A 52-year-old man disappeared underwater at Capernwray Diving Centre after experiencing panic during an advanced open water diving course. Despite being with a qualified dive buddy, the diver struggled and ultimately went under.
A student resurfaced at a popular diving centre before suddenly panicking and crying out for help, only to disappear beneath the water moments later. Mark Powell had been undertaking his advanced open water course at Capernwray Diving Centre near Carnforth, Lancashire , on May 3 last year.
The 52-year-old, from Cumbria, had already completed the basic course and had taken part in a pool refresher session the week before. The advanced open water course involves completing five dives, with the four students, including Mark, scheduled to complete three on May 3 and the remaining two the following day.
The group completed their first two dives before breaking for lunch, then returned to the water for the third dive, which involved descending to a depth of at least 18 metres. Click here to get the biggest stories straight to your inbox in our Daily Newsletter Capernwray's Jackdaw Quarry reaches around 21 metres at its deepest point and features a number of 'wrecks', including a passenger plane, which have been submerged to give divers the opportunity to practise exploring.
Mark, who was born in Whalley and worked as a private landlord, had been paired with 'dive buddy' Nicola Hopkins, a qualified dive master who had completed more than 200 dives. After exploring the plane, without venturing inside it, Nicola noticed that Mark had 70 bar of pressure remaining in his oxygen cylinder and decided it was time to head back to the surface.
When they resurfaced, Mark was initially fine but then 'suddenly started asking for help', Nicola said afterwards. As is standard practice when someone begins to panic, Nicola instructed Mark to inflate his buoyancy device, but she could see 'panic was setting in', reports Lancs Live . Mark continued 'thrashing and flailing' and in his state of panic he tried to grab onto Nicola which caused her to go underwater.
By this point bystanders and other divers on the shore had noticed something was wrong and one experienced diver, Jak Spedding, jumped into the water and swam over to help. Mark had now sunk underwater and both Jack and Nicola dived to find him. After only a couple of minutes, they found him on the bottom of the quarry and brought him back to the surface, where a boat took him to shore.
Despite the best efforts of first aiders, with the use of CPR and a defibrillator, Mark was sadly pronounced dead after being taken to the Royal Lancaster Infirmary. An inquest into Mark's death, held at Preston Coroners' Court yesterday , heard from qualified instructor trainer David Keany who was one of three volunteers leading the course that day. David, who was the surface instructor at the time, said he saw Nicola and Mark surface.
'It just looked like they had come to the surface, nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first,' he said. 'Then after a few seconds Mark started shouting; he was panicking. It threw me a bit because he was at the surface. I shouted instructions to Nicola but she was already doing what she needed to do.
'He was panicking and thrashing around. At one point he pushed her under the water and when she got dunked she got a mouthful of water. It all happened in a matter of seconds.
' The inquest heard that 70 bar of oxygen was 'more than enough' to surface and Nicola had done the correct thing in offering Mark her alternate regulator to breathe as this reduced the risk of someone attempting to grab another diver's main regulator. A post mortem found that the cause of Mark's death was immersion pulmonary oedema rather than drowning. No water was found in his airways or lungs.
Jules Tuvey, a highly experienced diving instructor and lecturer, who works as a manager of a team of diving inspectors at the Health and Safety Executive, said that IPO is 'the most common cause of diving fatalities'. IPO is caused when fluids from the blood leak abnormally from the small vessels of the lung into the airspaces. Mr Tuvey explained that this is probably why Mark only started to panic after he surfaced.
'In water the pressure of oxygen is increased the deeper you go so you wouldn't necessarily know something was wrong but when you get to the top that's when you are likely to have problems,' he said. 'People with IPO hit the surface and panic because you think you'll be able to breathe better but the problem only worsens as the pressure decreases.
' The inquest heard that the HSE found no breaches of any regulations and Mr Tuvey commended the actions taken by both David and Nicola. 'Diving in quarries is generally safer than open sea because you can't get lost and they tend to have medical equipment and a boat,' he added. Mr Tuvey said he had been in several 'life or death situations' when diving and said: 'When you're panicking it's impossible to think logically.
'You can't think about what you're doing, you just try and get out of that situation and if you can't breathe on the surface you panic. ' The inquest also heard that there was no suggestion that the rate of Mark's surfacing could have caused any adverse reactions. Referring to the condition known as the bends, Mr Tuvey said: 'That only happens after a long time underwater and at a much greater depth.
' Area Coroner Kate Bisset returned a narrative conclusion and said: 'The law requires me to find as fact any act or omission which contributed to death. I can find none on the evidence available to me.
'I am satisfied that Mark had sufficient oxygen for the dive. He made it to the surface with the equipment he had which indicates his equipment worked.
'I am satisfied he had no ingested water on his ascent because I would expect his surfacing to involve coughing if he had water in his lungs and it didn't. 'There is no evidence that the ascent was faster than it ought to have been nor evidence that if it was faster that would have played a role.
'I suspect, though we will never know, the most likely event was that Mark felt he was struggling for oxygen hence accepting the regulator of Nicola Hopkins and expected relief when he surfaced. 'Given we know now that he was suffering from immersion pulmonary oedema, he would have still struggled to breath and in the consequence of the lack of oxygen he was not able to think rationally about the next steps.
'I also note the evidence of Dr Beardmore that death is said to occur rapidly which means there was little time for reaction. The CCTV indicates the time from surfacing to Mark going under was around 58 seconds. The time from him going under to being brought up by rescuers was 2 minutes 55 seconds. It all happened tragically quickly. '
Diving Accident Capernwray Diving Centre Lancashire Panic Disappearance
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