Cave diver death in Red Sea-1st hand report
In the forum here there was a report about some lost divers in the Red Sea as of late.
Last I heard the search was abandoned for the multiple missing divers, but one of the divers has been confirmed dead.
Below is an account written by a Russian trimix trained diver who was in one of the two groups that included the deceased.
I have attempted to translate from Russian to English the first hand report written by the decedents rescuer. DO NOT take my translation as either literal, accurate or the exact words and intent of the author, and do not attribute my attempt at translation to the author.
1-7-2007,
In the course of cave diving at Mamlakh, Aleksey Borisov has perished. Divers in the group were Andrey Chistyakov, Sergey Andreev (ATx TDI, Full Cave IANTD and sa1d- Mount NSS-CDS) and Aleksey Borisov (ATx TDI, Technical Wreck Penetration NAUI).
The dive began at 9:30 a.m. local time. We worked in two teams – Andrey Chistyakov with Aleksey Borisov (maximum depth 65 is meter) and Sergey Andreev (solo, the maximum depth 81 meter) Andrey Chistyakov and Aleksey Borisov planned to pass along white khodovika to the windows, reaching a maximum depth of 65 meters, near the "windows" to turn back and to return by the same way. Bottom time was approximately 20 minutes.
Gas mix used: Aleksey Borisov Tx 17/20, EAN 50 oxygen, Andrey Chistyakov Tx13/37, EAN50 oxygen. Sergey Andreev (15/30) passed downward on vertical to the depth of 81 meters. At the depth of 50 meters, in the coil (old coil on the wall of cave) they planned to regroup and to continue immersion together by one group of event they were developed according to plan to the mark near 55 meters. Our team periodically exchanged signals with Aleksey using our dive lights. Aleksey always returned our signal back that he was ok.
At the 50 meter mark I heard a strange sound and realized Aleksey was breathing very hard. I signaled with my light if he was ok and he replied he was not.
Immediately after this his dive light started to have problems. I watched his light float slowly upwards and I swam towards it. I saw Aleksey try to grab it and just then the light went out. I swam up to Aleksey and I didn't see his backup light. I tried to give him my backup light but he refused it. I tried to get him to swim along with me. At that time I saw saw somewhat higher above us Sergey Andreeva. Then everything started to happen with lightning speed.
Next I looked back at Aleksey, I saw he was grabbing his regulator and was attempting to wind his hand around it and was pulling on it. I immediately swam over, and after touching his hand to try to calm him, it was obvious from his eyes Aleksey was completely stressed out. Aleksey reacted by shoving my hand away and grabbing his regulator. I could hear his labored breathing. I attempted to stop him, but it was obvious from the look on his face he was hysterical. Aleksey nervously pushed me away and attempted to vomit out of the side of his mouth. Suddenly he tore his regulator out of his mouth. I attempted to put his regulator back in his mouth, but Aleksey actively resisted, without telling me why. Several times he knocked my own regulator from my mouth. He was flailing his hands around which was dangerous for me. At some moment he grabbed his regulator with his left hand which prevented me from trying to put it back in his mouth. I grabbed my spare regulator and attempted to put it into it his mouth. Aleksey started to jerk his head from the side to the side rejecting the regulator. I knew I could never put my spare regualtor in his mouth until he stopped resisting. Finally he stopped moving and I tried to purge his regulator Aleksey did not move. At some point it seemed me that he was slightly breathing. But, apparently, these were residual gases from the lungs, gradually bubbles were changed into the small bubbles ("milk"). During the entire time describe aboved Sergey Andreev helped me by using his dive light, since my lamp was falling out of my hand during the rescue attempt so I could see nothing. I continued to retain his regulator in his mouth during decompression obligations, working with it and his BCD simultaneously and carrying out deco. When, at the depth 22 meters I attempted to replace the regulator of Aleksey on EAN50 it began obvious that he was dead. I checked his pulse and he seemed to have none but I am not sure I could tell for sure underwater. Nevertheless I continued to retain regulator in the mouth of Aleksey, hoping for a miracle. Of course, it did not occur. So I brought his body to the surface after completing deco obligations. After bringing his body to the surface it was obvious he was dead. To try to resuscitate him on the surface did not make sense – 40 minutes had passed from the moment of the cessation of respiration under water, which, undoubtedly, caused massive brain damage. After removing his body from the water, they piloted the boat to an area where they could establish cell phone connectivity and they reported the incident to police and his friends.
Aleksey Borisov's body was delivered into the morgue in Nuveybe, where an autopsy was performed of which it was established the reason for death – asphyxia. We have all been questioned by the police. In the evening the same day a judicial hearing took place, which established death from the accident while diving. At night the same day, after court, I undertook actions on the beginning of the process of the repatriation of his body. The following day, on 7 January, his body was driven away into Cairo for fulfilling of consular formalities and repatriation.
In my opinion, the reason for his death was the stress, intensified by the failure of his dive light which developed into uncontrollable panic. I consider the actions of Sergey Andreev in this situation correct and reasonable.
Evidently, Aleksey Borisov had deep and thoroughly hidden psychological problems, like perhaps a phobia about darkness. I think everything I did was proper under the situation Theoretically, I could have ignored deco, but, in any event, this would undoubtedly take more than 6 minutes (too much time for brain cells to be without oxygen) and, most important, it would inevitably lead to type 2 decompression sickness, both in the resuscitator and in victim, and under the conditions of the nearest recompression chamber was an hour drive away and at an altitude of 900 meters it would be equivalent to suicide.
I additionally consider it necessary to report that Aleksey Borisov previously accomplished a series of deep dives with me and diving into the cave of Mamlakh without the visible problems. In addition to this, to me it seems important to note some subtle changes in the behavior of Aleksey upon his arrival – he was uncommonly taciturn and pensive. We all did not see Aleksey in the course of several months and noted these small changes. I consider it expedient to analyze the life of Aleksey for the purpose of the installation of the fact of analogous episodes (panicky attacks), diseases and craniocerebral injuries in anamnesis.
All professionals connected with the dives into the [nadgolovnye media], I am pleased to focus special attention on the analysis of anamnesis of candidate and, possibly, psychological testing to the object of the stability of psyche. In this case I note that standard exercises it is course (sudden tearing off of mask, the artificial creation of stress) they revealed in Aleksey no visible psychological problems. He was my student from the level of advanced nitrox to the level of advanced trimix and I always noted his very high stress level, furthermore, he was very slightly built (slender build and long hands) which made it difficult for him to completely carry out a number of the exercises, and he had a problem with flexibility in reaching vavles, etc.
Andrey Chistyakov (TDI Instructor 9838)
