Off-duty firefighter dead - Maine

[DandyDon]

Officials: Off-duty Portland firefighter dies in apparent scuba diving accident

PORTLAND, Maine — Police are investigating the death of a Portland firefighter whose body was pulled from Casco Bay near the Maine Yacht Center.
Portland officials said in a news release Monday night that an off-duty firefighter died from an apparent scuba diving accident. The firefighter has not been identified.
The release says Portland Fire Chief Jerry LaMoria and Portland Police Chief Mike Sauschuck will hold a news conference at 11 a.m. Tuesday to provide additional details.
The Portland Press Herald reports that police received a report about 3:40 p.m. Monday that an unconscious man was in the water near the yacht center. It says firefighters tried unsuccessfully to revive the man.

 

[FaithC]

Just saw this article a few mins ago online. Wonder if he had been doing some work on one of the boats.

 

[Wookie]

I have a cousin who is Fire and Police dispatcher in Westbrook. Our whole family maintains moorings and scrapes hulls on days off. I imagine he was cleaning the hull of a boat. Not much other reason to dive in a marina...

 

[Croomrider]

Here is a little more, but no cause.

Portland firefighter dies in apparent scuba accident - The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

Mike

 

[Luis H]

The dive was a recreational dive, planned several days in advance. I was not there, but I am acquainted with all the divers involved. They are all members of our local dive community. I stopped by the dive shop on Monday evening and I talked to a couple of the divers today.


Here is a portion of one of the incident reports.

At 1330 on 16 June 2014 seven (7) divers met at Maine Divers Scuba Center to do a dive under the nearby Tukey's bridge. The weather was clear and calm. The group departed about 1350 to gear-up near the bridge and dive the 1430 high tide. At about 1530 I was called by Tom (diver) that one of the divers was on the surface and drifting with the falling tide toward an old railroad bridge and asked if I could bring binoculars to verify his status. When I arrived the object (I could not tell it was a diver) was about 200 yards away outbound with the tide.

I drove to the near by Maine Yacht Service docks where I could see from 30 yards that the object was an unresponsive diver. I enlisted the aid of two marina workers to get a skiff while I called EMS. We used the boat to recover Mike Kucsma at 1605. We did CPR until the EMS personnel arrived about 1615 to continue the rescue procedures.

Mike was found face down at the surface with an inflated BCD, with all his integrated weight and weight belt. His mask was on and his regulator was out. He had 820 PSI in his HP-100 tank and both regulators functioned normally. The dive computer indicated he had been in the surface mode since 1504. His dive was 22 minutes to 35 feet. Viz was reported at about 4 feet and the current was < 0.5 kts.

Here is a quote from today's Portland Press Herald:

The Portland firefighter who died during an off-duty scuba diving outing Monday died of a massive heart attack, the Office of the State Medical Examiner announced Wednesday.

Full story here:
Portland firefighter died of heart attack - The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram


Here are links to yesterdays news reports with more information about Capt Mike Kucsma.

Loss of Portland firefighter was 'traumatic' for colleagues - The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

Firefighting community mourns loss of Michael Kucsma

https://bangordailynews.com/2014/06...-diving-with-local-group-at-time-of-accident/



Thoughts and prayers to the Kucsma family and to his colleagues in the fire department.

 

[FaithC]

Very sad. Thank you for the update.

 

[tdtaylor]

The story above is correct. He was diving with a group of 7 divers under the Tukey Bridge, of which I was one. I had briefly met him before the dive, being the first dive for me with this group.

Very low viz (2 -3 feet) in 50 degree water. When we surfaced, he was seen about ¼ mile away, a light tide causing him to drift into Casco Bay through the Railroad bridge and drift near the Marina. After all the notifications to 911, the fire department out of the main Portland FD removed him from the water about ½ mile away. Unfortunately it was the FD where he was the Captain- very bad week for the unit.

It was a tough afternoon as the police questioned all of us. Several of the divers in the group knew him well.

He died of a heart attack. The autopsy said he had a coronary condition that he may not have known about.

Would have commented earlier, but I have been out of the US for several weeks.

Terry