Fiona Sharp death in Bonaire
- Thread starter JohnnyC
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
True, but I've always found with that unit that accessing the mav and unplugging it and swapping it, especially with the clutter of the OTS CLs that it wasn't particularly easy to do at the best of times. If off board dil was part of my regular config, I would have configured it differently.
I was Fiona's dive buddy a few years ago in Truk.
Until there is a formal explanation from a statutory authority kindly refrain from discussing it on the Internet.
Freedom of speech is a core value we all enjoy in most parts of the world, however, out of respect for someone who was known and well liked by numerous people worldwide in the technical diving & medical fields, please take a safety stop.
This is good source of information to discover what happened which will be updated in due time
Deep Life Design Team: databases and analysis of rebreather accident data
Any replies to my posting WILL NOT BE READ.
Until there is a formal explanation from a statutory authority kindly refrain from discussing it on the Internet.
Freedom of speech is a core value we all enjoy in most parts of the world, however, out of respect for someone who was known and well liked by numerous people worldwide in the technical diving & medical fields, please take a safety stop.
This is good source of information to discover what happened which will be updated in due time
Deep Life Design Team: databases and analysis of rebreather accident data
Any replies to my posting WILL NOT BE READ.
Sure.
Out of curiosity, if you have a buddy and suffer from a too high or too low PPO2 on a rebreather, what could your buddy do to save your life ? Only to bring you to the surface ?
If you started drowning, it’s not very likely to bring you back alive, isn’t it ?
If you started drowning, it’s not very likely to bring you back alive, isn’t it ?
Mike Walker
Contributor
I'm similarly curious - do any rebreather models have some sort of external indicator of their status that a buddy could monitor from a distance? Some of the failure modes sound like they can exhibit pretty subtly in the user unless there are active checks being performed on a regular basis.
(Obviously there is a lot of data that determines an 'ok' state - which is why I'm curious...)
(Obviously there is a lot of data that determines an 'ok' state - which is why I'm curious...)
I noticed that so far every post on this thread has focussed on what was the possible event/cause that initiated to the ultimate outcome.
No one appears to have given any attention to the report of the DSV been found dislodged i.e. removed from the mouth which would have led to the ingestion of water and ultimately caused drowning. On this point, I can’t help but wonder what the outcome might have been if a gag strap had been in place.
No one appears to have given any attention to the report of the DSV been found dislodged i.e. removed from the mouth which would have led to the ingestion of water and ultimately caused drowning. On this point, I can’t help but wonder what the outcome might have been if a gag strap had been in place.
BlueTrin:
Those are good questions, and of course the full answer is pretty detailed. But yes, there are things that a buddy can do to help save an unresponsive or seizing rebreather diver if the loop is still in the diver's mouth. Once it is out, the chance of a successful rescue (like on OC) is pretty minimal.
Not to get too off topic, but the main thing to do is to keep the loop in the victim's mouth. If the diver has a bailout valve, you could throw that to switch them to open circuit. If not, a diluent flush (which should be reviewed before the dive) can help for hyperoxia, hypoxia or hypercarbia, at least in the short term. And managing an ascent is particularly difficult in a CCR rescue, since you unlike OC, you also have to vent the loop.
Addressing the possibility that the diver isn't unresponsive but just not aware of a potential problem, some units have buddy alarm lights on the heads up display, and I know of one rebreather that actually has a PO2 readout on the back of the unit so that it can be seen by a buddy or an instructor.
Here's a good video about that:
Definitely helpful if there was a BOV (there was), but not so sure of the benefit for a solo diver.
The French military rebreather study showed an amazing survival rate (94% of divers who lost consciousness!), but it depended on a buddy being present. If you are solo diving and lose consciousness, I guess there might be a scenario where the diver could recover spontaneously. But for the most part, I don't think that the gag strap would make a huge difference. If you pass out from toxing or hypoxia when you are alone, that's probably not survivable even if the mouthpiece stays in.
Mike Walker
Contributor
Thanks - very interesting.
I guess the next question is how invasive would the rebreather in question in this incident be to the diver. Are there beeps, vibrations, overrides, etc. Or is it 100% dependent on the operator keeping an eye on things at all times?
Similar threads
