A TRAGIC DIVE ACCIDENT happend Christmas Eve, Dec.24 2009 11:30 near MONAD SHOAL.
The NORWEGIAN national Knut Aksel ISAKSEN (45)
was dive guest in Malapascua . He came on December 11.2009 from Norway with a friend Nikola Olsen to Malapascua for TECH FUN DIVE. Even if he was an experienced dive instructor himself (member of the PADI Professional Association of Dive Instructors), it is said he wanted to have experience and examination as TECH DIVE Dive Master/Instructor. so he booked and wanted to stay until Jan. 01. 2010.
Unfortunatly 2 weeks after his arrival he died on Chrsitmas Eve Dec.24.2009 down in the deep during a technical fun dive session at Monad Shoal, in the arms of his dive buddy !!.
Depending on the police report Knut Aksel Isaksen, 45, was found floating face down by the boatcrew and two fellow divers Nikola Olsen and a certain Xavier at 11:30 a.m. .
Other NEWS are saying that the victim was diving together with his instructor and two other foreigners Xavier and Nicola.
Accident cause was that he got to high concentration of oxygen in breathing air during a decompression stop at 16 meters. The divers had already conducted a stop at 21 meters without any problems.
One can read the facts in this norwegian website
http://www.dykking.no/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4279&Itemid=104
This is the translation in english:
Error wrong gas bottle
The accident is under the diving experience has happened because two of stage bottles to be used for decompression stops were confused. The two divers had with him two stage bottles with 50% oxygen and one with 100% oxygen.
When things went wrong the divemaster discovered that the both - the victim and he himself- had brought the wrong stage bottle - the ones from the victim contained 100% oxygen, the divemaster controlled his own two bottles, both of which proved to contain 50% oxygen. Both of them supposed to have each one 100% and one 50 % oxygen !
The victim had cramps at 16 meters depth, and had no valve in the mouth. Divemaster tried to get air into the mouth of 45-year-old, but the jaws were locked in spasm. It therefore seems clear what caused the accident - the victim was breathing too high oxygen concentration and had convulsions and respiratory arrest as a result.
Had to cut loose
While divemaster tried to save the life of the Oslo-man wrapped the two into the lines to surface buoys. Divemaster had to cut them loose before he could send the victim to the surface.
45-year-old was quickly spotted by the dive boat, which had seen the surface markers, the two divers had been sent up. Resuscitation was attempted, but life was not to save. According to a close friend who acts as spokesman for the family of the victim was very concerned that the causes of diving accidents should come to light. It is accordingly that diving has gotten their information. The next of his family are notified.
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If I should die while diving.
If I should die while diving please do not hesitate to discuss the incident and assess every element with a view to furthering your understanding of how to enhance diver safety.
If I should die while diving get the facts. They won't be readily available and will definitely not be correct as reported by the media. But get the facts as best you can.
If I should die while diving understand, as I already do, that it will most likely involve fault on my part to some degree or another so do not hesitate to point that out.
If I should die while diving some of the fault will probably belong to my buddy and that needs to be honestly assessed as well though I must admit this is one area where I hope that compassion will be in the mix.
If I should die while diving there might be those who try to squelch discussion out of a misplaced notion of respect for the deceased, family and friends. They can say nice things about me at my funeral... but in the scuba community I want the incident to be strongly discussed.
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I'd like to see dive operators offer a copy of this with their liability release.
"It is an evil paradox that men with the lowest motives can launch wars by appealing to the highest ideals of better men." Charley Reese
And please give complete amnesty to my buddy, so he will speak frankly of the event without fear or recourse or slander.
There are a substantial fraction of diving deaths that are "deaths while diving" and there's not a darn thing the buddy can do. One of the biggest problems with diving is that the annual death rate is low enough that it hasn't really been analyized to death. With automobiles, we all know stuff like don't drive drunk, etc. With diving, we don't get that analysis. The DAN annual report is a step in that direction, but doesn't really go far enough.
Something worth pointing out is that only the actual incident analysis is useful. The reports that are squelched "waiting for the facts to come out" and then swept under the rug don't help the next guy. The details that don't come out because people are afraid of getting sued definitely don't help the next guy. The condolence threads make everyone feel better but tend to be moderated "in case relatives might read them" absolutely positively don't help the next guy. We learn from mistakes, that is just part of being human. That can only happen if we learn the facts, or as much of the facts as we can.
If I should die while diving (DiverBuoy Modified).
... post pictures, video, interviews, autopsy report, documenation, dive logs ON the Internet. The more information you can provide the more lively the discussion and if it saves a life that would rock too.
Sure, we might just be beating a dead horse by reporting and analyzing every accident, but it's a horse that needs to be beaten. Besides, you never know exactly what minor detail someone will take away from an incident report that will save their life or make them a better diver.
I have read alot concerning death while diving for educational purposes. I cant believe all of the "lets not speculate" and "have repect for the dead" crap I have read here. I wanna read about the rumors, speculation, facts and lies. I've always believed in the idioism "where there is smoke there is fire. With in the lies there is truth.
I have come to say that only the diver and God really know what happened and neither is talking to us.
I don't buy into censoring or quashing discussion because words might hurt someone. That is a very dangerous way to think about speech.
The reasoning behind analysing incidents is to find what went wrong. To learn why things happened the way they did, and to teach other to not make the same mistake. It is not to lay blame on who did what. The idea is to prevent others from falling onto the same set of circumstances and making the same fatal mistakes.
