Near Rebreather Death leads to Valuable Lesson Learned.

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This video made by SKY news in the United Kingdom shows real footage of an incident where a rebreather diver suffers from Carbon Dioxide poisoning. The video takes the viewer through the incident, explaining how it came about and the lessons that can be learnt. Whilst the video is primarily aimed at rebreather divers, there are issues such as bail-out gas consumption, team size and rescue that may be useful to all divers.

In reviewing the video the team at DFP would like to add the following comments. This is an excellent video - good for training. However we can't help wonder though if the video was a little hammed up for 'media' purposes. CO2 hits are, woithout a doubt, very dangerous thing but we are concerned about how this incident went down. First, CO2 hits, can happen at anytime (with or without a properly packed cannister) i.e. hardwork, physiological disposition, high PPCO2 compicated by with quick descents (causing deepwater blackout), and of course possibly followed by quick ascents where the PO2 drops causing shallow water blackout.

In this incident the diver went to bailout quite early upon feeling the symptoms. Despite his heavy breathing we are surprised the CO2 was not flushed out, especially while he was ascending. A couple of things come to mind;

~ Was this diver medically predisposed? Was he a smoker? Whjat kind of shape was he in? Did he suffer from COPD, fatique, or was he on some kind of prescription drug that made him vulnerable?

~ Why do they blame the instructor? We know there are a small gropup of people who endorse scrubber repacking which is insane, but if buddy was that experienced as they said he was, he should know better than to repack. Especially with all of the literature that comes with an Inspiration Rebreather and everything that is on the world wide web about scrubbers and rebreathers.

~ The divers do not look very deep, one has to wonder if something else was going on.

The video is an excellent story about how easy a rebreather can bite you in the ass if you do not respect it. Whomever it was that these divers alleged to have taught them to repack the scrubber needs to have his qualifications reviewed however in this case; blaming the instructor is weak. These divers would have to be at a level where they should be thinking more about how to do things; like WHY things should be done and why they should not be. This is a perfect example of divers following leads and not thinking for themselves. ~ DFP

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