Posted by AADIVER on February 13, 2001 at 11:03:57:
In Reply to: Mia Tegner's DDRC Final Report posted by Bert on February 13, 2001 at 09:03:39:
Direct quote from the paper:
"Upon reaching the surface, Tegner told someone aboard the boat that her diver's computer was telling her she needed additional decompression time. She grabbed another diver's partially depleted air tank, which still had a buoyancy vest attached, and descended with it under her arm.
About four minutes later, the air tank and buoyancy vest bobbed to the surface.
Tegner's husband immediately went down to look for her, but ran low on air before he could find her. A San Diego lifeguard diver later discovered her body on the ocean floor.
The expert panel believes Tegner ran out of air before completing her "safety stop," a final pause of three to five minutes in 15 to 25 feet of water. It's a routine procedure to provide an extra margin of safety to eliminate any remaining nitrogen bubbles in a diver's blood."
If her computer said she still had a ceiling, that has nothing to do with a routine, no deco safety stop for 3 minutes in 15 fsw. Which was it? And why didn't she drop down the anchor line to the ceiling depth? No answer to that, unfortunately. Big lesson for all of us: always pack more gas than the dive requires, i.e. doubles or a minimum 30 cu ft pony.