Shore dive fatality - Carmel, California

[DandyDon]

Diver dies off Carmel Beach

A
San Jose Man is dead after going out for a diving expedition off Carmel Beach Tuesday.

“It was horrible, it was truly horrible, I mean there were some people crying, I mean it was devastating,” said Laura D’Andre who witnessed the death.

Monterey County Sheriff’s Cmdr. John Thornburg said paramedics were called out to the scene and the 33-year-old man was taken to Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, where he was pronounced dead.

Thornburg said it’s unclear what went wrong.

“They had paired up, they had checked their equipment, they had done all of the things you would normally expect divers to do prior to going out,” Thornburg said.

Based on the report Thornburg said it does not look like the man had started diving when he got into trouble. He said the diver was swimming out with three other divers, all of them in pairs.

“The four went into the water, the three of them were swimming out to where they were going to dive, and that is when they realized the victim had not made it there,” he said.

Diving is a challenging sport and it can aggravate existing health problems.

“Anything can go wrong, it's a very cardio pulmonary, cardio vascular sport, in other words we're working hard while we are down there, so sometimes just a heart attack can happen,” said Dwayne Reyes an instructor with Dive to Survive.

Reyes has more than 20 years of experience diving in the Monterey Bay and he said one issue divers run into here is kelp. He and other instructors said people can get tangled in the kelp and panic.

Thornburg said a cause of death has not been released yet in the case and is not expected for another six to eight weeks. He said this is the second known diving related death in Monterey County in 2016.

According to the National Institutes of Health, California ranks number two behind Florida in deadly diving incidents, with 14 people dying off California waters in 2013.

 

[Lopez116]

Diver dies off Carmel Beach

Just 33 years old and a suspected cardiac event?

 

[tridacna]

Could have been equip malfunction, asthma attack or a wayward Loch Ness monster. Or are you just guessing a heart attack?

 

[DandyDon]

Just 33 years old and a suspected cardiac event?

Could have been equip malfunction, asthma attack or a wayward Loch Ness monster. Or are you just guessing a heart attack?

That was a quote in the news article from Dwayne Reyes an instructor with Dive to Survive, but we can't tell if he was speaking directly to this accident or was making a general statement. Heart attacks can happen that young tho.

It reads like they were swimming out, possibly on snorkels. I was amazed one time how debilitating a laryngospasm was from sucking water into my lungs from one with a defective drain valve. I was just playing around at a family reunion when it hit, and I thought I was going to die in the shallow end. My cousins were laughing while I was scared to death.

 

[lv2dive]

I imagine it was in response to the OP which mentioned "sometimes a heart attack can just happen" although it also noted that COD would not be known for several weeks.

...Or are you just guessing a heart attack?

 

[Lopez116]

I apologize if my comment implied that heart attack was definitely the cause. I guess I was reacting more to the instructor's comments in the article.

 

[iamrushman]

"According to the National Institutes of Health, California ranks number two behind Florida in deadly diving incidents,"


i guess it's because of the amount of divers in each state.?

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

Just 33 years old and a suspected cardiac event?

Just remember AEDs are in High School gyms and the general public areas for a reason. 15 year olds drop from heart attacks too...

 

[tridacna]

We have zero idea in this case. I doubt that we ever will get any closure (or any other info). Very sad.

 

[Bubblesong]

my skinny nephew had a heart attack at 20 playing basketball, (undiagnosed heart weakness) and was saved by the AED, and a trained rescuer! There is another thread about over55 and heart risk, and getting stress tests, but really maybe getting "checked out for heart" applies to everyone, even young fit people
But since he had barely started swimming, this seems so odd.