Posted by Laurel on December 09, 2003 at 23:49:51:
In Reply to: Death In Laguna- some sad answers posted by Laurel on December 04, 2003 at 21:40:11:
Hey all,
Daryll's memorial this past Saturday was very nice. I want to thank everyone that expressed their wellwishes to myself, his friends, and most of all for his family and Steve, his buddy.
Steve gave out a statement at the memorial. By the sounds of his statement, it sounds like Daryll might have had a heart attack on the surface. After not being able to reconnect the BCD LP inflator, they decided to call the dive and were heading back into shore. They had been messing with the BCD for only 2-3 minutes. They had orally inflated the BCD. His weighting did allow him to have neutral buoyancy at the surface.
Daryll was not panicked at this point. His air was off. They had turned it off to reconnect the LPI to the BCD. Steve was a bit in front of Daryll as they snorkeled (still no fins on) back to shore. Suddenly, Daryll was on top on Steve, grabbing for his reg and pushing him under the water.
Steve struggled to get back up and establish his own buoyancy. He tried to calm Darryl, but couldn’t. He was not sure what was going on. He attempted to put Darryl’s fins on, but Darryl was kicking and thrashing about. After 3-4 minutes of this, Steve thought about dumping Darryl’s weights, but couldn’t. Darryl suddenly seemed to give up and started to sink. The thrashing about had released the air from his BC, and Darryl didn’t seem to have any air in his lungs. Steve says as Darryl sank, no air bubbles escaped.
Steve did submerge to find Darryl, but between exhaustion and low vis, couldn’t locate him. He resurfaced and called for help from the beach. 911 was called about 11:15 am. Rescue divers found Darryl about 55 minutes later. We are still awaiting coroner’s report.
It seems that a physical ailment may be the cause of this tragedy.