Three dead and one in recompression chamber in Italy, Tuscany

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fsardone

Solo Diver
Messages
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Location
Rome, Italy
# of dives
I just don't log dives
After a dive in the rec range (36 meters about 100') 3 divers apparently surfaced too quickly (first one due to unspecified issue, second and third allegedly trying to help the first) and died while the fourth one delayed resurfacing and it is in series condition in recompression chamber.
They chartered a private boat for a dive. Coast Guard was alerted by passing boats today around noon local time in Italy and responded with 3 vessels and a chopper. They could only quickly transport one to hospital while the other three declared dead on scene.

All equipment has been taken in custody by the enquiring magistrate.
Possible scenario involves bad gas. Names are named in the newspaper news release.

Fabio

Tragedia alle isole Formiche Tre sub morti, un quarto ricoverato - Corriere.it

Formiche di Grosseto, morti tre sub. "Uccisi da un'embolia". Un quarto è grave - Il Fatto Quotidiano
 
Wow, what a tragedy. Please do let us know if more comes to light...
 
Maybe it's just the handful of CCR fatalities I've seen over the past year from the same area, but it seems like the Italians have had a bunch of unfortunate incidents lately. The news stories seem better written from a factual standpoint than most US accounts.

Anyone know if the bad gas reference is to a CO/other contamination issue, or to a hypo/hyperoxic problem?
 
Three scuba divers die off Tuscan coast - The Local

---------- Post added August 11th, 2014 at 01:43 PM ----------

The story I linked has a lot of differences from the stories in Italian, at least as far as I could tell using Google Translate. The Italian stories seem to focus on embolism as a cause, which makes sense in the case of a rapid ascent. That could explain the deaths of the two who followed the first man up, but it might not explain the initial ascent of the diver who reportedly did not feel well. This person was an experienced instructor, so you would not expect an embolism after a rapid ascent from such a person.

There are reasons, though, that an experienced diver might make a sudden ascent after not feeling well. I would prefer not to go too wildly into speculation at this point, though.
 
The recompressed diver was dismissed from hospital. No new news on the media (just more of the same). From what I have read they all were on OC no reb. There is discussion on possible bad fills. Investigation ongoing.

Fabio
 
reading news about the coroner's autopsy:
no heart attack, drowning or embolism.


my condolences to their family,
it's a tragedy.
 
Could that mean that there was some fault with the airfills? All 4 could not have had equipment faults and it does seem very unusual for 3 divers to die from rapid ascent, especially when they are so experienced. But if they had filled-up at a faulty source and suffered hypoxia, all of them could have been overcome.
 
Apparently they were all in good health, and autopsies were inconclusive.
Toxicology reports still pending. Today they are working on their equipment and news papers reported that some tanks have been filled on the boat, so they are also looking at the on-board compressor.
Experts are evaluating carbon monoxide poisoning which is an hypotesis gaini traction at the moment.

Sub morti alle Formiche: ipotesi avvelenamento - Repubblica.it
Sub morti alle Formiche: tra i sospetti anche l-intossicazione - Cronaca - il Tirreno
 
Apparently they were all in good health, and autopsies were inconclusive.
Toxicology reports still pending. Today they are working on their equipment and news papers reported that some tanks have been filled on the boat, so they are also looking at the on-board compressor.
Experts are evaluating carbon monoxide poisoning which is an hypotesis gaini traction at the moment.

Sub morti alle Formiche: ipotesi avvelenamento - Repubblica.it
Sub morti alle Formiche: tra i sospetti anche l-intossicazione - Cronaca - il Tirreno
It's challenging to understand the articles after Google translation, so your assistance is certainly appreciated. One of them did say "Were not killed or did not die from an embolism and drowning" after google translated.

There seems to be strong suspicions about their tank air, unless the news has exaggerated talk about that possibility. The best time to check tank air is right before a dive, but personal CO testers are still rare in the dive industry. Even after an accident, local authorities are often unable to find equipment to analyze tank air in the low PPM range. I don't know how common the equipment to check blood for CO is around the world, or how long that takes. Checking the compressor is logical, even tho tanks are so often traded back and forth, but even clean air results from the compressor would be meaningless as they often produce high CO rates sporadically - more likely when air temps are up and/or after the compressor has been running long enough to overheat and partially burn lubricating oil.

 
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 :shakehead:.

Concerning this one, this weekend is the summer peak in Italy (15 was Ferragosto, summer fest, which was Friday and the there is the weekend):D, so nothing I could find hit the media. I hope we will see something by middle next week.

Expensive tox will be done if the magistrate suspects foul play, or based on some interested party seeking to put blame on the operator. What happened is that the operator has been named as target of the inquiry but only to allow him to have his lawyer and his experts be part of the inquiry and request additional tests in order to grant him a fair defence it he gets to that.

Unless he is sent to trial for multiple 3rd degree murder or manslaughter, I am afraid what we saw is at the end of the interest span of the media.

Fabio
 

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