full report on fatal dive accident in Hemmoor

The diver who has recovered the body of the missing diver who was killed in the recent dive accident has posted a full report on Taucher Net (in German) which was translated by a buddy over at Rebreather World into English.

The short version of the whole story is that three divers (out of a group of five Danish technical divers) decided to do a second dive shortly after the 5-man team had finished a first deep dive on Easter Monday. The three divers all used Inspiration rebreathers.

Apparently, they ran into difficulties as one diver experienced a stress situation and subsequently emptied both his rebreather gas supply as well as one stage/bail-out bottle due to his heavy breathing. The team got split up on their ascent, the stressed diver breathing through a second 7L bail-out tank, which was filled with pressured air just like the first.

Tragically, the deceased diver appears to have been pulled down again by his gear just after he had already reached the surface. The reason for this was only discovered as the body was recovered: although all divers had ditched all of their gear once the surfaced, all of them also used (home-made) cable lamps whose battery tanks were attached to their rigs while the lamp head was attached to their forearms with some rubber or velcro straps. The deceased did not manage to detach his lamp head from his forearm, and through the spiral cable running from the lamp head to the battery tank was still connected to his entire rig (i.e. the rebreather with weights, backplate, stage bottles etc.) which inevitaby pulled him down.

For a full translated version of the report (in English) click here.

My thoughts go out to the friends and family of the deceased, and especially to his surviving dive buddies who are still under medical treatment, one of them in artificially induced coma.

Dive Computer test at Divernet

If you are looking for a realistic in-water test of current dive computer models, this article might be something for you. Unlike the usual dive magazine reviews with glossy pictures and long extra-feature lists, this tester strapped 12 models on a board and took them diving in the Red Sea. The whole point of the exercise (apart from some pretty intense gadget fidgeting... ;-) was to observe the recommended deco stop schedule of the various computers once the dive had been extended past the no-stop point for that depth. The most cautious route was then followed up to the surface.



This 'rig' of computers was then photographed at regular intervals to capture the deco readings on each display, and are presented in the following table (split for convenience in two parts):




This is followed by the inevitable side-by-side review of the physical characteristics of all teste models, including a basic list of features as well as prices (in GBP) which are omitted here for obvious reasons (see above).

Unfortunately, the otherwise straightforward and interesting article also includes a paragraph on "deep stops", a.k.a. gradually ascending from maximum depth before heading more directly for the safety/deco stop depth. Since virtually any sports diver is probably familiar with that kind of dive profile (except for its new label) why discuss it in such an article? The argument offered is astonishing:

"Extreme deep-diving ichthyologist Dr Richard Pyle noted that if he made pauses in an ascent from a dive at a depth equal to around half the maximum pressure to which he had subjected himself, instead of ascending straight to the surface, and then repeatedly did the same thing again between there and the surface, he felt a lot better afterwards.
The idea is based on the theory that the human body can sustain a 50% reduced pressure change without suffering ill effects."

So now we await eagerly to read more about that "theory that the human body can better sustain a 50% reduced pressure change". Unfortunately, all the authors can offer here is of little use:

"Although this is not based on any other real scientific evidence, giving slow tissues time to off-gas in this way, even at the expense of faster tissues on-gassing, makes sense!"

Now what on earth makes more sense, things based on "real scientific evidence" or some arbitrarily designed rule of "stopping halfway will make you feel better"?

However, to be fair to Mr Pyle who apparently stands behind this "50/50" rule as it could be dubbed, I will point you to this site where he decribes his theory - and how he came to propose it - in full detail.

Returning to the scope of the dive computer test article, I would conclude that from a scientific and especially medical point of view, people should probably rather be advised to use the most conservative computer model employing the safest algorithm, and press this point as the main decisive factor (apart from display readability, maybe) for any dive computer purchase.

But of course we all know that this is neither the way how such purchases usually are being motivated, nor the way how "deco plan safety tests" are being performed and published, unfortunately.

Arctic Diver Frozen Out of Record Attempt

Since I am always curious what other 'Arctic Divers' are up to, this news story caught my eyes immediately:

from Edinburgh Evening News:

"Former Broughton High School pupil Daros Gray, who specialises in Arctic diving, was forced to abandon his quest to swim underwater in Sweden's deepest lake after temperatures plummeted to -30 C above ground and -3 C under water.

Mr Gray, a security contractor in the Capital, hoped to "free dive" in Lake Tornetrask, about 160 miles north of the Arctic Circle, and swim for up to 100m underwater without any scuba equipment.

But the ice was too thick for Mr Gray's team's cutting equipment and they were not able to carve out a channel for the attempt.

...

The diver, a champion spear-fisherman who killed a five-metre great white shark in self-defence off Cape Town, South Africa, said he planned to return to the lake next year."

What can I say: security contractor, under-ice free-diver, spear-fisherman, great white shark killer (apparently in self-defence...).

Any questions?

how about a nice dive barge - from ebay?

The wonderful things you can find at ebay:



Ex Navy YRST2
Dive Salvage Barge
(APL Hull)

"Salvage US II"

...

Replacement Cost
Over $6,000,000

Located in Norfolk, Virginia.


This Dive Barge cannot be sold to a Non-US Citizen or Foreign Entity without prior approval from 1 or more government agencies; the US Department of Defense, US State Department, US Navy, and or any agency that has jurisdiction over exportation.