East Hampton Town police have identified the diver that was reported dead off of Montauk Point on Thursday afternoon, the second diving fatality in four days off of the same boat.
East Hampton Town Police Chief Ed Ecker said that Timothy Barrow, 64, of Reading, Penn., was ascending after exploring the "USS Norness," a shipwreck about 60 nautical miles south-southeast of Montauk Point and 290 feet below the surface.
He had been brought out to the shipwreck aboard the "John Jack," as was Michael LaPrade of Los Angeles, who died on Sunday while exploring the "Andrea Doria" shipwreck 40 miles off of Nantucket.
Barrow went into the water with another diver at around 11 a.m. "They go down there and explore approximately 15 to 20 minutes," Ecker said. "During the ascension, the other dive stopped to decompress -- you have to decompress quite a bit when you're down that far -- and the this other fellow went to the top first," the chief said of the preliminary investigation.
When Barrow reached the top, it was obvious he was in distress and the when the boat crew was able to bring him on board, he was in full cardiac arrest, according to Ecker. "It's unclear why," he said, adding that there does not appear to be anything suspicious about the death and that there could be a medical reason for what happened.
The Suffolk County Medical Examiner's office will conduct an autopsy. Barrow's diving equipment has also been taken by the investigators for testing.
Coast Guard Station Sector Long Island Sound received a call of a 64-year-old male diver in distress at 11:15 a.m., according to Lt. Jr. grade Erin Dixon.
The captain of the "John Jack" was instructed to bring the diver's body into Coast Guard Station Montauk, he said. They arrived around 5 p.m.
Town police get involved in the investigations because the boat involved is docked in Montauk, according to Ecker.
"Norness" was a Norweigien oil tanker that was torpeoded on Jan. 14, 1942, making it the first ship sunk off the US east coast during World War II.
Trips to the "Norness" take about four hours from Montauk.
Meanwhile, LaPrade's death is still under investigation by the town police department and the Suffolk County Medical Examiner's Office, though Ecker said there was nothing suspicious about it.
"It's tragic," he said of both deaths."It's hard to say anything else about this just yet."
While Ecker's department has yet to start their investigation into the most recent fatality, he said room for error in diving is very small. "It's such a dangerous sport," he said.
