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Adelaide fatality - Australia
- Thread starter DandyDon
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"Her friend noticed she was struggling and dragged her to the water's surface..... Initial reports said the woman was being treated for the bends[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]???[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]That doesn't sound good. I guess with an unconscious, non-breathing diver, you might try to shoot them to the surface, but not clear from the article if this 33 year old woman had some sort of extreme medical emergency at depth, or if she had some other problem and was done in by the ascent. Don't mean to fling blame, I have no idea what happened. However, this might be an appropriate case for some follow up, as it might be a good teaching point for the rest of us.
Anyone hear any more about this?[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]???[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]That doesn't sound good. I guess with an unconscious, non-breathing diver, you might try to shoot them to the surface, but not clear from the article if this 33 year old woman had some sort of extreme medical emergency at depth, or if she had some other problem and was done in by the ascent. Don't mean to fling blame, I have no idea what happened. However, this might be an appropriate case for some follow up, as it might be a good teaching point for the rest of us.
Anyone hear any more about this?[/FONT]
2cold4california
Contributor
Whatever issues beyond AGE that may occur as a result of a forced ascent of an unconscious diver are irrelevant; had they left her under (to deco? Unconscious?) she'd be dead anyway.
Barotrauma can occur if the lungs are obstructed, which is why they tell you to point a diver with mask facing the surface and bring them up if they are unconscious underwater. At 33, assuming she wasn't suffering DCS, it's likely that was what killed her (with panic probably starting the whole issue). Obv all speculation.
Side note: stop changing the fonts and colors it's not cute and it's very bad forum etiquette. I'm amazed they even allow you to do that and I'm glad tapatalk doesn't register your ridiculous font changes beyond telling me that you tried to do it. :/
Are you implying that I was suggesting that she should not have been sent to the surface if she was unconscious? Don't quite get your point.
The way that the article was written it stated that she was "dragged to the surface" when it was noticed that she was struggling. Now, we all know that the media often gets things wrong with dive stories, but struggling isn't unconscious, and without knowing anything about what problem she was having, it's reasonable to ask if there was some alternative to a rapid ascent (which may or may not have contributed to her death) for a conscious, breathing diver surrounded by other divers with working scuba gear if it was an equipment/gas problem.
Side note: I had no idea what you were talking about, and then I looked at my post and realized that it was in a different font. I'm assuming this is because I cut and pasted that text from the article, and the ScubaBoard editor picked that formatting up and applied it to my post. Wasn't trying to be "cute".
2cold4california
Contributor
I in fact did think you were implying that, my mistake. From the duration of her survival it looks like it was DCS of some sort. Unfortunate if somebody inexperienced forced her to ascend, but I don't know another diver that would drag a conscious person to the surface. I assume these other divers were diving with her and would have some idea of her dive profile, and would avoid missing deco obligations.
She survived for many hours after the accident, did she die in a chamber?
fonts...
I have just seen people do that on this forum (mess with fonts). Normally anybody familiar with vB forums wouldn't change font size or color as it is pretentious do differentiate your post based on text alone, even caps are the equivalent to screaming, on top of 99% of font changes looking stupid to begin with. Sorry to imply you were being "cute" but believe it or not some people don't do this on accident.
No worries!
Yeah, I agree, sounds to me like DCS, especially given the rapid ascent. If she had a catastrophic medical event underwater, she probably wouldn't have made it to the chamber. Certainly don't mean to imply that her buddies did anything wrong without knowing details, just because she got bent doesn't mean that they caused it. And the newspapers rarely give an accurate account of an accident due to lack of background knowledge, lack of reliable witnesses, and litigation concerns. However, dragging a diver to the surface is rarely appropriate, as we discussed above...
Hah! No worries there either....
Yup, I love scuba board, but I am not very fond of the editor... always seemed a bit buggy to me, but I am learning to use it better. There should be a plain text option, so that copied text from other sources doesn't carry over that formatting.
Woman dies after scuba dive at HMAS Adelaide wreck in Terrigal
A Sydney woman has died after falling ill while scuba diving off the popular HMAS Adelaide wreck on the NSW central coast, police say.
The 33-year-old experienced diver, from Bronte, died at Prince of Wales Hospital on Sunday afternoon after becoming distressed during a dive at Terrigal earlier in the day.
The woman was with three other divers and a guide from the Terrigal Dive Centre about 8.30am when she got into difficulty at the HMAS Adelaide wreck.
Her friend noticed she was struggling and dragged her to the water's surface in an emergency ascent but she fell unconscious. Members of the group began performing CPR on her while on the dive boat.
Initial reports said the woman was being treated for the bends, a decompression sickness suffered by divers when bubbles form in the blood stream due to changes in pressure.
Michael McFadyen, an experienced Sydney diver and blogger, said the bends usually occurred when someone ascended too quickly.
"To do the rapid ascent, there has to be a reason why you ascended in the first place," he said. "Obviously something has gone wrong down there."
The HMAS Adelaide was scuttled off the central coast in 2011, forming a man-made reef 32 metres below the ocean surface.
Mr McFadyen said it can be a difficult dive in bad conditions but Sunday's conditions were "pretty good".
Local diver Bob Diaz posted three hours after the woman fell ill that the HMAS Adelaide has "good viz, no swell, light surge and heaps of fishlife".
Mr McFadyen said the dive was restricted to those with at least an advanced certificate but an advanced certificate "doesn't mean much, you could have learned to dive a couple of weeks ago".
NSW Ambulance paramedics met the boat at Terrigal, and took the woman to Gosford Hospital before she was transferred to Prince of Wales Hospital. She died just after 4pm, police said.
A post-mortem will be conducted to determine the woman's cause of death.
Police will prepare a report for the coroner.
I am not sure who she was diving with other than the obvious local Terrigal Dive Centre. A number of Sydney Shops arrange for group trips to this dive site. Not sure how Michael got involved other than that he is interested in studying/analysing dive incidents. He dives with St George underwater Dive Club. Don't know if it was one of their trips or not
I notice he hasn't posted in here yet. I expect if he knows more he will post it here.
*Note I have also cut and pasted. I prefer to provide the link and post the content in case the content is no longer available later.
A Sydney woman has died after falling ill while scuba diving off the popular HMAS Adelaide wreck on the NSW central coast, police say.
The 33-year-old experienced diver, from Bronte, died at Prince of Wales Hospital on Sunday afternoon after becoming distressed during a dive at Terrigal earlier in the day.
The woman was with three other divers and a guide from the Terrigal Dive Centre about 8.30am when she got into difficulty at the HMAS Adelaide wreck.
Her friend noticed she was struggling and dragged her to the water's surface in an emergency ascent but she fell unconscious. Members of the group began performing CPR on her while on the dive boat.
Initial reports said the woman was being treated for the bends, a decompression sickness suffered by divers when bubbles form in the blood stream due to changes in pressure.
Michael McFadyen, an experienced Sydney diver and blogger, said the bends usually occurred when someone ascended too quickly.
"To do the rapid ascent, there has to be a reason why you ascended in the first place," he said. "Obviously something has gone wrong down there."
The HMAS Adelaide was scuttled off the central coast in 2011, forming a man-made reef 32 metres below the ocean surface.
Mr McFadyen said it can be a difficult dive in bad conditions but Sunday's conditions were "pretty good".
Local diver Bob Diaz posted three hours after the woman fell ill that the HMAS Adelaide has "good viz, no swell, light surge and heaps of fishlife".
Mr McFadyen said the dive was restricted to those with at least an advanced certificate but an advanced certificate "doesn't mean much, you could have learned to dive a couple of weeks ago".
NSW Ambulance paramedics met the boat at Terrigal, and took the woman to Gosford Hospital before she was transferred to Prince of Wales Hospital. She died just after 4pm, police said.
A post-mortem will be conducted to determine the woman's cause of death.
Police will prepare a report for the coroner.
I am not sure who she was diving with other than the obvious local Terrigal Dive Centre. A number of Sydney Shops arrange for group trips to this dive site. Not sure how Michael got involved other than that he is interested in studying/analysing dive incidents. He dives with St George underwater Dive Club. Don't know if it was one of their trips or not
I notice he hasn't posted in here yet. I expect if he knows more he will post it here. *Note I have also cut and pasted. I prefer to provide the link and post the content in case the content is no longer available later.
2cold4california
Contributor
It really does make it sound like she was forced to the surface while still conscious, that is terrifying. The first thing you are supposed to do in a rescue is ask if the person WANTS your help, and if they don't you leave them alone. Unless she was unconscious they had no business dragging her anywhere.
It also sounds to me like a situation where quick IWR could have saved her. I recently purchased a guardian for this exact purpose, as it is my opinion that IWR should be the default treatment for any DCS where the person is more than a half hour away. I know that's controversial, but I see no reason why waiting hours for a chamber is in any way better than IWR. I have yet to see an instance where IWR was tried, and later people said "well if we had waited for the chamber they would've made it".
Sad, and if she really was dragged to the surface that is negligence and manslaughter.
It also sounds to me like a situation where quick IWR could have saved her. I recently purchased a guardian for this exact purpose, as it is my opinion that IWR should be the default treatment for any DCS where the person is more than a half hour away. I know that's controversial, but I see no reason why waiting hours for a chamber is in any way better than IWR. I have yet to see an instance where IWR was tried, and later people said "well if we had waited for the chamber they would've made it".
Sad, and if she really was dragged to the surface that is negligence and manslaughter.
It is too easy to be an armchair quarterback. Media reports are too inaccurate to put much trust in them.
I have heard positive things about the operators diving that site. No doubt the people there did the best they could in a bad situation. They are likely already second guessing themselves and possibly even beating themselves up enough without help from people who have no real idea what happened!
Unless you were there or at least have personally experienced one of these events it is impossible to know how a person would react! Rescue courses are great but how a person performed in the fake situation is no guarantee how they would react in a real situation.
People can come up with theories to disect which is fine as long as they are clear they are theories.
In Water Recompression is not something that is recommended by any of the highly Qualified dive Doctors I have heard speak on the topic. You certainly need highly qualified people and appropriate resources. It should not be undertaken unless appropriate help is far away which was not the case in this situation.
I certainly don't know if she was "forced" to the surface or not. Nor do I know if In Water Rescue was a possible option. I have heard a lot of people say "You may survive bent but you won't survive drowning". In this case there was a tragic outcome in spite of the actions of those present so it leaves us wondering if the outcome would be different if the response was different Unfortunately a lot of people are hurting as a result....and I for one am reluctant to do anything to exacerbate the situation.
I have heard positive things about the operators diving that site. No doubt the people there did the best they could in a bad situation. They are likely already second guessing themselves and possibly even beating themselves up enough without help from people who have no real idea what happened!
Unless you were there or at least have personally experienced one of these events it is impossible to know how a person would react! Rescue courses are great but how a person performed in the fake situation is no guarantee how they would react in a real situation.
People can come up with theories to disect which is fine as long as they are clear they are theories.
In Water Recompression is not something that is recommended by any of the highly Qualified dive Doctors I have heard speak on the topic. You certainly need highly qualified people and appropriate resources. It should not be undertaken unless appropriate help is far away which was not the case in this situation.
I certainly don't know if she was "forced" to the surface or not. Nor do I know if In Water Rescue was a possible option. I have heard a lot of people say "You may survive bent but you won't survive drowning". In this case there was a tragic outcome in spite of the actions of those present so it leaves us wondering if the outcome would be different if the response was different
Unfortunately a lot of people are hurting as a result....and I for one am reluctant to do anything to exacerbate the situation.2cold4california
Contributor
Perhaps in Australia people can't sue you for anything, but in the US a good portion of the rescue course is understanding your legal liability and *that* is the number one concern when you approach a person who you intend to help. CYA and all that.
As far as "armchair quarterbacking", this is A&I and the objective is analysis. Also, I have witnessed in 3 rescue situations and participated in 2 of them, so my knowledge is based on more than just that darn book-learnin.
If a diver is panicked but still conscious and is not requesting help, it's best to just wait it out until the person either asks for help, fixes it, or falls unconscious, at which point you can then assist without consent.
Anybody know what the legal ramifications of assisting in Australia?
As far as "armchair quarterbacking", this is A&I and the objective is analysis. Also, I have witnessed in 3 rescue situations and participated in 2 of them, so my knowledge is based on more than just that darn book-learnin.
If a diver is panicked but still conscious and is not requesting help, it's best to just wait it out until the person either asks for help, fixes it, or falls unconscious, at which point you can then assist without consent.
Anybody know what the legal ramifications of assisting in Australia?
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