Student diver dead - Co. Kent, England

[victor]

There will be a coroner's inquest which will rule on the cause of death. Can take time but the truth will out.

 

[boulderjohn]

Frequently those facts are not publicly reported. Here is an example of what I mean in the United States.

In cave diving, there is an organization called the IUCRR that has specially trained divers who do body recoveries and perform an investigation on behalf of the police in the event of a scuba death in a cave. They used to publish their results on their web site, but they no longer do that. Largely because of a fear of lawsuit should their report provide information about the deceased's medical issues, they only provide what they determine to the police. The police then create a report. That report is not published. If you want to read it, you have to petition for it via the freedom of information act.

Similarly, I know of a diver death in Australia. There was a coroner's report soon after, and those who were close to the situation know what it said. It was not otherwise made public.

 

[openmindOW]

Yes, maybe in some situations a difference in standards can have an influence in safety. How often does that happen?

When an investigation is started you can't know what is relevant. You gather facts. It's common sense.

We can determine probably determine agency. That's a fact. so is training level.

Any fact should be gathered. worry about which facts are most pertinent later.

Redshift, you can ignore posts that don't interest you. That's fine.

 

[Bazzer69]

In Britain, I believe I'm correct in saving, a inquest is held at a Coroners Court, which is open to the public normally.


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[DandyDon]

In Britain, I believe I'm correct in saving, a inquest is held at a Coroners Court, which is open to the public normally.

Many of those do show up on internet news.

 

[victor]

Yes the post-mortem and inquest are part of the public record unless there are exceptional circumstance. This is rare in the UK and comercial damage to an organisation would not be relevent.
I think that details of medical conditions may not necessarly be included if they were not a influencing factor in the death.

The Inquest | Departments | CCSS
The Inquest

An inquest is a legal inquiry into the medical cause and circumstances of a death. It is held in public - sometimes with a jury - by a coroner, in cases where the death was:

• violent or unnatural
• took place in prison or police custody
• or when the cause of death is still uncertain after a post-mortem

https://www.courtsni.gov.uk/en-GB/P...nation - Information for Relatives (HTML).htm

Why a Coroner Directs a Postmortem Examination to be Carried Out

The law requires that in certain circumstances a death must be reported to a Coroner for investigation. The Coroner will usually be notified by a doctor or by the police, where a death appears to be:

• unexpected or unexplained;
• as a result of violence;
• an accident;
• as a result of negligence;
• due to industrial disease;
• or from any cause other than natural illness or disease.

Deaths must also be reported when:

• the cause of death is unknown;
• a doctor has not seen and treated the person for the fatal illness during the previous 28 days.

 

[Phil_C]

This incident will lead to a coroners report and and coroners inquest because it falls within the category of deaths that will require this process to be followed.

In my past employment (32 years as a police investigator) I have acted many times as what is called the 'coroners officer' (the police officer responsible for investigating and drafting the report to the coroner in sudden and unexpected or violent deaths).

The inquest itself will be open to the public, but will only be reported if the local news outlets pick up on it and decide it is newsworthy, it will not be automatically published or reported, however the public findings and details are available to anyone requesting the details from the coroners court.

In the UK BSAC produce an annual diving incident report, that attempts to collate all accidents and near misses, regardless of agency, so more details may emerge through this process later in the year. Likewise DAN produces a similar report and may pick up some details.

I am not in the UK at the moment, but when I get back will see what if anything more I can find out, because as others have noted this is a shallow site, apparently being used for training, and there really should not have been a lot of scope for problems if things were run correctly.

Perhaps there was an underlying medical issue, or maybe a lung over expansion injury, contaminated air, or panic leading to drowning. But I didn't think lung over expansion, drowning or contaminated air would be best treated with hyperbaric oxygen treatment, which seem to have been what was undertaken here.

So at the moment there is plenty of scope for speculation, but very few facts to base that speculation on - Phil.

 

[openmindOW]

An inquest is a legal inquiry into the medical cause and circumstances of a death. It is held in public - sometimes with a jury - by a coroner . . . .

Thank you, Victor. That is very interesting. It's differs from the US system. Frankly, the UK system seems more sound than the US system.

 

[DandyDon]

A few excerpts from Tributes paid to Vikki Shelley of Sheerness who died after scuba dive at Holborough Lakes in Snodland

Tributes have been paid to a woman who died in hospital after suffering medical problems while learning to scuba dive.
Vikki Shelley was at Holborough Lakes in Snodland when tragedy struck on Saturday, July 12.
It is understood she became ill while on her third dive of the session, with only one left to complete, and was taken straight to the bank.

The 33-year-old had been on a private scuba diving course, supervised by an instructor, a dive master, and a rescue diver, which she would have taken after completing initial training in a swimming pool.

A diving expert from PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) in Kent, said: “We don’t know for sure what happened.


The exact cause of Miss Shelley’s death has not been confirmed and an inquest into her death is due to open this week.
Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council is investigating the incident but declined to comment further.

 

[DandyDon]

During a mask drill, she indicated she needed to go up."Rescue diver Rod Potts, who went with Miss Shelley, said the ascent was quicker than he would have liked but that she appeared to be breathing and speaking normally when they surfaced." It seems that she complained of an asthma attack after the dive, then lost consciousness, had no pulse and was not breathing by the time she was brought to the shore. The inquest found that Miss Shelley died as a result of liquid on the brain caused by gas bubbles in her blood. Full report at Snodland: Inquest into the death of scuba diver Vikki Shelley from Sheerness at Holborough Lakes