up there. Long story short, they were only 20 minutes into the dive. The boat opearator noticed 2 bodies that floated to the top. One was passed, the other having trouble breathing. This later diver was pikced up by a rescue boat. A few minutes later , about 150 meters away the other 2 bodies floated lifeless to the top. They are saying these were expert divers. Sounds incredibly strange to me. References were made to possible medical conditions.

 

[DandyDon]

Fluent in italian. grew up there. Long story short, they were only 20 minutes into the dive. The boat opearator noticed 2 bodies that floated to the top. One was passed, the other having trouble breathing. This later diver was pikced up by a rescue boat. A few minutes later , about 150 meters away the other 2 bodies floated lifeless to the top. They are saying these were expert divers. Sounds incredibly strange to me. References were made to possible medical conditions.

Wow! That's certainly a different story than fast ascents from 100 feet killing 3! And I can see where the bad air suspicions come from. I can't think of anything else that'd kill or disable 4 divers like that. I test every tank for CO just in case as any one out of a lot can be bad, but a batch batch from the same compressor is certainly possible.

I can't find anything searching google from here. Hope more becomes available.

 

[CPDDivemedic]

CO detection is readily available with most EMS agencies these days with many of the new Cardiac monitors having it built in. I carry a carboxyhemoglobin meter with me all day and while it gives a reasonably accurate reading, bloodwork is always going to be what most docs work with.

 

[Ayisha]

CO detection is readily available with most EMS agencies these days with many of the new Cardiac monitors having it built in. I carry a carboxyhemoglobin meter with me all day and while it gives a reasonably accurate reading, bloodwork is always going to be what most docs work with.

With most EMS agencies around the world or just some? Some countries apparently don't even do/have a carboxyhemoglobin blood test.

 

[fsardone]

Hello Lanlocked,
I am native speaker and still live in Italy.
Could you provide a link?

This is a different story from the main stream of news that have been reported in the media.
Thanks

Fabio

 

[Landlocked123]

Fabio,

I used the link that was in the post. the only facts I saw that were concrete were as I stated. Perhaps I did not read the whole article and perhaps you read a different one I did?

Ciao

---------- Post added August 20th, 2014 at 07:22 PM ----------

Corriere Della sera....Tre sub morti nel mare della Toscana «Fabio batteva il pugno sul petto» - Corriere.it

Davanti alle Formiche la «Emery» ormeggia alle 10.40. «Hanno iniziato le immersioni dopo pochi minuti - racconta ancora sotto shock Andrea Montrone, uno dei responsabili del diving center che era con loro sulla barca -. Era un gruppo indipendente ed esperto, non aveva bisogno di noi. Poco dopo mi tuffo anch’io e solo quando risalgo in superficie mi trovo davanti alla tragedia che si è appena compiuta. Inspiegabile: erano in acqua da meno di venti minuti, non può essere un’embolia, forse un malore». Sulla superficie del mare galleggiano due corpi: quello di Giaimo, ormai senza vita, e di Barbacci, che respira a fatica e sviene poco dopo essere stato recuperato da un battello di soccorso: ricoverato all’ospedale di Orbetello sarà poi dimesso in serata. Pochi minuti dopo, a un centinaio di metri di distanza, tornano in superficie i corpi senza vita di Gianluca Trevani ed Enrico Cioli.

 

[fsardone]

Hello Landlocked,
that is the testimony to the newspaper of the Diving center operator which was diving at the time and surfaced at the end.

While the tuscany local newspaper "La Nazione" reported as below which was the same thing that RAI1(the State tv Channel) News reported on TV with testimonies of first responders.

Also ANSA (which is the main news agency in Italy) reported that more divers of that group fell sick the next day.

Overall, my assessment was somebody got sick at depth, and started ascent, he was accompanied in a fast ascent by the surviving diver who got bent, recompressed and survived, the other two resurfaced also for unknown motives and were found dead on the surface.

Might be wrong but it is the best I can manage with the information available.

Fabio

Sub morti: perizia su 'scatole nere' - Toscana - ANSA.it
Altri avrebbero accusato malesseri, accertamenti
Tre compagni di immersione dei sub che domenica sono morti a largo di Grosseto, il giorno successivo avrebbero accusato dei malesseri.


http://www.lanazione.it/grosseto/sub-morti-formiche-1.113785#1
Secondo una prima ricostruzione, l'incidente si sarebbe verificato in due episodi. Il primo ha coinvolto uno dei sub del gruppo che avrebbe accusato sott'acqua un malore poi rivelatosi mortale. L'uomo è stato soccorso da un compagno di immersione, che nel mentre sarebbe andato in embolia. I due sarebbero stati soccorsi dal 118, giunto a bordo di una vedetta della Guardia costiera. Per il primo non c'è stato niente da fare mentre il secondo è stato condotto a terra e ricoverato in ospedale. Al momento l'uomo sarebbe in via di dimissione dall'ospedale. Gli altri due componenti del gruppo invece non sarebbero più riemersi. Da accertare ancora le cause.
La richiesta di soccorso è stata ricevuta dalla sala operativa della guardia costiera di Porto Santo Stefanoattorno a mezzogiorno. I quattro erano insieme a 11 persone, tutte impegnate in una immersione nelle acque delle Formiche, a circa 11 miglia da Porto Santo Stefano. La guardia costiera ha inviato due motovedette e fatto decollare un elicottero per le ricerche in mare. I militari, ricostruisce la guardia costiera, hanno raggiunto il gruppo. Tre sub erano morti, mentre il quarto era incosciente ma ancora vivo: è stato trasportato da una motovedetta fino alla scogliera delle Formiche e affidato alle cure mediche del personale del 118. I corpi degli altri tre sub, invece, sono stati presi a bordo dalle altre unità della guardia costiera.

 

[DandyDon]

Also ANSA (which is the main news agency in Italy) reported that more divers of that group fell sick the next day.

Others besides the previously mention four? Know how many? The listed "bad equipment" does not seem to specify what their suspicious are, but there is only one feature of "bad equipment" that can affect them all...

I witnessed a similar issue once, when our group of 20 or so divers arrived in Belize, dive the next morning, and most got ill after 2 dives. I figured it was a bunch of city folks suffering heat and dehydration, and it didn't occur to me for a few years that all of the Air divers got ill, but we Nitrox divers who got our gas at a much better Operator didn't - something abnormal in the air, and that Op was lousy.