| ||||||||||
|
||||||||||
| ||||||||||
|
||||||||||
A day in with the CoastguardOne fifth of dead bodies recovered by Navy search and rescue crews are those of divers. Nick Herbert reports from a meeting at which the rescue services' role in your worst nightmares was explored. Four divers leave Plymouth on a 30ft hardboat to dive a wreck 25 miles south of the harbour. The top of the wreck is at 66m, with 75m to the seabed. They plan to dive in pairs on mixed gases. Planned duration of each dive is 1 hour 55 minutes, including an hour for ascent and decompression. At 12.30 the wreck is located and a shotline dropped on it. At 1.30 one pair descends, followed 15 minutes later by the second. The boat heaves to under power and waits, the skipper aware of the half-mile visibility in haze. Then, at 2.10, he realises that the shotline buoy has drifted off the wreck - possibly cut - so steams over to the area. It is at this point that the diveboat fouls its propeller on a raft of discarded fishing net and begins to drift. What would you do if you were the skipper? This was the scenario for HM Coastguard's table-top exercise at Plymdive '98, organised by Diving Liaison Officer Reg Hill at the Hyperbaric Medical Centre at Plymouth. As the number of leisure divers has risen, so the number of dive-related incidents has followed suit, explained Richard Day, the Coastguard's Regional Controller for the Devon area, in the first of a number of talks. Plymdive '98 had, he said, been developed to explain to divers the role of the Coastguard and the other emergency services in these incidents. Richard's message, and one reiterated throughout the day, was that it was vital that diveboat operators notify the Coastguard of developing problems sooner rather than later. Dr John Shepherd of the Hyperbaric Medical Centre, which has such a close relationship with the Coastguard, admitted that even he had used its services - a blockage in his boat engine's fuel line had resulted in a lifeboat call-out! The centre - the DDRC, as it is still known by divers - is the biggest research facility of its kind in the UK, and has been based for 18 months in Derriford Road, Plymouth. It has its own intensive care unit to treat gas embolisms and other diving-related ailments, as well as a mobile ITU in the shape of a well-equipped ambulance. There are three recompression chambers, two of them refurbished North Sea oil-rig types and the latest a large multiplace "walk-in" chamber, used for a wide range of hyperbaric oxygen therapy regimes as well as unbending many sport divers, mostly with neurological symptoms. The staff are on standby 24 hours a day all year round, but they would rather you didn't pay them a professional visit... "Deep" is a relative term, said the BSAC's Dave Crockford, talking about deep mixed gas diving. Thirty metres might scare a 15m reef diver, 60m would scare most sport divers and 90m scared him - and most technical divers. That fear was healthy, but on the wrong gas any of these depths could be bad news. Technical divers manage risk through repetitive skill training, improving gas management awareness, tight team control and using equipment of a higher quality than sport divers, but as they go deeper, and as sport divers dip into technical diving, so accidents will increase, said Dave. One comfort is that our Coastguard is considered the best and most responsive in the world, according to Dave Lewis, Brixham District Controller. Its rescue centres monitor radio (MF/VHF) and satellite frequencies (in the Falmouth and Aberdeen regions) for emergencies. It has 99 per cent radio coverage in the UK, which will improve when regional satellites are incorporated into the system, though this is not set to happen for another 10-15 years. Facilities include RNLI inshore/ offshore lifeboats, "emergency towing vehicles" or tugs, Nimrod aircraft, Search and Rescue Sea King helicopters, 300 rescue teams and Sikorski S61 Coastguard helicopters at Sumburgh, Stornoway, Lee-on-Solent and Portland. Aside from the risk to rescue personnel, especially in rough weather, it can cost a staggering 35,000 a day to search for a lost diver, using all SAR facilities. Food for thought before you set off in the club RIB with its engine running roughly and a service long overdue. The Coastguard's task would be simpler if all dive boats used VHF Channel 16 or the telephone to notify it of their plans (scheduled departure time, site, number on board and estimated time of arrival), changes in those plans, any problems arising and estimated return time. The Coastguard will use whatever resources it has to locate lost divers, but under water its options are limited. It can call on the Police Underwater Search Team's expertise, but only down to 50m - and there is no "quick response" facility. The police cannot help you if you are stuck inside a wreck with your air running out, as Superintendent Bob Pennington explained. His divers usually end up recovering bodies, boats and diving equipment relevant to an incident. A sobering statistic offered by Petty Officer Phil Warrington from Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose is that 20 per cent of casualties recovered dead by SAR crews are divers. Navy SAR Sea Kings can carry 11 passengers and five crew, including a diver if it is part of 771 Squadron. They are scrambled by HM Coastguard via the Rescue Coordination Centre at RAF Kinloss. All year round they maintain 15-minute readiness from 8am to dusk, then 45 minutes through the night. However, they are usually in the air within five minutes of your call during daylight hours, and rarely more than 20 minutes the rest of the time. 
Phil Warrington offered some guidelines for anyone who might get involved in transferring personnel to a helicopter:
I was asked to recap on an article I wrote for Diver last year (The View from the Chopper) in which I tried out various items of equipment that might help the rescue services locate a lost diver. Some new items have come onto the market since, like the Skystreme inflatable marker and High-Visibility drysuit colours from Polar Bears. Dressing in black might look very tekkie, but reflective strips on hood and upper suit, and/or brightly coloured suit tops will draw a searcher's eye by day or by night. Be seen, be saved. The best combination of location aids a diver could carry, according to our tests, would be an Electronic Position Indicating Rescue Beacon (EPIRB), a smoke flare, (and the sooner Pains-Wessex/Schermuly produces its "60-second Submersible Smoke Signal" the safer we will be) and a signal flag strapped to your cylinder. One vital piece of advice from the Coastguard if you are lost and drifting at sea - don't fin. You'll be found faster if you go with the flow... Now back to that table-top diving scenario dreamed upy Reg Hill and the Brixham mob. Almost every group at the meeting came up with the same initial course of action for our stricken diveboat skipper - a PAN PAN call to the Coastguard, with position and estimated time of arrival of the divers below. That was too easy. In Act 2 of this diabolical drama, a diver surfaces unexpectedly 200m uptide of the diveboat, waving his arms, then lies face-up with his BC inflated, seemingly unconscious. Various vessels have responded to our emergency radio message, including a supertanker, a fishing boat, a Brittany ferry and a Navy frigate. All are specified distances from the scene, so the question now is: "What action would you take as skipper, and as Search Mission Co-ordinator?" We decide to launch the Fowey lifeboat, request the frigate to assist with its Lynx helicopter, ask the supertanker and ferry to look out when passing, and the fishing boat to assist at the scene. As skipper, we upgrade our call to MAYDAY. In Act 3 the action hots up. Rescue 193 has scrambled from Culdrose, winched up the unconscious diver and whisked him away to Derriford. The tide has increased and the diveboat has drifted 1.5 miles NE, out of sight of the dive position. Shortly after the helicopter left, it began to take on water. The level is above the engine and will soon rise above the battery. But the fishing boat has arrived. What, asked the Coastguard boys, would we do as Dive Boat Skipper, as SMC, and at the DDRC? When we have worked that out, they bring on Act 4, where one pair of divers surfaces away from the original dive site and out of sight of any vessel due to low visibility. The Search Mission Co-ordinator has heard from the DDRC that the first diver is conscious and was one of the second wave. His buddy had a problem at 75m, spat out his demand valve and began convulsing. A rescue attempt was made but, at about 35m, the two became separated, and this diver lost his buddy. He then made a rapid ascent, becoming unconscious on the surface. The diveboat skipper has lost radio communications, but has managed to stem the leak with his manual bilge pump. And Fowey's lifeboat is on scene. As we move through Acts 5 and 6, the exercises become more complicated and the questions harder to answer - as must happen all the time at Coastguard stations around the country. In the end three of the four divers are located, two with DCS symptoms, but the fourth is still missing, presumed lost. An absorbing and thought-provoking exercise, and the day was judged a great success. n
| ||||||||||
 |
DIVER this month
|
Latest News
|
Holiday Offers
|
Competitions
|
Travel
|
Equipment
|
Forums
|
Learn to dive
|
Wrecks
|
UK Boat Spaces
|
Centres Overseas
|
Centres UK
|
Personal ads
|
Weather
|
Careers
|
U/W Photography
|
Marine life
|
Dive Shows
|
Dive Wear
|
Sharks
|
Diving know how
|
Opinion & more
|
Subscribe
|
Books & DVDs
|
Links
|
Contact us
|
About DIVER group
|
Divermart
|