Diver Dies off Sambro in Halifax, N.S.

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Linda Palmer loved scuba diving so much she couldn't stay away from the ocean, say her friends and family.

The 28-year-old Dartmouth woman died in a diving accident Saturday morning off Sambro Island.

"She was very passionate about scuba diving," said her friend, Jennifer Oldford.

"She lived out in Calgary last year and moved back here because she just couldn't deal with being so far away from water."

Ms. Palmer earned a degree in marine biology at Dalhousie University before she decided to become a teacher, said Ms. Oldford, who met her four years ago when they studied education at Mount Saint Vincent.

She taught sciences and mathematics in various schools around metro as a substitute.

"Linda was awesome," Ms. Oldford said. "She was always there to comfort you if you if you needed it, and to have a good time and a good laugh. She was hilarious."

Ms. Palmer's friends and family still don't know what caused her death.

"It's completely unreal. It doesn't make any sense," Ms. Oldford said. "She knew how to scuba dive. She was an instructor. . . . It's not like she was just an amateur who made a mistake out there."

Ms. Palmer had been diving from the charter boat Ryan & Erin.

She had descended a short distance and surfaced again when the trouble started, said Fred Palmer, Linda's father.

"I know she was on the surface when something happened," Mr. Palmer said.

"Something happened and she lost her mouthpiece, but got that back. Then they tell me she gave the thumbs-up she was OK, and then she passed out."

A coast guard rescue boat brought her ashore Saturday at about 11:30 a.m. Paramedics took her to the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax in critical condition.

Doctors pronounced her dead at the hospital.

Ms. Palmer's plan had been to go on two dives Saturday one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

"She called it a fun dive in the morning, before she left, which meant no student divers," said her father.

Her parents had to make the sad drive out to Sambro on Saturday to pick up her car and what was left of their daughter's diving gear.

"They had to take it off to get her out of the water," Mr. Palmer said.

Mounties are probing the death, but investigators still haven't told the family what went wrong.

"We really don't know," her dad said. "We're hoping for some sort of explanation of why this could have happened to her."

His daughter had worked at Torpedo Rays Scuba for five years.

"She taught open-water diving pretty much all summer," he said, adding that she was working a few evenings a week this fall at the Dartmouth outfit.

Ms. Palmer had recently bought a small second-hand sailboat.

"She wanted to sail that, although she'll never have the chance to do that now," said her father. "It's sitting in my backyard."

She was the youngest of four children.

"She's the baby of the family," said her dad. "She was the adventurous one."
 
"Something happened and she lost her mouthpiece, but got that back. Then they tell me she gave the thumbs-up she was OK, and then she passed out."

This is speculation mind you, but given this little bit of insight I'd strongly look at an embolism. I arrived at this somewhat weak conclusion deduced from a couple items in the quoted statement above.

1. An in-water situation arose that (however briefly) comprimised her air source. That well could have resulted in her holding her breath briefly while sorting it out. Combine this with possible ascent, intended or not, while addressing the problem, and the embolism could have occurred. It takes far less vertical change to induce an embolism than most would acknowledge. Especially if this occurred nearer the surface (% of change in pressure per foot change).

2. The description of a rapid deterioration on the surface. Looking that she gave an "OK" sign just before collapse, I'd say that she wasn't aware that she had a medical problem developing either. Embolisms can result in rapid onset, unlike other DCS. Now, I couldn't rule out medical issues that the victim was in denial about, but given an age of 28, most cardiovascular issues would be a bit more rare.

In either case, this is a sad event.
 
Kenny you really should cite the source for the story you just posted. Without that, it cannot really be trusted (as if the news can be trusted all the time anyways).

Now, I assume it came from the Herald and will treat it as accurate. It is a terrible story and it really makes you question if there was some sort of undiagnosed health condition at play here because it sounds like she was only down for a very short period....kind of limits the possible scuba related injuries. But again there is not time or depth stated so one can only spoeculate as to how long and deep she got. Severe lung over expansion leading to an embolism is about all I can think of for dive related possibilities.

I hope her family and friends can get past this terrible time knowing that she died doing what she loved most.
 
Kenny you really should cite the source for the story you just posted. Without that, it cannot really be trusted (as if the news can be trusted all the time anyways).

Story here...

A sad loss...
 
"My thoughts and prayers are with Linda's Family and Friends.To her Parents, I want to say this. "Mr.and Mrs Palmer, I'm sorry about the lose of your Daughter, Linda.I hope God will guide you through this difficult time. If she was still living right now, I'd say to her in this message , "Linda, I love Adventure as well. I just love the water, I wanted to take a Scuba Lesson. But, I'm not able to do it because I have Tubes in my ears. But any way, I won't let that stop me from being around water. " Any way, I'll go for now, I've said enough. " SnorkelCorey.
 
Perhaps now a remembrance thread can be started in the Passings forum so that this thread can be used to try and learn from the incident. This is not the furm to be posting condolences.....it has served double purpose until now because there was no name etc.. Now we should make every effort to keep this thread within the TOS at the top. Let us try to learn from this tragedy with the very little information we have today, the information we acquire as we go along and what we need to speculate on. If we can prevent one more tragedy or accident in the future then this thread served its purpose and done good.
 
Does anyone have any more details on this? I live in Halifax and in fact was diving just a few km's away when she died but the media has completely dropped the story. I'm a new diver and am so sad to hear the story, especially as she was an instructor out of the shop/club I dive with. The only thing I could imagine, given her experience and level of expertise was an uncontrolled ascent leading to problems... but I'm so new to this myself there could be other things at hand that I just didn't pick up on.
 
The RCMP seldom release anything while an investigation is on-going. While the story has been dropped by the press, it has not been dropped by the police and they are still gathering facts. That is one good thing about the cops here. No leaks or conjecture (usually). Expect a week or so until they make a statement. When they do the facts will come out quickly.
 
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