American tourist dies while diving Cozumel caves.....

[DandyDon]

A few years ago I did a week of cavern/cave diving in Akumal and our instructor/trip leader told me one reason he used Aquatech/Villas DeRosa was because they used ELECTRIC powered compressors to reduce the chance of this sort of event happening.

False security. Of the 3 compressors that have given me CO tainted tanks in my limited history, all were electric. Air intake in part of the but the biggest risk I think is when the hot compressor starts to burn its own lubricating oil.

 

[Thalassamania]

First off we still don't know how it was determined that this diver died from CO poisoning and until it is reported that his tank had XXX ppm of CO as measured with hand held monitor the antecedent cause of death could be still speculation. As stated previously I do not believe that it is possible to get a blood COHb on the island so again any conclusions solely based on autopsy would be speculative.

You are quite right, though at this juncture I'd be willing to take an eye-witness report of cherry-red appearance in the victim as a strong indicator.

I do find it strange, though no inexplicable, that only a single EAN tank was so effected, and so only one diver was hit. I would like to know the starting and ending pressures on all cylinders carried by the deceased.

 

[DandyDon]

You are quite right, though at this juncture I'd be willing to take an eye-witness report of cherry-red appearance in the victim as a strong indicator.

I do find it strange, though no inexplicable, that only a single EAN tank was so effected, and so only one diver was hit. I would like to know the starting and ending pressures on all cylinders carried by the deceased.

Which is why it's important to test every tank even tho bored because the last 20 were clean. I kinda wondered about my testing until I got my first positive reading.

 

[islanddream]

Pardon my ignorance, but wouldn't it make sense for the dive shop to have a hand held tester so that the tanks they load on their boats are safe? I'm sure they have many, many tanks to test but it seems to me this would be a preventative measure so bad tanks don't get on the boat. Maybe some shops in Coz already do this?????

islanddream

 

[DandyDon]

Pardon my ignorance, but wouldn't it make sense for the dive shop to have a hand held tester so that the tanks they load on their boats are safe? I'm sure they have many, many tanks to test but it seems to me this would be a preventative measure so bad tanks don't get on the boat. Maybe some shops in Coz already do this?????

islanddream

Yeah, if you can trust the owners to calibrate the analyzer correctly. Multiply that by the number of shops or maybe the number of boats.

Believe me, I went thru all of the ways I could think of or suggested to not own and maintain my own. None worked. I'm cheap, but I had to face it: CO Analyzer first, then plane ticket.

 

[islanddream]

Yeah, if you can trust the owners to calibrate the analyzer correctly. Multiply that by the number of shops or maybe the number of boats.

Believe me, I went thru all of the ways I could think of or suggested to not own and maintain my own. None worked. I'm cheap, but I had to face it: CO Analyzer first, then plane ticket.

I believe you since you always seem to give excellent advice. Looks like the CO Analyzer might be an early Christmas present to myself this year!

 

[DandyDon]

I believe you since you always seem to give excellent advice. Looks like the CO Analyzer might be an early Christmas present to myself this year!

:laughing: I don't know that my track record would support that, but I have worked on this CO thing - trying all the shortcuts I could think of at first, for a long time. Swamp Diver is one of the experts here, the one I go to for counsel. I have a couple of other extraordinary safety things that I use in spite of ridicules at times, but I was so lucky the first 50 years of life, I am trying to be more careful now. Some of the things I lived thru already still scare me, but then seeing 17 ppm on a trusted analyzer on the way to dive Cathedral gave me a pause, too. :shocked2:

 

[scubaDjin]

I know the diver and he was experienced and he was with a group that has been mapping that cave system for the Mexican government for the past 3 years. Very tragic. My prayers are with his family and with those other friends who were with him.

 

[WSOPFAN]

So is there a way to tell the difference between a bad tank fill and say a catastrophic equipment failure or bad set up?

It is possible for the diver to continue breathing until he becomes hypoxic, looses consciousness and drowns without ever realizing that the system has malfunctioned. Likewise, the diver can wind up with CO2 buildup causing hypercapnia if the scrubber container on the unit is not packed and used properly or if the recommended duration of dive time for the scrubber material is exceeded. If the scrubber is not packed properly, the granules inside the canister can settle making channels where the breathing gas can pass through the canister without being properly cleaned.

Seaduction ® - Rebreather Fatality or Simple Pilot Error

 

[TSandM]

There is a big difference between CO and CO2. The body is set up to detect and measure CO2, and desperately wants to keep it within a narrow, prescribed range. When a scrubber fails, the diver will become anxious and breathe rapidly, and become confused and agitated. Although he may not recognize the symptoms, the body is reacting violently to the elevated CO2, until it becomes sufficiently narcotic to be numbing.

CO, on the other hand, is something the body has no way of detecting. CO displaces oxygen on the hemoglobin molecule, efficiently and tenaciously. It also poisons metabolic pathways within the cell. But until things are far along, the symptoms are very nonspecific. The diver might have a headache or be nauseated, or just confused, until he eventually loses consciousness. In this case, it seems from the story that the diver DID decide something was wrong with his breathing gas, but by the time he did so, it was too late (or the bailout was equally bad). Results of gas testing from the tanks should be very enlightening.