Posted by fred on January 08, 2001 at 22:10:42:
In Reply to: Scuba Diver Dies Off Mission Beach posted by Wayne on January 07, 2001 at 19:07:49:
Ocean scientist Mia Tegner dies while diving off Mission Beach
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20010108-9999_1m8diver.html
By Lisa Petrillo
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
January 8, 2001
A local scientist, world-renowned for her study of the ocean, died yesterday on the ocean floor.
Mia Tegner, a researcher at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, was 53. Her work is credited with helping save local sewer ratepayers billions of dollars and for saving abalone from extinction.
She died while exploring sunken ships off Mission Beach with her husband and friends. What went wrong so far remains a mystery, according to rescue workers and friends.
"To have something like this happen to someone of her experience is just mind-boggling," said Wayne Pawelek, a friend and colleague who has worked with her for 30 years at Scripps, where he is the diving safety officer.
It was the second death of a diver in the same area in less than two weeks.
Tegner, a Southern California native, was known for her ground-breaking research on undersea kelp forests. It was her expertise that helped the city of San Diego escape spending a potential $3 billion to upgrade its ailing sewage system in the early 1990s.
"She had such extremely high ethical standards. When she said the city shouldn't have to upgrade its wastewater treatment, people listened," said Alan Langworthy, deputy director of the Metropolitan Wastewater Treatment Department.
In 1998, Tegner won the Pew Trust Fellowship for Marine Conservation that permitted her to continue work battling the dying-off of the abalone population.
She was also known for her research into the impact on the ocean from shifting global weather patterns like El Niņo.
So respected was Tegner, she served as a spokeswoman for a diving equipment maker, as well as being a model with a Ph.D. from UCSD with healthful good looks.
Tegner dived at least twice a week, her friends said. Yesterday she was diving with a group that included her husband, underwater photographer Eric Hanauer, with whom she shared a home in University City. They were diving in an area known by those who flock to it as "wreck alley," so named for the ships deliberately sunk there for divers to explore.
Rescue workers said that shortly before 2 p.m. Tegner and her party dived first at the sunken Yukon, then moved to the El Rey, named for a former kelp harvesting vessel.
After her second dive at El Rey, San Diego lifeguards reported, she surfaced and asked someone aboard the dive boat to give her a new air tank because she didn't have enough air in her tank to do the proper safety procedures, a decompression stop that lets the body regulate itself after resurfacing from the pressure of great ocean depths.
Within two minutes of her next descent, her air tank floated to the surface and her friends in the boat knew something was wrong, lifeguards said. Apparently the group's marine radio was not working, so they flagged down a nearby boat, which called for help.
The first lifeguards on the scene said they arrived within six minutes of the call, at 2:21 p.m. and dived as far down as 40 feet but were unable to find Tegner. They called for the San Diego's specially trained scuba recovery team, which took 10 to 20 minutes more to arrive.
The team found Tegner on the ocean floor, at 90 feet down. They cut her away from her scuba gear and brought her to the surface, where they performed first aid. Next they took her to a lifeguard headquarters, where a paramedic team was waiting, but they were unable to revive her.
Tegner and her husband were known for their passion for the ocean as well as their love of exotic travel. She had won a number of prestigious academic and conservation awards. Her friends described her as being in good health, and as an avid walker, diver and kayaker.
The other diver who died recently along wreck alley was Monica Vilca, 41, of Germany. She succumbed Dec. 29 while diving near the Yukon, a warship that has attracted divers from all over the world since it was sunk last summer.