Sonoma Coast fatality - California

[DandyDon]

from Diver dies off Sonoma Coast | PressDemocrat.com

An Elk Grove woman died while diving off the Sonoma Coast Sunday morning, reported Sonoma County sheriff’s officials Monday.

She was identified as Teresa Jeanne Collentine, 47, reported the Sonoma County Coroner’s Office.
Collentine and friends had been diving with tanks at Ocean Cove, near Timber Cove, when the friends called for help at about 10:15 a.m.
They were able to pull her from the water and began trying to help her breath, said Sgt. Brad Burke.
Arriving paramedics took over the effort but the woman was pronounced dead at the beach at 10:56 a.m.
It wasn’t known Monday morning whether she drowned or suffered a medical emergency. An autopsy was expected to be conducted Monday.

 

[aquaregia]

I was camping there this weekend, but went to Gerstle to dive Sunday. Sorta wish that I'd stayed at Ocean so that my O2 kit woulda been on the beach.

 

[DandyDon]

It seems to have been a training accident involving failure to keep reg in mouth on entry...

From PressDemocrat.com

A Sacramento-area woman who apparently drowned while diving off the Sonoma Coast on Sunday morning had just entered the water with a diving instructor when she began thrashing about in a kelp bed on her way to open water, authorities said.
Teresa Collentine, 43, and a third person, James Collentine, were both updating their diving skills with instructor Joe Mohamed when she ran into some unknown trouble around 10:15 a.m. Sunday and the two men realized she did not have her air regulator in her mouth, the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office said.
The two men went to aid the Elk Grove woman and got a secondary regulator into her mouth, authorities said. Her relationship with James Collentine had not been made public Monday.
He and Mohamed were bringing her ashore when Mohamed, head training instructor for the Drowning Accident Response Team, a non-profit organization that works under contract to the Sacramento County Sheriff's Office, realized she was not breathing, Sonoma County authorities said.
Once on shore, the two men attempted life-saving measures but were unable to revive her.
Collentine was pronounced dead at 11 a.m.
Her cause of death was not immediately known.
An autopsy was expected to be conducted later Monday, the Sonoma County Coroner's Office said.

 

[Chuck Tribolet]

It seems to have been a training accident involving failure to keep reg in mouth on entry...

From PressDemocrat.com

According to http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_20679829/woman-dies-while-diving-sonoma-coast
they were swimming out through the kelp on snorkle, so not an accident on entry.

 

[DandyDon]

This article says she was a retired deputy sheriff and an "expert diver" Retired Sheriff’s Deputy Dies On Dive Off Sonoma Coast « CBS Sacramento

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – A woman died over the weekend while out on a diving trip with members of Sacramento’s dive rescue team, including her husband.
Terri Collentine is missed. Her diving death is a mystery.
“Something happened, there’s an unknown,” Bob Erickson said. “There’s an unknown somewhere that we just don’t know.”
Erickson is president of the volunteer Sacramento Drowning Accident Response Team, or DART. He last saw her at a DART open house Saturday.
“It is a weird irony,” he said.
Terri left for what would be her final dive trip to Ocean Cove in Sonoma County.
She was an expert diver among experts. Terri was with her husband Jim, DART’s chief of operations, and their friend Hohn Mohammed, the chief of training for DART. She and her husband are both retired sheriff’s deputies.
“We tell people all the time it doesn’t always happen to someone else and we’re learning that firsthand today because it happened to us,” Erickson said.
The three went in for a dive Sunday morning.
“There was a little kelp bed they said to the right of the cove, so the plan was to snorkel out around that kelp bed,” Erickson said.
But Terri began flailing her arms. She was in distress.
“They towed her to shore,” Erickson said. “Once they got her to shore they could see she wasn’t breathing.”
A woman who loved life and loved to dive was suddenly dead while surrounded by an expert rescue team and a husband who’s now full of despair.
“As you can imagine, he’s lost,” Erickson said.

 

[aquaregia]

Expert diver vs refreshing diving skills... cheers media.

For what it's worth, I can add that the conditions there Sunday were very benign (great vis, no swell in the cove) and the kelp patches seemed light to my eye.

 

[jimbo83]

Hi I am a member of Scuba Board and Terri was my Wife. I am the Chief of Operations for the Drowning Accident Rescue Team (DART) in Sacramento California. John Mohamed is my Assistaint Chief of Operations and the Training Coordinator for the team. We are all volunteer team assigned the the Marine Enforcement Detail of the Sacramento County sheriff's Department. I have been a volunteer with the team for 25 years. Terri and I worked for the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department. We both retired in 2010 from the Sheriff's Department. I retired with 30 Years and Terri had 27 years. We both started diving after we retired. we took the Open water course at Dolphin Dive. Got Certified and left for Key West for a dive trip. We went diving in Key West, John Mohamed and his girlfriend went with us. We dived 2 dives off a boat. we came back to Elk Grove and had not dove since the Key West. We had a Dive Trip planned for Maui in June with John and his Girlfriend. we wanted to brush up on our dive skills so we decided to go Ocean Cove. John has been there and dove there around 100 times. We got our equipment on, we were wearing 7mm wetWetsuits,gloves and hoods. we walked down to the cove and did a safety check, and a check our compass heading. We talked about what we were going to do on the dive, Which was snorkle out past the kelp dive down go around the large rock and circle back to the enty to the kelp, surface and snorkle back through kelp to entry point get out and get gear back to motorhome and head back home. After the compass check we did a buoyancy check in about 4 feet of water. After compleating that we checked or regs and started out single file through the kelp on our snorkel. Terri was in the center when we started. I some how got ahead of her and I heard her yell help and swam back to her. she was thrashing her arms around and I said put you reg in your mouth and get on your back. I place her secondary reg in her mouth because that was the first one I found. John got there and dumped her weight belt and John told her to relax and he would tow her back in to shore. Terri was on her back with reg in mouth and looked like she was relaxed. We got her to shore which was about 50-60 feet away. We took her mask and hood off and she was unresponsive, she had foam coming from her mouth. We yelled for some one to call 911. We then started CPR on her. Several people at the park ran down and helped with Mouth to Mouth and CPR. A Medic unit arrived and continued working on her, Reach Helo arrived to help. The lead Medic on scene called it after 45 minutes of no response from CPR. The Coroner has said cause of death is pending. Terri was the love of my life and I will miss her everyday of my life,

 

[mathauck0814]

So far it sounds like it was not, in fact, a diving accident; but rather a swimming/snorkeling accident. Clearly this was not an expert diver who, based on the husbands' post, had little experience in kelp. It can be disconcerting to newer divers to get tangled. Obviously my speculation is that she panicked and drowned on the surface. Not sure there's any analysis or lessons to be learned from a diving perspective given she was doing things as I would have expected her to - employing the services of a local guide to take her into waters she didn't have a tremendous familiarity with relative to her warm water, tropical diving experience. Unless I missed something of course.

To the husband - I'm sorry for your loss. Truly a worst nightmare scenario to any of us who enjoy diving with our spouses.

 

[drrich2]

Very sorry to hear about your tragic loss, Jimbo83. I can hardly imagine it and hope it stays that way. I hope Terri is with God now. You mentioned:

We took her mask and hood off and she was unresponsive, she had foam coming from her mouth.

Given that you guys hadn't even gone down significantly, this is really a stretch (& from what I understand a rare event even when it happens to people diving regular recreational profiles), but there is a condition called Immersion Pulmonary Edema, where people can, for reasons I don't think are well understood, even with a prior history of uncomplicated diving, secrete fluid into their lungs and basically drown in their own fluids. I've heard it mentioned on this forum, and read a firsthand account in the DAN Alert Diver magazine some time back.

Has anyone heard of IPE occurring in a snorkeler?

Richard.

P.S.: Here's a DAN article on IPE. Interesting stuff.

 

[DandyDon]

Given that you guys hadn't even gone down significantly, this is really a stretch (& from what I understand a rare event even when it happens to people diving regular recreational profiles), but there is a condition called Immersion Pulmonary Edema, where people can, for reasons I don't think are well understood, even with a prior history of uncomplicated diving, secrete fluid into their lungs and basically drown in their own fluids. I've heard it mentioned on this forum, and read a firsthand account in the DAN Alert Diver magazine some time back.

Has anyone heard of IPE occurring in a snorkeler?

It happens. It'd be a stretch to suspect it as the cause here, but does: Swimming-induced pulmonary edema - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia A couple of other possibilities...

Pulmonary aspiration - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Laryngospasm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

While those articles may be good & interesting reading, it's all speculative to consider them here. I'm not sure that an autopsy can say for sure.

If autopsy results does give a cause, it could be very helpful it that might be shared here - as it sounds like a simple refresher course dive with an admirable Instructor, good diving planning & execution, and so forth - everything done right.