Lessons for Life: Wounded Grouper Strikes Back, Fatally

kirkscubagear is publishing this article as a learning/teaching experience for divers. My condolences to Danny's Mother/Family.

Danny was having one of the greatest days of his short dive career. Conditions were perfect. Visibility seemed to go on forever. Big fish circled the oil rig where he and his mom were diving, and he had just shot a big grouper with his spear gun.

Now he had the large fish dangling from a stringer that he had connected to his buoyancy compensator. Its weight was slowing him down some, so he looked around for his mom before he headed back to the boat. Danny moved toward one of the steel rig supports, looking for his mother, when he felt a sharp jerk on his BC jacket. He turned to see what caused it, when something knocked his regulator out of his mouth and his mask askew on his face.

Suddenly he couldn’t see what was going on, he couldn’t breathe, and he was in trouble.

THE DIVER

Danny had wanted to dive for several years, and finally convinced his parents to give him lessons for his 15th birthday. He loved to fish and swim in the ocean not far from his house, and he wanted to spearfish. He joked with his friends that spearfishing on scuba gave him the chance to get on the same level as the fish. He could chase them down where they lived.

The trip to dive the oil rigs and spearfish was a present for his 16th birthday. He had made a few dives — including a few spearfishing dives — since earning his certification, but not as many as he would have liked. He was diving with his mom, but Danny thought she was pretty cool, and they enjoyed being together. She wasn’t interested in spearfishing, but she went everywhere he did on the dive, although she stayed apart from him so she wouldn’t spook the fish he was chasing.

THE DIVE

Danny and his mom were diving from a local charter dive boat that regularly ran spearfishing charters to offshore oil rigs. Fish of all types congregate around the rigs. Divers could find everything from smaller reef fish to bigger pelagic animals patrolling the structures.

The bottom was more than 500 feet below them. They were 50 miles from the shore and had boarded the boat early that morning for the two-hour ride to the dive site. They had great visibility, and Danny felt at ease going deep in search of fish. Danny didn’t have a dive computer of his own, but his mom had one. Her computer recorded depths of more than 200 feet on the first dive, and they went back to the same area on the second. She spent her time looking at smaller fish and crustaceans clinging to the steel supports of the rig while Danny hunted.

He saw what he was looking for: a large grouper hovering calmly by a steel support. Danny lined up a perfect shot, spearing the fish through its side. The barbed head on his spear was stuck in the fish, so he tied the line off to his BC and looked around for his mom to show her his prize.

THE ACCIDENT

Everything was going fine until the stunned fish attempted to get free. It flailed around, charging to the end of the stringer line, and then changing course and going in another direction. When it bolted back on its own tail, the grouper collided with Danny’s face, knocking his mask askew and pulling his regulator out of his mouth. Danny frantically searched for his regulator, but the fish took off in another direction, jerking him once again. Panic set in quickly, and Danny’s actions and reactions failed to do him any good. The fish struck Danny again in the body and then in the face as it attempted to make its escape, finally breaking the stringer loose from Danny’s BC before it took off for the bottom of the ocean.

Danny’s mother first realized that there was a problem when she heard her dive computer beeping. They had maxed out their bottom time and were going into mandatory decompression status. She looked around for her son to tell him it was time to go to the surface when she saw Danny struggling with the fish. She arrived just as the grouper broke free and took off.

She grabbed Danny, only to realize he was unconscious. She attempted to straighten his mask and put his regulator in his mouth, but she couldn’t get him to inhale. She immediately began swimming with him to the surface while inflating Danny’s BC.

Danny and his mother surfaced close to the boat, and the crew quickly responded to her cries for help. They dragged Danny on board the boat and began resuscitation efforts, but they were unsuccessful. Danny never regained consciousness.

ANALYSIS

This fatal accident occurred for several reasons, both dive related and general-safety related. Danny was not a very experienced diver and didn’t follow the general rules of dive safety. He was well beyond recreational diving limits, but was more focused on the fish he could catch than on his own safety. He was not tracking his own dive profile, either with a depth gauge and a watch or with a computer. Instead, he relied on his dive buddy to do it for him. That is never a good idea. In this case, the two divers weren’t even staying together. (It didn’t have any direct bearing on the accident, but when police inspected Danny’s regulator afterward, they found it to be in marginal working condition.)

Danny wasn’t a very experienced diver. He should have gained more experience in the water, enough to be completely comfortable, before he began spearfishing.

He should have practiced the emergency procedures that he learned in his open-water diving course before he picked up another task. This is true for any secondary activity underwater. Anytime you add more equipment and more mental tasks to an already task laden activity, you increase your risk.

The large fish attached to Danny’s dive gear wasn’t dead, only stunned. The fish didn’t intend to hit Danny in the face, but it did, and Danny was unable to respond to losing his mask and regulator underwater. Because Danny and his mother had different goals for the dive, they weren’t close enough to each other to be able to help each other.

If Danny’s mom had been within five to 10 feet, she could have quickly helped him find his regulator, or given him her alternate to get him under control before the problem got worse. As it was, she didn’t even know there was a problem until it was too late.

Drowning doesn’t have to be a long, slow process, and it doesn’t require the person to inhale large amounts of water. Often, just a teaspoon or two inhaled into the airway will cause the airway to shut off. This is called a laryngospasm. Danny’s larynx probably closed off with his first inhalation of water and he suffocated, losing consciousness fairly quickly.

Thanks to Scuba Diving and Eric Douglas
Kathy Dowsett
www.kirkscubagear.com
NB picture is from net---not related to story.

11 Quick Tips for Avoiding Motion Sickness

How Motion Sickness Occurs

Our body’s primary motion-sensors include the inner-ear sensors, our eyes and deeper tissues of the body surface. Technically speaking, the inner-ear sensors detect changes in acceleration rather than motion, such as the movement a boat makes when bobbing on top of waves in the ocean. When our body’s internal instruments sense these acceleration changes, and those changes aren’t confirmed by other sensory inputs, such as visual feedback from our eyes, the conflict in the sets of data they deliver to the brain can trigger motion sickness. Scientists aren’t sure what causes the nausea that comes with motion sickness, but the most popular hypothesis is that the conflicting data from multiple sensors causes the brain to assume that toxins have been ingested, and the body’s automatic response is to internally induce vomiting.

Even the smallest things can disrupt comfort while traveling and diving. Perhaps nothing ruins a dive trip more quickly than an urgent need to “feed the fish” from the railing. Thus, most divers try very diligently to avoid getting motion sickness – but how? What really works?

First, we need to understand what causes motion sickness. Often termed “sea sickness,” this malady really has little to do specifically with the ocean and everything to do with motion, so “motion sickness” is a more universally accurate term. When such motion causes the tiny sensors in our body to register something’s amiss, we start to feel a bit queasy, and if not remediated quickly, nauseous.

So how can we avoid motion sickness? Here’s an 11-part strategy:

1. Need to feed. A meal before you board is highly important. For most people, an empty stomach is more sensitive to being irritated, so filling it with comfort food 45-60 minutes before leaving shore is smart. Load up on carbohydrates at breakfast and avoid acidic and greasy foods, as they may contribute to motion sickness. Lastly, avoid alcohol and cigarettes.

2. Medicate. If you know you’re especially prone to motion sickness, investigate the use of over-the-counter antiemetic medications such as meclozine (Bonine, Antivert, Meni-D, Antrizine) or Dramamine. Meclozine reduces the activity of the portion of the brain that controls nausea. These medications are highly effective in most individuals, and thus can be a preventive measure for short trips or for mild cases of motion sickness. Be sure to start medicating the night before the dive trip to start establishing the proper blood level of the drug.

3. Go gingerly. In addition to medications, many divers swear that the intake of ginger is a simple and tasty way to help avoid getting ill. If this works for you, it’s an easy solution – just carry a Ziploc baggie of ginger snaps aboard and munch on them before and between dives. Although it’s not yet clear to researchers exactly how and why it works, studies show that the ginger root contains a number of chemicals that seem to help relax the intestinal track. As a result, ginger is often helpful in reducing the risk of nausea.

4. Avoid “conflicting instrument readings.” Look out across the horizon so your eyes can register the same type of acceleration changes your ears are reporting. Avoid visually focusing on things that are close-by, and most especially, avoid reading for more than a few seconds at a time. Also, face the direction the boat is traveling.

5. Your nose knows. Odors can complicate the mix of signals to the brain, increasing your likelihood of becoming ill. Avoid smelling diesel fumes, cigarette smoke, perfume and of course, anyone else’s vomit.

6. Minimize movement. Standing in different locations on the boat’s deck will result in different amounts of velocity/acceleration being transferred to your body. Stay topside, close to the center of the vessel.

7. Keep hydrated. Continue to drink plenty of fluids while on board and throughout each surface interval. This will help keep your stomach more full and will help your body metabolize food and process everything else better.

8. Stay cool. If you become overheated while on deck, you’ll be more at risk of becoming ill. Wear a cap to keep the sun off your head and face, sit in a shady location between dives and peel off part or all of your wetsuit.

9. Heads up! If you feel the urge to vomit, move to the leeward rail (with the wind at your back), lean forward and try to direct your explosion toward the sea. The fish will thank you. Never go into the head (marine toilet).

10. Dive in. If you do begin to feel the early signs of motion sickness, get into the water and submerge several feet below the surface, doing so will usually quell the queasy feelings because your body will stop receiving the conflicting acceleration readings.

11. Regulate it. If you happen to become ill while underwater, such as just after submerging, it’s usually perfectly OK to vomit in your regulator. It’s not the most enjoyable experience, but it’s typically over very quickly and you’ll feel better almost immediately.

The bottom line is that motion sickness can be managed and/or minimized by planning ahead with sufficient sleep, proper food intake, use of medications and consciously taking avoidance actions while on-board, before the first signs of motion sickness manifest.

Kathy Dowsett
www.kirkscubagear.com

Thanks to Scuba Diving