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From: "Paul T. Cooper" <cqedi@ic*.co*.za*> Subject: Dry drowning Date: Fri, 10 Jan 1997 11:30:40 +0200 I would appreciate it if anybody out there could e-mail me some info, any info on dry drowning. My regular dive buddy had the unfortunate experience last week of diving with his brother, who was on holiday in Cape Town, when his brother apparently died from dry drowning. They were diving the wreck of the Antipoulis, which sank in 1977 in the same incident as the Romelia. The Antipoulis lies off Oudekraal and is in a very stable position in a relatively wind sheltered bay. Her amidships, which is where most local divers start their dive from, lies about 100m offshore. They snorkeled out to the wreck and when they got to the dive spot stopped to check that everybody was all right, there were 4 of them including a NAUI instructor. John however never lifted his head out of the water. His dive buddy went under water over to him and saw that his mask had water in it and that he was biting the snorkel with great force. They flipped John onto his back, dropped his weight-belt and started to get him back to shore. Ed, his dive buddy, towed him in whilst the instructor gave him mouth-to-mouth. The 4th diver swam ashore and called dive rescue. When they got him to shore they performed CPR for about 15 mins before the rescue team got there. They administered 3 adrenaline injections and finally got a heartbeat, although there had been none for about 20-25 mins. The chopper arrived and airlifted him to hospital where he lived on life support for about 30 hours. Unfortunately he never recovered and never responded to any further stimuli. The life support systems were switched off. Everybody thought that he had had a stroke, however the autopsy revealed that he had died from dry drowning, a term which we were unfamiliar with in the diving/snorkeling context. The doctor said that he must have breathed in some sea water through his snorkel and the cold water caused his larynx to go into spasm cutting off his air supply. Within 5 seconds he would have been unconscious which would have relaxed the spasm allowing him to breath normally, however he would now be breathing in sea water. According to the pathologist there is very little you can do in a case of dry drowning. When the instructor started giving mouth-to-mouth he noted that John's jaw was almost locked closed. I have spoken to a few divers around here and none of them have ever heard of a diver dying from dry drowning through a snorkel. An instructor who I know has been diving for 20 years, and used to be a Navy Seal, has also never come across a case like this. Please would anyone who knows anything, or has ever come across a diving accident like this before, mail me so that you can help us understand what happened and why it happened. With this info we can possibly help other divers avoid this type of accident in the future. Many thanks Paul T. Cooper cqedi@ic*.co*.za* Michael Holtzhausen Tel +27 11 800 4336 Fax +27 11 800 2779
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