Accident on Southern Cal Oil Rigs Dive

[Altamira]

Very large scallops for the taking (10 max for take-home, but we also "ceviche-ize" a few extra on the diveboat before coming home). The hazard though is that you have to go deep, at least 24m/80' and deeper to the second horizontal cross beam support platform at roughly 36m/120' at Oil Rig Eureka.

If I ever dive the rig, you can have mine--I have a shellfish allergy. That just wrong, and should not happen to a diver!

 

[Ken Kurtis]

The info at this point is sketchy but one theory is the diver had a seizure and was at a depth of some 130-140ft. He may have had a O2 toxicity seizure if he used Nitrox. Just speculation at this point.

Awful lot of speculation in those two sentences based on limited (at best) information. Let's discuss but avoid speculation as posting speculatively leads to someone taking it as fact and it spirals out of control.

 

[Kevrumbo]

Victim's tank did have "Nitrox" sticker. As far as I could tell, he was in wetsuit and jacket style BCD, looks like hp100 tank. I would be interested in the content of the tank. Could be health issue, too. Toxing on oxygen? Hmm, how deep would he be at that point?I doubt 130-140 on 32% would be enough to get seizures... Possible-yes but not very probable.

Again, Gas Density and work-of-breathing, Exertion Hypercapnia/metabolic CO2 retention with exhaustive physical exercise also goes hand-in-hand and is synergistic with increasing risk of Oxygen Toxicity Syndrome. Depending on such factors as the diver's exercise shape and any other underlying medical problems, along with fighting currents and vertical surge at depth which is the normal "washing machine" environment of Elly-Ellen-Eureka Oil Rig Platforms, it can happen at any depth.

For Air with a density of over 6g/L beginning at a depth of 40m/130' -which just happens to correspond to the recreational max recommended dive limit- a significant amount of excess metabolic Carbon Dioxide was shown to be retained even with moderate exercise, and as a potential precursor to the pathophysiologic effects noted above. See article: Advanced Knowledge Series: The Gas Density Conundrum

 

[Dizzi Lizzi]

I dove this on a training dive recently. You are strongly cautioned to stay within the structure related to the boat traffic, and even employees coming to work on the rig. There was one person training in a dry suit that did not have correct weighting and had a bit of an uncontrolled descent that required buddy assist to the surface. My thoughts were: new to dry suit, overweighted and no realistic bottom, yeah I don’t think so. My condolences to the diver and everyone involved. That is tragic.

 

[vladodessit]

I don't know about this particular dive but he did dive drysuit in local waters. So, I would assume he'd be in drysuit for the dive.

 

[StefinSB]

Hi @Eric Sedletzky

I'm not underestimating the difficulty in diving the oil rigs, as I have never had the opportunity to do so. However, I assume this was designated a recreational dive, 130 ft, no deco, I would hope that most divers doing this would have experienced the the depth and their weighting, wet suit squeeze, and narcosis. I still can't quite grasp what went wrong here outside incapacitation. If there was current, one could send up one's DSMB and ascend away from the structure, just like getting blown off a wreck.

I only went twice to the platforms for 4 dives total but on both occasions the conditions weren’t nice. Despite th viz what was annoying to me was the different currents there. You can have horizontal currents on the surface and then suddenly a vertical one once at depth.

 

[ScubaSteve_619]

I don't know about this particular dive but he did dive drysuit in local waters. So, I would assume he'd be in drysuit for the dive.

He was in a drysuit for this dive

 

[stevensamler]

The diver that went to the chamber was he the deceased teammate , just wondering about buddy separation. Condolences to family and friends.

 

[Saboteur]

You are expected to know your own limits while diving in Southern California. No babysitters, no in water DM. Technically, you can arrest the uncontrolled descent by stopping at the crossbeam. Unless you are too far to reach it

Yes, but scientifically you can arrest your descent by dropping weight.

 

[vladodessit]

Yes, but scientifically you can arrest your descent by dropping weight.

We are passed this point. The victim did have redundant bouyancy.