Student rescued at Whidbey Island

[DandyDon]

Although the outcome sounds doubtful: Diving accident triggers rescue response on Whidbey Island | Local & Regional | Seattle News, Weather, Sports, Breaking News | KOMO News

KEYSTONE, Wash. - Rescuers responded Saturday to a diving accident near the Keystone ferry terminal on Whidbey Island, sheriff's officials said.

The rescue team, from Central Whidbey Island Fire & Rescue, was dispatched to the scene early Saturday afternoon after receiving a report of a diver in distress.

The diver was located and pulled from the water. Life-saving efforts, including CPR, were immediately begun and the diver was rushed to Whidbey General Hospital.

The diver's condition was not immediately available.

Officials said the diver was with a group taking diving lessons at the time of the accident.

 

[TSandM]

This really wasn't a diving accident. The victim was on the surface when she became unwell, and she had never been underwater. Her buddy towed her in.

She was lucky that GUE-Seattle was having our fall dive and barbecue there today. We had over 30 people, including an ER doc and two paramedics, as well as three O2 kits (two with ambu bags). CPR was started as soon as we realized what the situation was, and oxygen was provided. Luckily, Whidbey General Hospital isn't far away, and it wasn't long until medics were there.

No word yet on her condition.

 

[decompression]

Very fortunate for you and your group to be there, thanks Lynne.

 

[dadztoy]

Was the ladys name Deb, with red hair????

 

[Tigerman]

Hope shell recover from this "diving incident" - which its called whenever someone happen to wear diving gear, even if its half a mile from the water.

 

[boulderjohn]

I read the DAN diving fatality reports every year, including the descriptions of individual events. Although I agree that this is not a diving incident, others like that have been included in those annual reports. I have read several cases in which divers had problems while on the surface, sometimes fighting current, on their way to the point where they planned to start the dive. I guess, then, that DAN would agree that this was a diving incident.

 

[lamont]

I read the DAN diving fatality reports every year, including the descriptions of individual events. Although I agree that this is not a diving incident, others like that have been included in those annual reports. I have read several cases in which divers had problems while on the surface, sometimes fighting current, on their way to the point where they planned to start the dive. I guess, then, that DAN would agree that this was a diving incident.

Right after my rescue course I was diving at a local site and on the way back in there was a group leaving. One of the divers had some distress, so his buddies just left him and went diving. He started to go into a full blown panic, thrashing his arms and yelling that he couldn't breathe. We managed to get him to calm down and drop his weights, and I towed him back into shore (after 80 minutes of kicking all over the dive site, i was completely beat after that one...). He had never been underwater, and it was a calm sunny summer day, no current, only about 10 feet of water under him (edmonds underwater park, at about the tip of the jetty).

Technically, not an accident occurring while breathing off of scuba gear, but the mistake his "buddies" made certainly carries lessons for divers, his inability to breathe on the surface was probably gear-related and his BCD was most likely too tight and restricting his diaphragm, and we wound up using a lot of the scuba-specific rescue techniques taught in rescue courses. I'd classify that one as a diving incident, even though the 'victim' was never breathing off a scuba regulator.

I wasn't at the incident yesterday, but I sort of feel the same way that its splitting hairs to call it a non-diving accident. It sounds like there were a lot of latent preexisting conditions. But it probably took the additional stress of the rescue course that day for it to wind up precipitating whatever medical event happened. And there's lessons there about diving and fitness, and managing diver stress. And the response at the shore and the application of everything we learn in rescue courses is certainly diving related -- doesn't really matter if it was a CVA on the surface or CAGE or drowning, the process of getting the victim to EMS is going to look similar.

 

[TSandM]

It's a good point, Lamont. Certainly there were things about her being in the water, and getting her OUT of the water and out of her gear, and providing O2 and all, that were part of the Rescue class we had just finished running two days before (and one of the students from that class was at this incident -- I don't think he thought he was going to get graduation exercises so soon). And swimming at Keystone on the surface, in the current, undoubtedly played a role.

I don't think she had red hair; if it was red, it wasn't very.

 

[ADeadlierSnake]

Do we know if it was the instructor, or a student who pulled her to shore? I didnt ask since I didnt wanna hassle the guy for information during such a hectic and trying event. Although I thought he did a great job composing himself after getting out of the water

 

[peterbj7]

I was once assigned an instabuddy on a dive boat at the Florida Keys. He took for ever to get his gear together and on, so everyone else had been long gone when we finally dropped off the stern of the boat. The briefing was to surface swim to the bow line, then go down the line. There was a bit of a surface current, but nothing normally worth mentioning. About halfway along the boat my buddy was clearly in difficulties and was having trouble breathing, so I took him back to the ladder and after hollering several times eventually managed to attract the attention of the crew. Once they had him I went off to start my much-delayed dive. After a short while the recall signal was given so all the divers returned to the boat (well done, especially since there had been no briefing on recalls) to find my erstwhile buddy stretched out on the deck and on oxygen. We went straight back to the dock and he went to hospital. It transpired that he had a serious heart complaint that he knew about, and had been barred from diving. I was told that if I had managed to get him underwater he would probably have had a major heart attack there and then.

The fact that a diver is not underwater does not mean that all is well.