Ontario Underwater Council 2006 Report on Scuba-Diving Related Fatalities in Ontario

Transcription

1 Ontario Underwater Council 2006 Report on Scuba-Diving Related Fatalities in Ontario Compiled by Ron Irvine, Director, Sport Safety, Ontario Underwater Council Foreword: This report has been created to document what has been brought to the attention of the OUC about scuba-diving fatalities in the province of Ontario in order that these incidents can be analyzed and recommendations made. These recommendations will then be communicated to the extended Ontario Diving Community as a measure to prevent such incidents in the future. Disclaimer: No claim is made by the OUC or by the Director of Sport Safety, Ron Irvine as to the completeness or accuracy of information contained within this report. Every effort has been taken to include only respected sources in the public domain, however it must be stated that none of these have been independently verified or investigated. Fatalities (in chronological order): Steven McAuliss, a 39-year-old male drowned while diving in the St. Lawrence River at Rockport, Ontario. Mr. McAuliss, a native of Hull Quebec was diving with Vaughn Brennan at the time of the accident. His body was discovered on

2 the bottom approximately 40 feet off the line leading to the Kinghorn and approximately 70 feet from the wreck. His regulator was out of his mouth, his mask was missing and his submersible pressure gauge reading was zero. Efforts to raise Mr. McAuliss by manually inflating his BCD were unsuccessful, although he was successfully surfaced after dropping both his integrated weights and his weight belt. He was then brought to shore and taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead. (for further information see appendix A) Near Misses (in chronological order): N/A Fatalities OUC Recommendations: All certified divers are responsible for ensuring they have adequate training for a planned dive. Divers should receive a proper dive site orientation anytime they are diving a site for the first time, regardless of training level. Divers should ensure they have an adequate dive plan for the site, the conditions and the training and experience level of the divers participating in the dive. That dive plan should include appropriate gas supply and type for the dive. All divers should determine their Respiratory Minute Volume (RMV) in advance of planning dives to ensure their gas planning is based on their current consumption rate. This is a simple exercise of diving to a fixed depth (e.g. 10 metres/33 feet) for a fixed period of time (e.g. 20 minutes) exerting a consistent amount of effort equal to the exertion level on a typical dive. Track the amount of gas used from the start of the time period to the end, then convert that to cubic feet and dividing by the absolute pressure under during the exercise and the total number of minutes the exercise took to come up with the volume of gas, in cubic feet, consumed per minute on the surface. This is then used to determine the volume of gas that will be used on any dive by simply multiplying by the

3 RMV by the planned depth of the dive (in atmospheres absolute) and the planned duration of the dive. ALL dives should be planned based on the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds as relates to air consumption is this: Use 1/3 of your air for heading out, use 1/3 of your air for heading back, and keep 1/3 for reserve. All divers need to ensure they have the proper and properly maintained equipment for the dive. This includes proper weighting, Surface Marker Buoys (SMB s) where appropriate, doubles or some other form of redundancy if required and tank(s) capable of carrying adequate gas supply for the dive plan. Near Misses N/A

4 Appendix A: Brockville Recorder and Times, Monday, February 6, 2006 Quebecer dies in Rockport diving accident ROCKPORT A 39-year-old Quebec man drowned while diving in the St. Lawrence River near here Saturday morning, provincial police said. Gananoque OPP Constable Stacey Cooper said that the man was identified as Steven McAuliss, of Hull. Other divers in the area alerted police to the tragedy said Sergeant Roy Tyo, also of the OPP¹s Gananoque detachment. McAuliss was taken to Brockville General Hospital where he was pronounced dead. McAuliss was diving with an Ottawa-area man, Vaughn Brennan, Cooper said. Few details of the incident were available over the weekend as officers of the OPP¹s Leeds County detachment were still investigating. Police said the victim drowned around 11 a.m. Saturday near Rockport while he was diving recreationally. Weather conditions were not a factor, they added. Tyo said a post-mortem examination was scheduled for today in Kingston. ³It was a diving accident,² said Tyo, adding foul play is not suspected. Incident Summary of Jeremy Jones from Ontario Diving.com A diver died in Rockport this morning. Details are sketchy but Andre and I came upon the body on our return from the Kinghorn and brought it in. So here is my account of what happened. I met Andre F and his son at the Rockport Dive Center this morning. He was talking to 2 other divers about diving the Kinghorn. As we started getting our gear ready we noticed the other 2 on the customs dock. They were wearing single 80's. Andre, Jeff and I commented to ourselves how they couldn't do the dive on an 80. I don't recall seeing them anymore after that and we started our dive at 10:05. We saw no one on our way out to the Kinghorn and after a bottom time of 35mins we turned around. About 70 feet from the wreck (its shadow was still visible) and 40 feet from the line Andre saw something. We swam over and realized that it was a body. We had Andres son stay on the line away from it as we swam to it. The guy was on his right side, no mask on and no reg in his mouth. Andre pressed the purge button and nothing came out. He tied of a reel to a D-ring on the body and passed me the reel while he orally inflated the BC. Andre fully inflated the BC and the guy was still on the bottom. Andre removed 2 integrated weight pouches as well as a weight belt (we estimated the weight at about 30 or more lbs) before the body started to rise. Andre had to give it a push to help it along. I passed the reel back

5 to Andre and we towed the body back in to shore. As we were doing out deco/safety stops they guys buddy grabbed the body (on the surface) to bring it the rest of the way in. When I finished my stops I indicated to Andre that I was surfacing and got out of the water to phone 911. We took the gear off the body and brought it all onto the dock. His pressure read 0psi. We shut the tank down counting the turns and waited for emergency services. Things that came out in later conversations with the guy s buddy and police are their dive plan was to go to 1500psi then turn. This was only the guys 3rd dive in a dry suit. I forgot to add that at one point during their dive one of them shot to the surface. They became separated at that point.