Fiona Sharp death in Bonaire

[W W Meixner]

Unfortunately, dives are often planned for everything to go well. Dive after dive reinforces the lie that this is an acceptable idea... until something goes horribly wrong. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst. The opposite is not always survivable.

I find it hard to believe...that a diver with this level of experience...didn't know what she was doing when she started out on what became her final dive...I further don't believe she intended to be at 300' feet with the gas combination she was diving with...

I suspect at a depth still to be determined...she became narc'd...and thought she was ascending...when in fact she was descending...with sound reasoning gone...and a possible level of panic we can't even begin to imagine...

We can only pray there was no suffering...God's speed Fiona...

W...

 

[tursiops]

possibly switching to the bottle which is missing

There is no bottle missing. All need to stay up-to-date on the thread.

 

[Vicko]

Getting that narced in warm, clear water at depths where air dill would be acceptable? Does not sound likely.

 

[runsongas]

Hypercapnia would increase the effect of narcosis. Scrubber should be checked for breakthrough. The dive also sounds to have been both planned and proceeded past recreational depths, so the location at 80ft where the recovery occurred is likely not relevant to the cause of the incident

 

[fsardone]

(snip - disregard this bit on interpreting the gas mix statement - did not add up)

I'm also curious - there is a focus on a 'machine' failure (or planning error) but what are the odds of a 'human' failure - i.e. medical event - that would be impossible to fully recover from given the time/obligations to fully resurface? Being discovered, presumably neutral based on reports, part way up would seem to indicate an attempt to ascend properly but not being able to make it.

Personally I believe that decision making faults are also to be considered human failures.
What we will never know is what she planned to do. This because it was a solo dive. We can only make conjectures.
But I consider her quite knowledgeable of her equipment (btw I dive the same reb). So she could have thought that some modalities of using the equipment were good for her and therefore allowed her to extend the diving boundaries of using the reb until something went wrong as @The Chairman has rightfully pointed out.

Let's make an hypothesis.
Let's say she was diving the APD with the BOV, so the offboard 20/20 was plugged into the BOV. So if you collapse the c/l inspire from the BOV, expire into the CL 2 times you actually have replaced the air dil with 20/20 dil. Now you have something like 16/20/60 in the loop (the missing 4 is CO2 which gets scrubbed). So now you are diving a 2:3 He/N2 diluent this relationship will stay fixed (if we ignore the different He N2 saturation of the body) for the whole dive and the only thing that will change is the fractions of the gas to make "room" or take up "space" for oxygen (this is well known to CCR divers but I thought important to elaborate it here for non CCR divers). So this mix at set point 1.3 would have her dive

• 43/14/42 at 20 meters
• 18/20/62 at 60 meters END 44
• 13/22/66 at 90 meters END 72

Also planning the dive with my deco parameters would give:

Dec to    90m            (5)    Diluent 20/20    0.70 SetPoint, 18m/min descent.
Level      90m      0:00 (5)    Diluent 20/20    1.30 (1.99),  73m ead,  68m end
Asc to    12m           (14)    Diluent 20/20    1.30 SetPoint, -8m/min ascent.
Stop at    12m     2:15 (17)    Diluent 20/20    1.30  SetPoint,  0m ead,  10m end
Stop at    9m      1:00 (18)    Diluent 20/20    1.30  SetPoint,  0m ead,  7m end
Stop at    6m      1:00 (19)    Diluent 20/20    1.30  SetPoint,  0m ead,  5m end
Stop at    4.5m    4:00 (23)    Diluent 20/20    1.30  SetPoint,  0m ead,  4m end
Surface                 (27)    Diluent 20/20    -1m/min ascent.

So everything would appear fine except for the END/EAD which is 73 and also you would be ok for the O2 exposure. So a quick bounce dive to 90 with 2 S40 appears feasible. But narcosis is subtle and insidious even for experienced divers. You do not realise how much you are impaired until you try to do something and you cannot. I believe she was trying to do something she thought it was within her reach and suddenly discovered she could not. I have been at 60 meters on air and it is not a good place to be. Not having to be scarse on He for cost is the main reason I dive CCR.
I would be not surprised if she had her onboard dil rigged for the BCD and dry suit (if she was in one) and used offboard dil for the loop.

How she rationalised al of the above, if this is what happened, will always remain with her. May her soul rest in peace. This is a humbling event that reminds all of us that the rules are there because somebody had a bad experience. Dive safe.

 

[cathal]

Let's make an hypothesis.
Let's say she was diving the APD with the BOV, so the offboard 20/20 was plugged into the BOV. So if you collapse the c/l inspire from the BOV, expire into the CL 2 times you actually have replaced the air dil with 20/20 dil. Now you have something like 16/20/60 in the loop (the missing 4 is CO2 which gets scrubbed). So now you are diving a 2:3 He/N2 diluent this relationship will stay fixed (if we ignore the different He N2 saturation of the body) for the whole dive and the only thing that will change is the fractions of the gas to make "room" or take up "space" for oxygen (this is well known to CCR divers but I thought important to elaborate it here for non CCR divers). So this mix at set point 1.3 would have her dive

• 43/14/42 at 20 meters
• 18/20/62 at 60 meters END 44
• 13/22/66 at 90 meters END 72

Also planning the dive with my deco parameters would give:

Dec to    90m            (5)    Diluent 20/20    0.70 SetPoint, 18m/min descent.
Level      90m      0:00 (5)    Diluent 20/20    1.30 (1.99),  73m ead,  68m end
Asc to    12m           (14)    Diluent 20/20    1.30 SetPoint, -8m/min ascent.
Stop at    12m     2:15 (17)    Diluent 20/20    1.30  SetPoint,  0m ead,  10m end
Stop at    9m      1:00 (18)    Diluent 20/20    1.30  SetPoint,  0m ead,  7m end
Stop at    6m      1:00 (19)    Diluent 20/20    1.30  SetPoint,  0m ead,  5m end
Stop at    4.5m    4:00 (23)    Diluent 20/20    1.30  SetPoint,  0m ead,  4m end
Surface                 (27)    Diluent 20/20    -1m/min ascent.

So everything would appear fine except for the END/EAD which is 73 and also you would be ok for the O2 exposure. So a quick bounce dive to 90 with 2 S40 appears feasible.

Just wondering have you considered the WOB of an EAD at 73M before you arrived at the conclusion a quick bounce dive to 90M with 2 S40's appears feasible?

 

[fsardone]

Just wondering have you considered the WOB of an EAD at 73M before you arrived at the conclusion a quick bounce dive to 90M with 2 S40's appears feasible?

That's why I said appears and not just feasible.
We have gas density 9,6 g/lt which is twice the recommended max value.
But you are right not just END but also gas density. The increased WOB would increase CO2 production and retention and increase the narc level.

 

[tursiops]

I would be not surprised if she had her onboard dil rigged for the BCD and dry suit (if she was in one)

She was in a wetsuit. Water temp is 85, weak thermocline at 25m, another at 40m or so.

 

[michael-fisch]

Back in the very early 90s I did my 1st 100M dive - on air in a cold dark and murkey german/austrian/swiss lake. I was certainly narked but I survived and was already thinking when I passed 60M on the way up.
Bret Gilliam and others have been much deeper on air.

Breathing O2 higher than 1.3 Bar or even 2.0Bar, although not reccomended in our litigitious society will not automatically kill you instantly either.

I believe that some other problem killed her, possibly going head down and breathing sorb soup. If she did that, the usual reaction is an inability to breath in for 30 or more seconds followed by uncontrollable coughing.

Michael

 

[Warren_L]

There is no bottle missing. All need to stay up-to-date on the thread.

Was her RB equipped for off-board dil? My first RB was an AP back in the early 2000s and the stock configuration was not set up for off-board gasses. I'd gather hers was more recent and I'm not sure if AP now offers off-board connections from the factory.