Upon surfacing from dive number 3 of my Open Water Class, we started to swim in when I saw an arm waving. I waited for about 5 seconds, and then sent the 4 students in with my assistant instructor and divemaster, and proceeded to swim to the distressed divers. We were approx. 100 yards from the shore and from the swim, I would guess they were another 100 more from me. I reached the diver who had clear sputum in their mouth at this time and asked if she was breathing. The the dive buddy informed me that she was responsive on the surface, then vomitted, stop breathing, then started again. Regardless, I put my hand under her neck to hold up her head and open her airway and provided rescue breaths. There was 1 diver, the divemaster that was her buddy and an additional diver who came over to help. Her gear was removed at this point. Life guards on surfboards arrived. I yelled at them that we need the jet ski to get her on shore, CPR was needed. They then told me the boat was on it's way. Within a minute the Rescue boat was there. A lifeguard checked for a pulse, but i believe they did not find one because at this point white sputum was coming out of the mouth and nose, just oozing out. It seemed like a long time, but I would guess that a minute or 2 had gone by without breaths since I had suspected she was not breathing. The boat pulled along side us and the Rescue boat was asking questions and the dive buddy was trying to answer them. I told them to get her on the boat and get her the F)(#* out of here.
They then lifted her on board, but I did not see anyone on the boat begin to initiate CPR. They then lifted up the gear and I yelled again that she needs CPR and to get the H(*& out of here. At that point the dive buddy took off his computer and handed it to me since she did not have a computer. I have no idea why he handed it to me, but the boat took off and was on it's way. I made eye contact with one of the lifeguards on the boat and threw the computer straight at him. He caught the computer and she was out of our hands at that point. The dive buddy began to swim in. Two lifeguards swam out on the surfboards. One of the 2, the one that checked for a pulse jumped in the boat with the patient and is the one that I threw the computer to. The second lifeguard that swam out grabbed the other surfboard and started to swim in. I told the lifeguard the person swimming in was the dive buddy and that they needed to get them. She swam in and met up with buddy and continued to escort him in along with the extra surf board. The other bystander that showed up began to swim back west on the surface to locate his dive buddy, his wife. I remained out there to ensure that he found his wife. He gave me an OK sign when he did and I then started to swim in. On my swim in, the Rescue Boat came back out asking for the dive computer and the injured divers buddy. I told the Rescue boat that a person on the boat caught the computer and the dive buddy was with the lifeguard. They then asked me to get on board. I took off my gear and swam on board, and pulled my gear on board. The patients gear was still on board and looked to be in working order with 1200-1500 PSI remaining in the tank. They were still looking for the computer because no one knew where it went. I started digging around in all of the bags and compartments on the Rescue Boat and found the computer was set in a pouch that hangs on the back of the seat and that the computer had fallen to the bottom. At this point, the boat was ran ashore again, I gave the computer to a Rescuer that had come from the shore, tossed my gear in the water, and started to trudge my way up the shore. I dropped all of my gear by the lifeguard trucks on the beach and saw a wall of people staring at the street. I realized after all of this time, she was still here. A few other dive instructors that I know saw me walking up the shore after jumping off the boat and escorted me up to the investigator to give a statement. He was finishing with the Divemaster dive buddy and took my statement of what I did which was very little. The husband was clearly upset and started to argue and push a paramedic. I gathered up my students because they did not nor did anyone else need to witness what was going on. It was out of our hands. I then explained to them the details of previous dive accidents (the one that occurred almost 1 year ago to the date) and how this diver was doing a routine dive and most likely suffered some sort of unrelated injury such as a heart attack or stroke. Pure speculation on my part. I also asked them to take some time and decide whether or not they wanted to finish the fourth dive of the class. The ambulance left after 40 minutes and we took a long surface interval. We finished the class.
Other info that I received. SCUBA Center of Temecula was out for a fun dive/picnic. The victim had not been diving for a while and so the divemaster took on the responsibility to dive with her. They were 15 minutes or so into the dive. They had noticed that she had difficulty descending. At 40 feet, she started to have a very panicked look in her eyes and rapid breathing. the divemaster grabbed her and told her to calm down. She did, but then she started to panic again as he started to slowly bring her up. The regulator remained in her mouth. She was exhaling through her nose primarily since the bubbles were coming out of the top of the mask. He mentioned that she appeared totally confused and panicked. Once on the surface, she began to vomit an initial orange/yellow vomit that turned to clear. She was breathing and he started to take off her BC. He suspected that she may of aspirated vomit and was suffocating. He then started to give her breaths while taking off her gear and said that she began to breath again. That is the time at which I showed up.
I hope this is useful and can inform our active diving community to help us cope and learn from the this tragic event.
The diver had a similar diving accident a month and half ago ending up in the hospital for a couple of days. The scenario was very similar to this one, except the dive was to 20 feet and only lasted 3 minutes. Aspirated saltwater and spent time in the hospital.
The diver this time regained a hearth rhythm in the ambulance on its way to the hospital and she is being kept alive on a ventilator.
The above items are as factual as I can remember. I have omitted all names from my report and hope that my statement implies no bias, claims of incrimination, etc, but is meant to help clarify a tragic accident. If I notice any negative responses about those involved in this accident, I will ask that my post and those making such statements be deleted.
