A 66-year-old British diver who died from pulmonary barotrauma had made a rapid ascent only three minutes into a wreck-dive on Malta.
An inquest was held on 6 January into the death of Darrel Pascoe from Newquay in Cornwall. The incident had occurred on 12 October, 2024 while he was diving the P29 shipwreck, a former East German minesweeper sunk as a dive attraction off Cirkewwa, and usually dived from shore.
Pascoe was on a week-long diving holiday with his wife, and his death was reported at the time on Divernet.
At the inquest in Truro, assistant coroner Guy Davies was told that Pascoe and an unnamed buddy had descended to the wreck at about 30m, but that about three minutes into the dive Pascoe had signalled his intention to ascend and went up rapidly, leaving his buddy to follow a standard ascent routine.
At the surface Pascoe had gone into cardiac arrest and was brought by his buddy and another man to shore, where CPR was administered. Paramedics arrived and continued with the resuscitation efforts, but he had died later at Mater Dei Hospital in Msida.
Undiagnosed condition
The inquest heard that although Pascoe was an experienced diver he had not dived for 18 months before the trip, and had not provided a medical certificate from his GP confirming fitness to dive.
Under Malta’s Recreational Diving Service Provider Regulations, divers are required to complete and sign a medical questionnaire before diving. If they indicate any prescribed medical condition, they have to produce a “fit for diving” certificate, signed by a doctor familiar with diving medicine.
The dive-centre had accepted Pascoe based on his previous diving experience, but a consultant pathologist noted at the inquest that although the diver had a heart condition it had been undiagnosed at the time, and a diving medical test might not have been enough to reveal it.
He indicated that the condition was likely to have played no more than a minor part in the diver’s death.
It was not possible to determine exactly why Pascoe had ascended so rapidly, although difficulty in equalising might have been the problem. The coroner concluded that Pascoe had died from pulmonary barotrauma, or lung over-expansion injury, caused by his rapid ascent.
