Two fatalities at Harvard Mine, California

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Banyan

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Two divers die while exploring water-filled mine in Mother Lode

Tuesday, Apr. 12, 2011

Emergency personnel on Monday recovered the body of the second man to die in an apparent scuba diving accident at the Jamestown mine in Tuolumne County this weekend.

Four men were diving in the 500-foot-deep, open-pit mine off Harvard Mine Road on Saturday afternoon when one of them, Jamie Pollard, 37, of Stockton, panicked for an unknown reason, said Tuolumne County sheriff's Sgt. Jeff Wilson.

Fellow diver Cameron Wheeler, 41, of Stockton helped Pollard to the surface, where he appeared to be in stable condition.

Wheeler left Pollard on the shore and returned to the water to avoid decompression sickness from surfacing too quickly and to search for the other two divers, Wilson said.

While Wheeler was 135 feet under, an unknown man called 911 to report Pollard as a drowning victim, Wilson said. Emergency personnel responded to the mine about 3:30 p.m., and Pollard was taken to Sonora Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Wheeler could not locate the other divers in the cold water that has created a lake at the abandoned open-pit mine. Upon resurfacing, Wheeler alerted emergency personnel the two still were missing, Wilson said.

But one of the two divers, who was not identified, believed to still be in the lake Sunday eventually was found at the accident scene alive and safe.

The other missing diver, 34-year-old David Allen Dedic of Lodi, never surfaced.

Search-and-rescue volunteers were called to search for Dedic, but a team was not able to be assembled until 8 a.m. Sunday, Wilson said. Rescue workers used a boat and sonar to attempt to find Dedic, but their efforts were fruitless. Officials said a lack of equipment for working at the depths where the body was believed to be hampered recovery efforts.

Officials from the Army Corps of Engineers arrived about 5 p.m. Sunday with a remotely operated vehicle equipped with a camera and control arm. With no sign of Dedic at sunset, rescue workers decided to resume the search at 9:30 a.m. Monday, Wilson said.

Several hours into the search Monday, the craft located Dedic's body. It is not known how Dedic or Pollard died, but autopsies are scheduled today.

Dedic and Pollard had Facebook pages that listed scuba diving as their favorite activities and used profile pictures of themselves taken while diving.

Dedic's page said he attended Tokay High School in Lodi and worked for San Joaquin Drywall as a supervisor. His last status update was Feb. 17, when he posted: "Waiting to go diving!!!."

Pollard has no other personal information listed on his Facebook page.

Wilson said locals frequently use the old mine, which is on private property, as a swimming hole and divers have been known to explore the area.
 
first off... Rest in Peace fellow divers. My sincere condolences to the families of these victims.

I'm new here and new to diving. So I am just here to learn. I understand PADI wants you to not go back down after a rapid accent. But I've got to ask, did this guy possibly save his own life by returning to depth and completing his "safety stop"?
 
first off... Rest in Peace fellow divers. My sincere condolences to the families of these victims.

I'm new here and new to diving. So I am just here to learn. I understand PADI wants you to not go back down after a rapid accent. But I've got to ask, did this guy possibly save his own life by returning to depth and completing his "safety stop"?

It's hard to tell from a newspaper report but from the way the story reads, yes. The SCUBA instructors can better addresss the specifics of the PADI curriculum, but I assume you learned that if a diver on a no-decompression recreational dive has a panic ascent that may precipitate an arterial gas embolism, he or she should remain on the surface for observation. There's a difference between that, and an ascent like the one described that involves omitted decompression. If a diver omits decompression and can get himself/herself back down quickly enough, he/she has a good chance of completing the decompression without complications.

Another very similar incident happened in a quarry in the midwest almost a year ago. One diver in a buddy pair presumably had a heart attack under water. His buddy assisted him to the surface and in the process, they both omitted a considerable amount of deco. The buddy did not complete his decompression and died of pulmonary DCS in the chamber a few hours later. The stricken diver received CPR at the scene and died at the hospital. A third diver, who'd elected not to go as deep as the first two, was treated empirically and was fine.
 
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first off... Rest in Peace fellow divers. My sincere condolences to the families of these victims.

I'm new here and new to diving. So I am just here to learn. I understand PADI wants you to not go back down after a rapid accent. But I've got to ask, did this guy possibly save his own life by returning to depth and completing his "safety stop"?

I'm also a new diver, but from reading threads on here and articles elsewhere, I'd say 'no'. My understanding is that if he had DCS, treating it by returning to depth would likely not have worked. It is something that's theoretically possible, but requires all sorts of surface support, pure oxygen and special training. Just getting back underwater will at best not help at all and at worst kill you (after DCS symptoms kick in).

There are quite a few threads on here about it. My take is that PADI's opinion isn't quite the whole story, but for all practical purposes, "don't do it" is the right answer for recreational divers.
 
first off... Rest in Peace fellow divers. My sincere condolences to the families of these victims.

I'm new here and new to diving. So I am just here to learn. I understand PADI wants you to not go back down after a rapid accent. But I've got to ask, did this guy possibly save his own life by returning to depth and completing his "safety stop"?

There are different procedures for No Decompression diving and Tec (decompression) diving. I'll avoid going into details, since I do not want to encourage any experimentation.
 
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Or, rather, ignore my answer and listen to the Duke Dive Medicine. It sounds like treating DCS by returning to the water and returning to the water to complete missed decompression stops are slightly different cases.

It still sounds to me like getting yourself on pure oxygen and off to the nearest hyperbaric chamber would be the best bet in most cases.
 
I know two of those involved. The news story is garbled. Jamie Pollard was not diving with Cameron Wheeler. His buddy surfaced at the end of the dive. Jamie stayed below alone somewhere by 100. He paniked, out of air I heard, and came across David Dedic and Cameron Wheeler. They were decompresing after a deep dive, maybe 200 or more. David Dedic is not a teck diver. Cameron Wheeler is teck but not a teck instructor not any kind of instructor. They had Done this deep nonsense before. Cmaeron left Dedic, took Jamie up, give him to his buddy up top, and went back down. No David, no bubbles.

Both were alone when the problem hit.

As the local diving people got talking to each other about this, it has come out that there group of friends often dives way deeper than there certs, and some other bad practices. Time to knock that garbage off, guys! The rules are there because people die doing different.

Both divers would still be alive if they followed the rules. The other divers get to live with themselves.
 
I'm also a new diver, but from reading threads on here and articles elsewhere, I'd say 'no'. My understanding is that if he had DCS, treating it by returning to depth would likely not have worked.


I understand what you are saying,but from the report he did not have DCS,rather he missed some deco stops.

If I missed a bunch of deco for whatever reason and found myself on the surface WITH NO SYMPTOMS then I would descend again and do an extended deco schedule.

DCS does not typically appear immediately upon surfacing.
 
I understand what you are saying,but from the report he did not have DCS,rather he missed some deco stops.

If I missed a bunch of deco for whatever reason and found myself on the surface WITH NO SYMPTOMS then I would descend again and do an extended deco schedule.

DCS does not typically appear immediately upon surfacing.

Yes, sorry. I followed up after another poster made it clear to me that there's a difference between the two situations.

I still think, though, that PADI's recommendation is sound when applied to me and the guy who asked the question (both non-tech divers who shouldn't have any deco stops to miss).
 
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I know two of those involved. The news story is garbled. Jamie Pollard was not diving with Cameron Wheeler. His buddy surfaced at the end of the dive. Jamie stayed below alone somewhere by 100. He paniked, out of air I heard, and came across David Dedic and Cameron Wheeler. They were decompresing after a deep dive, maybe 200 or more. David Dedic is not a teck diver. Cameron Wheeler is teck but not a teck instructor not any kind of instructor. They had Done this deep nonsense before. Cmaeron left Dedic, took Jamie up, give him to his buddy up top, and went back down. No David, no bubbles.

Both were alone when the problem hit.

As the local diving people got talking to each other about this, it has come out that there group of friends often dives way deeper than there certs, and some other bad practices. Time to knock that garbage off, guys! The rules are there because people die doing different.

Both divers would still be alive if they followed the rules. The other divers get to live with themselves.

Thanks for the post.

Could you give us some details of this site? Temperature,viz,overhead? etc.

Any idea of the gear they were using ?
 

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