This Girl is Crushed by Her Drysuit

the nail Mill starts an advanced diving course that ends her life but how can a diver go from learning Advanced skills to dying in a matter of one dive under the supervision of two diving instructors Paddy stands for the professional association of diving instructors it's a leading international organization responsible for setting and maintaining diving standards across the globe Paddy was set up in 1966 It's Quickly grown to become the most recognized and respected scuba diving certification agency in the world it has a network of over 6600 dive centers and Resorts and provides the framework for divers to follow safety protocols adhere to best practices and respect the underwater environments Petty sets standards for training equipment use and dive operations to ensure the safety of both recreational and professional divers they certify divers at various levels ranging from beginners to experienced instructors one dive sensor under the Paddy umbrella is golf dive in Missoula Montana but dive centers aren't owned and operated by Paddy instead there are members who pay a licensing fee to use the padding name and training standard it Paddy then certifies a student who's met the standards on a training course conducted by a Paddy certified dive instructor golf dive offers courses from novice to experienced divers qualifying Dives are completed at lakes around Montana including black Sealy one hour from Missoula and Lake McDonald a three-hour drive from the Dive Center Lake McDonald is the largest lake in Glacier National Park it's about 10 miles long over a mile wide 472 feet deep and lies at an elevation of 3100 feet it's known for its deep crystal clear water making it an ideal dive site for advanced divers and that's one of the reasons lynnaire Mills is taking her Advanced diving course with Gull dive sensor Linnea already knows she wants to be a marine biologist diving in diverse environments will be a big part of her career on a family holiday to Australia in 2018 linnaea Dives in the warm clear waters of the Great Barrier Reef she loves the underwater world and even volunteers on marine biology projects with the University of North Carolina one of the biggest differences between the Great Barrier Reef and Glacier National Park is the temperature of the water while the Great Barrier Reef is often above 80 degrees Fahrenheit Lake McDonald is formed from glacial runoff with temperatures below 40 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit that's where having a dry suit is important dry suits are specialized items of diving equipment designed to keep you warm and dry in cold water environments a dry suit is different from a wetsuit a wetsuit traps a small layer of water between your body and the suit your body temperature warms that layer of water but that layer of water moves with the movement of your body some of that water might escape and be replenished with cold water which means that your body needs to heat any fresh water coming into the suit and water draws Heat away from your body far quicker than air a dry suit on the other hand traps a layer of air between your body and the suit air doesn't draw heat from your body nearly as quickly as water so you stay warmer for longer you can also wear warmer clothes under your dry suit because they'll stay dry that provides a layer of insulation which keeps your body even warmer but despite their benefits dry suits also introduce risks that divers need to be aware of and trained to manage air is compressed Under Pressure that means as you descend the air that's keeping you warm is compressed the deeper you go the more that air space is compressed to compensate for that air being compressed you have to put more air into the suit dry suits have an inflator valve which is connected to your Air Supply simply press a button and air is pumped from your tank into your dry suit that balances the volume of air in the suit but it also introduces another risk as you ascend that air you put into your suit will start to expand as the pressure decreases so on your way up you have to release some air if you don't the dry suit will start to act like a balloon and pull you rapidly up to the surface so a dry suit has a dump valve to release the air as it expands when diving with a dry suit you need to understand how this works and practice balancing the air in your suit Paddy offers a dry suit specialty course to help you get started with a dry suit lynnea's first dive on her Advanced open Watercourse is at Lake Sealy she hires a wetsuit and equipment from Gull dive the icy lake water is so cold that another student decides not to dive and gives Lanea her wetsuit for the dive so that she can double up and stay a little bit warmer after the dive goal dive owners David and Janine Olsen recommended the nail buys a dry suit and so a few days later on the 1st of November 2020 linnaea arrives at Gold Dive Center ready for her second Advanced Training dive with a secondhand dry suit that she's bought she meets other student divers Bob Gentry Bob's wife Shannon who's just going along for the ride but not diving another girl referred to in court documents as EG and Joel Wilson their instructors Deborah snow and Seth Liston give them a short briefing and then the group departs on the three-hour drive to Lake McDonald on the drive Bob and Lynette discussed their previous Dives and linnaea's passion for marine biology the group arrives at Lake McDonald and starts getting up lynnea is excited to try out two new dry suit and even more excited that she'll be warm on the dive she finishes getting kitted up and is ready to go in the water when she stops to ask Bob about the low pressure inflate connector on the chest of her dry suit Bob having recently completed a dry suit specialty course lets her know that's where her dry suits inflator hose connect effects but the second hand dry suit doesn't have the accompanying hose this low pressure hose must be screwed into your regulator the hose coupling then connects to your dry suit so that you can inflate the dry suit as you descend and neutralize that air volume inflating the dry suit acts to neutralize or balance the air volume in the suit which also acts to balance your buoyancy and so when lynnea asks Deborah snow her instructor what she should do Deborah says that she can simply use her BCD to control her buoyancy divers wear a BCD or buoyancy control device to control their buoyancy at the surface it's inflated so you float at the surface without having to waste energy swimming to stay afloat then to descend you deflate your BCD and make your descent as you descend you add small amounts of air into your BCD to neutralize the buoyancy when you reach your dive depth you fine tune your buoyancy the right amount of airing in your BCD means that you float weightlessly and at the end of your diet you let air out of your BCD as you ascend much like a dry suit as you ascend the air in your BCD will expand creating positive buoyancy which will start to pull you up to the surface to control the rate of your Ascent you let small amounts of air out of your BCD Shannon Gentry Bob's wife who's not diving double checks with the instructors as if to question the answer but Linnea speaks up first and says if they say it's all right I guess I'll be okay the group of divers are all qualified and so the instructors forego the customary pre-dive safety checks and dive briefing they enter the water at 1700 just as the lights are starting to fade the divers don't have torches and so they must rely on ambient lights Deborah snow takes Linea and EG down to 16 feet they're there for five minutes when snow takes EG back to the surface the air in the nay's dry suit is squeezed a little tight but she's not yet uncomfortable enough to call off the dive that she drove three hours to make and Deborah snow hasn't noticed anything out of the ordinary now instructor Seth Liston Who's acting as the safety diver descends along with students Bob Gentry and Joel Wilson Deborah snow comes back down with eg altogether the group descend to 60 feet they stop on a Ledge Bob Gentry notices that the layer is looking very uncomfortable she's trying to signal to snow or listen the two instructors on the dive that something's wrong unable to get their attention she turns to Bob Bob immediately swims in her Direction but before he can reach her Linnea loses her balance and slips off the ledge Bob Rushes after her and by the time he catches her at 85 feet he can see that her dry suit is squeezing her body to the point that she can't draw a breath Bob's training kicks in and he reaches for her BCD inflator he wants to inflate her BCD to make her positively point and help her float up to the surface but her BCD is already fully inflated and she's still sinking his next move is to drop her weight belt if he can drop the weight belt she'll be lighter and then he can swim her up to the surface assisted by the air in his own BCD he reaches for her stomach to find the quick release buckle on the weight belt but there's no quick release there's no weight belts Linnea and Barb are still descending Bob knows some bcds have quick release weight Pockets integrated into the BCD so he feels for the quick release he can feel some weights in the BCD but there's no quick release Bob's out of options they're at 104 feet when the regulator drops out of linnaea's mouth Bob's been breathing heavily and now he's running out of air before he gets dragged down further he lets go of linnaea to make his own emergency Ascent he's out of his depth and he needs help he gets to the surface and looks for someone to help but there's no surface support Deborah snow surfaces after noticing that two divers are missing Bob and Shannon explained that danaya is still underwater and can't surface snow descends briefly to look for an air but can't see her in the dimly lit Waters the rest of the group's surface snow and list and change their tanks and make another dive they find linnaea's body at 128 feet unable to pull her up they have to remove her BCD in order to lighten the load and bring her to the surface at the surface they're not in range of a mobile phone tower a couple who have seen the accident volunteer to drive 30 minutes to the nearest Tower in order to get a signal and make an emergency call Deborah snow then removes linnaea's dive computer and doesn't give it to investigators she also removes linnae's course paperwork which shows the progression of the course linnae's BCD is later recovered lead weights in the pockets of Linnaeus dry suits in BCD totaled 44 pounds of weight for me to make the same dive I would have around 22 pounds of lead and I'm significantly larger than Linnea in a debriefing after the event Janine Olson one of the owners of gold dive speaks with Bob Gentry and points out that he is the person diving with lynnaire and so he should take responsibility for not saving linnaea's life when questioned Janine Olsen tells the coroner that Linnaeus dive buddy witnessed her Panic then fall passively to the bottom of the lake after swimming without difficulty at a depth of approximately 40 feet luckily Bob Gentry's GoPro was able to give an unbiased account of the event to understand the incompetence on this dive you also need to know that Deborah snow was only recently qualified as an instructor she wasn't qualified to teach dry suit diving and quite obviously didn't grasp the basic idea of a dry suit needing an inflator hose I've talked in reputable dive centers myself and I can tell you that newly qualified instructors are seldom left to their own devices good dive sensors make use of an experienced head instructor to oversee diving operations and guide newbie instructors given that Janine Olsen tried to mislead the investigation there's little doubt that there was no guidance at all in fact in 2019 gold dive rented faulty equipment to an unqualified diver who died as a result at the time Linnea died an ongoing lawsuit was still pending against gold dive for that incident the Mills Family filed a lawsuit against gold dive Deborah snow and Paddy which was settled out of court Paddy have since made changes to training standards but the professional diving Community have some serious doubts about how Paddy protects itself without proactively taking an interest in how those standards are enforced in their member dive centers around the world

Channel: Waterline Stories

Views: 321,133

Keywords: scuba diving, scuba diving accidents, accidents, Thalassophobia

Id: L2E280_eJdU

Length: 13min 37sec (817 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 07 2023