CCR Fatality in Cyprus

drowning... yet no water in his lungs and mouthpiece still in? that's just a bizarre conclusion by the examiner to me.
 
rjack said:
drowning... yet no water in his lungs and mouthpiece still in? that's just a bizarre conclusion by the examiner to me.
Click to expand...

By definition, drowning is "the process of experiencing respiratory impairment from submersion/immersion in liquid." As such, a hypoxic or hypercapnia event whilst submerged would be a case of drowning, regardless of a lack of aspirated water.

So sad to hear of something like this happening during a family diving excursion...
 
Having known Martin and dived with him, this is truly sad news for me. He was very fit and an active diver, so cannot see any fitness issues related causing this.

I've never seen, dived or enquired about the Pathfinder, so would be interested to know:
1. Does it have water activation / deactivation sensors
2. Are there any audio or haptic alarm systems
3. How visible the HUD is in shallow water
4. Is there any redundant battery supply

Sad for me to say, but perhaps floating above his kids, enjoying watching them learning to dive, he wasn't keeping his eye on his unit (hands up, I probably wouldn't be either if I was watching), and any number of things has happened to cause the unit to stop working (we can say this due to the lack of dive logging), be it battery failure? too shallow to cause system to shut off? then the next question would be, was there any alarms that should of alerted him, even if he was not paying attention to his handset.
 
think it was Paul Haydon back in 2000 , found with DSV in , report said looked like he was asleep , may have the name wrong but i remember one was found with DSV still in ,



RIP
Sad way to go, and his kids had to see it all happen ,
 
Last edited:
ECho said:
By definition, drowning is "the process of experiencing respiratory impairment from submersion/immersion in liquid." As such, a hypoxic or hypercapnia event whilst submerged would be a case of drowning, regardless of a lack of aspirated water.
Click to expand...

Except that the water did not cause his respiratory impairment at all and is irrelevant. If you retain your mouthpiece while hypoxic on the couch you will also eventually die. The wiki definition you cited is predicated on the immersed person needing/breathing the atmosphere which appears to not be the case here. This odd use of language is possibly why multiple autopsies were conducted.

thetrickster said:
I've never seen, dived or enquired about the Pathfinder, so would be interested to know:
1. Does it have water activation / deactivation sensors
2. Are there any audio or haptic alarm systems
3. How visible the HUD is in shallow water
4. Is there any redundant battery supply.
Click to expand...

1-No
2-No
3-Depends on the amount of sunlight and brightness level selected
4-There are primary and secondary displays with independent batteries

The standard protocol for Meg or Pathfinder use in very shallow water like this would be to not use any diluent at all and run 100% O2 only. That way its impossible to be hypoxic and you won't be able to inhale from lack of volume if you cease paying attention. Would be illuminating to know what diluent he had and if the ADV was on.
 
I dive a lot in Green Bay on my Meg and was very sad to hear a fellow RB diver passing away at this spot.

Sounds like he was an experienced guy. Not sure how much we can gleam from the report.The light is so strong in Cyprus in the shallows that I can rarely see my HUD and rely on my handset so if he'd had, '... a new closed-circuit rebreather' and he'd experienced 'charging issues'. maybe solenoid...Hypoxia.

Thoughts go out to family and friends...

RIP.
 
Very said news. Hypoxia has always frightened me on shallow dives, which I have done often with my son. I understand we do not know if this was hypoxia. But for me when I do a dive in the 20 foot(6 meter) range I have a very specific procedure. I make sure that my ADV is off, I flush my loop with o2 and then I just add o2 to the loop manually during the dive. I do this often in the local quarry as my son gets very cold below the thermocline at 20 feet.
 
thetrickster said:
Having known Martin and dived with him, this is truly sad news for me. He was very fit and an active diver, so cannot see any fitness issues related causing this.

I've never seen, dived or enquired about the Pathfinder, so would be interested to know:
1. Does it have water activation / deactivation sensors
2. Are there any audio or haptic alarm systems
3. How visible the HUD is in shallow water
4. Is there any redundant battery supply

Sad for me to say, but perhaps floating above his kids, enjoying watching them learning to dive, he wasn't keeping his eye on his unit (hands up, I probably wouldn't be either if I was watching), and any number of things has happened to cause the unit to stop working (we can say this due to the lack of dive logging), be it battery failure? too shallow to cause system to shut off? then the next question would be, was there any alarms that should of alerted him, even if he was not paying attention to his handset.
Click to expand...

Not sure what rjack is talking about, but as prior owner of pathfinder 012 for 2 yrs:
1. yes, wet contacts on back of handset (on the b&w apecs, although I believe apecs 4 has wet 'on' too. ).
2. no
3. same as the meg. its a blinking led, positioned as you like...or dont like.
4. yes, extremely. primary and secondary 9v batteries in head and if these run dry, the unit sucks power from the handsets.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top