Scubaroo
Contributor
From Divernet:
The original reference I saw had mentioned oxygen toxicity as probable cause. The rapid sinking in open water is somewhat disconcerting.
DIVER LOST AFTER 55M WRECK DIVE
A man in his 30's was reported missing on Sunday 23 March after diving on the wreck of the Medoc out of Plymouth.
Charter boat Cee King contacted Brixham coastguard and reported Patrick Bumphrey, a Bristol-based solicitor, missing after his buddy surfaced in distress. Bumphrey appears to have been using mixed gas to dive the 55m wreck and had reportedly switched onto 100% oxygen for his final decompression stop when he was seen to convulse and sink rapidly.
The diver and his buddy had initially returned to the shotline with the rest of the group, but following instructions given in the dive briefing by the skipper, had then bagged off and were decompressing on surface marker buoys when the incident occured. Local dive boats and clubs joined in the search for the lost diver while his buddy was taken to DDRC.
The fatality is the first UK diving death of 2003.
25 March 2003
The original reference I saw had mentioned oxygen toxicity as probable cause. The rapid sinking in open water is somewhat disconcerting.