Death at the Blue Hole in Belize

[sdiver68]

From stltoday.com, the website of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Chiropractor dies on the adventure of a lifetime

Rick James was a world traveler, an experienced scuba diver and was on the adventure of a lifetime with one of his best friends.

On March 1, as their wives snorkled on the surface of the water above, the two men dove into the Great Blue Hole off the coast of Belize in Central America.

The circular sinkhole is nearly 1,000 feet wide, more than 400 feet deep, and is considered one of the world's top 10 scuba diving sites.

As the dive ended, something went wrong. James fell back into the water as he took off his flippers and climbed aboard the diving boat. Minutes later he was dead....[more in link]

 

[vondo]

From reading the article, it sounds like the most accurate headline is likely to be "Local middle-aged chiropractor dies of heart attack"

 

[nolatom]

From reading the article, it sounds like the most accurate headline is likely to be "Local middle-aged chiropractor dies of heart attack"

or possibly insulin shock, newspaper article quoted friends as saying he was in "good health, except for diabetes".

This of course is speculation, but autopsy as quoted didn't say anything other than drowning.

A sad loss, condolences to the family.

 

[widget]

If I read the facts from the copy correctly, he was way into deco time.

Of course we dont know what his profile was like but I am thinking, - way below recreational dive depths,- perhaps at 54 not so fit anymore,- maybe a little extra weight, - possible sugar issues............I would consider at least a 10 minute deco time as the bare minimum and I would add a little safety margin on top of that as well, yet he popped out at 9 minutes!.

I dont know, I am thinking deco issues, - but surprised nothing was mentioned in the autopsy except that the "cause of death was drowning."

 

[maxnico]

Use Vplanner. Run 138 ft for 18 minutes on air and the rest will be obvious.

 

[tridacna]

Use Vplanner. Run 138 ft for 18 minutes on air and the rest will be obvious.

That's nonsense. I don't believe that he was at 138 ft for 18 mins. I've done that dive a few times. You're at 130-140 for 2-3 mins then planned deco to 15-20 feet where they have bottles waiting for you if you need them.

 

[Texas Torpedo]

If you read the article it states the following of the victim:
"After nine minutes, he tapped his diving computer watch and gave the signal to go up."

It sounds like they are mixing a few things up in the news report, which is often par for the course.

If he was an experienced diver and this was a rec trip, I don't they would intentionally get into a serious deco obligation, which 18 minutes would be. Also, unless they were diving higher capacity tanks than the standard AL80, they would not have enough gas to complete an 18 minute dive at that depth.

Running 21% @ 138 for 9 minutes barely takes you into deco.. A slow ascent would likely burn off the obligation, and the 3 min @ 15 would handle the rest.

 

[vondo]

Way below recreational depths? No, 8 feet beyond recreational depths. And he did not "pop out" at 9 minutes, he likely headed for the surface at 9 minutes and took quite some time to get there.

I've done this dive, pretty much exactly as he did. It is a very short, very deep dive, but it is planned and kept basically within recreational limits with a LONG safety stop at 15' or so. That 8-9 minutes of bottom time also includes the descent, so I never got particularly close to NDL.

The possibility for DCS is not really the problem with this profile. Narcosis and gas planning are the more serious issues.

 

[DandyDon]

If I read the facts from the copy correctly, he was way into deco time.

Of course we dont know what his profile was like but I am thinking, - way below recreational dive depths,- perhaps at 54 not so fit anymore,- maybe a little extra weight, - possible sugar issues............I would consider at least a 10 minute deco time as the bare minimum and I would add a little safety margin on top of that as well, yet he popped out at 9 minutes!.

I dont know, I am thinking deco issues, - but surprised nothing was mentioned in the autopsy except that the "cause of death was drowning."

News stories really just give hints at the facts. This one said "They stayed down 18 minutes" which is total dive time I think, accepting that as correct time. Presuming that he was on air, that's a few minutes to get into a group on the shallows, swim over to the Hole,, descend in an organized group, up to 8 minutes at bottom to look at the cavern and maybe swim behind the stalactites, several minutes to ascend - so it adds up.

Autopsy results from deaths while diving often just say "cause of death was drowning." Hard to say what the local medical examiner really found. Sounds more like a medical event than a dive related one to me.

Two ladders on the boat makes it sound like a nice one, much better than the one I took, but it's still a couple of hours back on a faster boat. It'd be a sad ride with the 15 other divers and these four including the deceasd.

 

[Ayisha]

Agreed with the other comments from divers that have done the Blue Hole. I did a very similar profile with a group as well, going to 137 for 2 -3 minutes, then a slow ascent to around 50 feet where we spent several minutes, then a continued slow ascent to 30 feet for a couple of minutes, and then we did an extended safety stop at 20 feet and then surfaced slowly. At no time was I near my NDL's and I arrived on the boat with 1400 psi in my AL 63, so remaining air was no issue either. Almost everyone else had AL 80's and a couple of people who had a known (over the week) high SAC rate had 104's. The total dive time was 24 minutes.

Please note that our dive was run as a multilevel dive, which wasn't mentioned in the posts from other divers.