I happened to be there when this happened. He was a technical diver, with years of experience.
My friend was at the surface working with a student, and overheard Stevanov and his buddy taking about their regulators breathing hard.
Subsequent to that, they decended. His dive buddy told me he was at 44 feet and was having equalization issues, Stevanov was at the bottom. Several people saw him going hand over first io one of the lines. One instructor told me he was going up "really fast."
His dive buddy followed him up, and as they surfaced Stevanov inflated his bcd and then rolled over into the water. His buddy called for help, and began towing him to the stairs. Several people told me the lifeguards did not react.
Divers took him from the water and began doing CPR. The lifeguards didn't go and get there AED. Divers continued doing CPR until the ambulance arrived.
(All the above is based on what people told me, so take that for what it's worth)
I went over to the water when I heard the ambulance, and they quickly loaded him and departed.
Afterwards, another diver and I were talking to the buddy, and I realized he was in shock. We got the buddy on ow, called for ems, etc and when the ambulance came back for the buddy, they told me that Stevanov had been revived at the ER, and was being airlifted to Albuquerque.
I saw the buddy later, after he was released from the hospital (he was ok).
I'm sad to hear that he didn't make it. I don't know if am aed would have made a difference, but for those of you who dive blue hole, take a minute and put eyes on that aed.
From what I gathered, it's a volunteer ems service, and a BLS ambulance so an aed is going to be more critical than it would be in other places with stronger ems systems (but really an aed so much more effective than CPR, and even if you haven't every used one, they have instructions, and they tell you what to do so you can use one without any experience).
This doesn't make any sense, but that's what it says.
Dr. Zoran Stevanov