EXOTIC Malapascua, Deadly Dive Accident

Deadly Dive Accident EXOTIC DIVESHOP Malapascua
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Tragic dead of a diver from EXOTIC divers MALAPASCUA
AGAIN "MALAS PASCO" Bad Christmas an "MALAPASCUA", bad Omen??
A TRAGIC DIVE ACCIDENT happend today Christmas (Holy evening, Dec.24 2009) 1 pm on a EXOTIC Diveboat near MONAD SHOAL.
A NORWEGIAN national, Isaksen Knut Aksel, 45, Divemaster from Oslo- went together with his dive buddy down in the deep near Monad Shoal for TECH DIVE, when a tragic accident happend and the Norwegian diver died.
This is the tragic story as far as we know now:
It happened christmas eve dec.24 2009 about 11:30 am. The dive boat from EXOTIC started early in the morning 5 am for a two-dive dive tech dive tour to Monad Shoal.
About 12 pm Aksel and his dive buddy went down in the deep to MONAD SHOAL for their second TECH DIVE. Then after a while - the divers had already conducted a stop at 21 meters without any problems- they went back to go up to the surface. At about 16 meters during a decrompression stop dive instructor Akselrealized that something went wrong with. Aksel was tumbling and lost orientation he had cramps and he had NO VALVE IN HIS MOUTH. So dive buddy tried immediatly to get air in the victims mouth and took his own valve/regulator to put in the victims mouth to save his life, but without success cause he could not open the victims jaw which was locked in spasm. So Aksel went OUT OF AIR .
The two divers had each with them two stage bottles with 50% oxygen and one with 100% oxygen. When things went wrong dive buddy discovered that the victim had brought the wrong stage bottle - the one that contained 100% oxygen instead of 50% oxygen only. He controlled his own two bottles, both of which proved to contain 50% oxygen.
It therefore seems clear what caused the accident - the victim was breathing too high oxygen concentration and had convulsions and respiratory arrest as a result. So the accident during this diving experience has happened because two of stage bottles to be used for decompression stops were confused. The cause of accident was that Aksel got to high concentration of oxygen in breathing air during a decompression stop at 16 meters.Dive buddy did what he could to rescue the victim, but had to finally send him to the surface in order to conduct his own decompression stops.
While dive buddy tried to save the life of the victim both of them have been wrapped into the lines of the surface buoys. He had to cut them loose before he could send the victim to the surface. The 45-year-old Norwegian was quickly spotted by the dive boat, which had seen the surface markers, the two divers had been sent up. Resuscitation was attempted, the BOAT CREW tried to reanimate the diver but without success, live could not be saved, he died. (20 minutes without oxygen for the brain is surely the dead for humans life).
The victim 45-year-old originally came from Finnmark, and was a renowned instructor in the Oslo area in which he was affiliated with Sport Diver.