these wear friends of mine despite even the best training
somethings can go wrong keep that back of your minds.
this is a copy from Christos
with his permission

Subject: Eric Siebel Tech Diving Accident 6.27.2004

[ I know Christos personally and dove with him in excesses of 10x in
technical dives as deep as 260' ... this is his story as posted, more
as time allows me to collate the incident --- mg}

This just released from E-divers and copied from thedecostop.com:

Thank you all for all the kind comments. Here is a brief synopsis of
what happened:

Dive planned to 170-190 ft, 30 mins BT on a backgas of 18/45 in PST
104's, 50 mins deco on 50 and 100%. Sand was 210 ft, but profile
allowed for a considerably shallower average depth. We had planned on
dropping on the Lowrance wreck, and my buddy being a keen
spearfisherman had brought his gun. I did not.

Everything was fine on the boat, there were no signs or premonitions
of anything untoward on the surface and on most of the descent. The
current was in excess of 2 knots, and the water temperature was
considerably colder than usual for Pompano, about 66F. My buddy
dropped faster than I did on this occasion, and I was not able to
maintain eye contact. I chose to not swim as fast as him, as I could
already feel some CO2 narcosis stepping in. The team ahead of us for
whatever reason had chosen to place a down-line, and I saw my buddy
take hold of it and descend on it. I can only presume that he would
have loaded the four bands of his speargun at this time based on
previous observations of his behaviour. It's not hard to imagine that
the effort of this at 70 ft or so, compounded with all the other
factors would have driven his PCO2 to levels that were not compatible
with life.

I had him in clear visual contact all the time, and when we caught up
on the bottom, he started seizing immediately. I could not extricate
him from the wreck at once as his manifold was caught up on part of
the wreck, so I deflated his wing, purged my 7 cft hose into his
mouth
as his rig was out in an attempt to clear his oropharyngeal airway,
and belted for the surface. Dive time then was 11 mins, we were at
150ft (I think the current took us north of the Lowrance as I did not
recognize the wreck... we were probably 300ft N on the "Renegade").
To
those with whom I have previously spoken, I apologise for calling the
depth 170; This was an estimate based on an assumption that we were
on
the Lowrance which I believe we missed. Time to surface was 4
minutes,
I had switched to 50% en route, and the boat was right on top of us.
Even on the ascent, I could see that my buddy was Cyanosed, and that
there was frothy material coming out of his mouth. All the way up to
the surface, he was having a grand mal seizure, and this stopped at
about 40ft. I chose not to wait for his seizures to abait as he was
already cyanotic, and I pressed on his belly all the way up in a vain
attempt to prevent a pneumothorax. On the surface, there was a
massive
amount of frothy blood tinged sputum coming of his mouth and nose, I
cut him out of his harness, and he was hauled onto the boat. The
police were on site in less than 2 mins, I went on O2, and we were
were back in dock in less than three minutes. My girlfriend who is an
ER doc noted that he had a gash on his cheek, and that he was so
cyanotic and mottled that there was no way that this could have been
a
4 minute rescue. She noted in particular that alot of water was
coming
out of his airway during rescuscitation. This confirms to me beyond
any reasonable doubt that my buddy had passed out at about 70 -100ft
due to overexcertion and CO2 narcosis, as a result of the goal
orientated approach of his dream of nailing a black grouper on the
Lowrance. I believe that that he had inadvertently chosen to ignore
the warning signs that that his body was showing him. He most likely
scraped his head onto the wreck, drowned on the way down, and started
seizing due to Hypoxia / Anoxia. I sincerely doubt that there was any
CO or acetylene in his backgas as the fill station we use is the best
run in florida, and the proprietor is extremely anal retentive and
methodical.

I would like to thank the member of the other team for giving up on
attempting to drag my buddy towards the "upline", and from allowing
me
to head to the surface when he realised that my ascent was too
uncomfortable for him. I would like to thank that team for continuing
their dive as though nothing had happened, and for not recovering my
friend's speargun.

In particular I would like to commend Captain Conrad Nix for his
decisive action, my girlfiend for an exemplary rescusitation despite
overwhelming odds, and for the Sheriff for getting on site in record
speed. In particular I would like to thank the Dentist member of the
other team who maintained mouth to mouth rescusuitation despite my
comments calling for an end to the code. I declined to go to the
chamber and signed out AMA as I was well clear on deco.

I would also like to thank Dean Marshall, Cody Gardner, Bob Sherwood
and Andrew Georgitsis for teaching me how to rescue an unconscious
diver. I would in particular like to mention Andrew Georgitsis and
Tyler Moon for coaxing me into becoming more emotionally cool,
smooth,
unflinching, and deliberate in my actions. I would also like to thank
all of the countless individuals, both Professors, and Patients
throughout my fifteen years of Postgraduate Medical Training who
taught me the value of life, the dignity of humanity, the art of
Medicine and for developing me as a person who functions best in
conditions of high stress.

Eric Seibel was one of my best friends, a brilliant man and an
exceptionally talented diver. He just celebrated his 5Oth birthday on
Saturday and will always be remembered for his humanity, quick wit
and
his kindness. Whilst he made some decisions today which I would not
have, I will not dwell upon these. He was well loved by many people
in
South Florida and leaves behind a wife and family. This is the only
comment that I will post online in a public forum. There are no
learning experiences to be gained from this, and I would only hope
that people continue to take heed, and appreciate the limitations of
their training and physiology.

Over the next few days I will no doubt increasingly blame myself for
"not doing this", and "not doing that". I do this everytime I have a
death in the OR, and it always runs through the same cycle. There is
nothing else that could have done to have prevented this death
besides
not diving today. Through the years I have learnt to dissociate
myself
emotionally from my work, and this is helping enormously right now,
although I don't expect it to last much longer as I work through the
stages of mourning for my friend.

Enough for now.

Warm Regards to all,

Christos