An unusual diving death has occurred with the case of 20-year-old US student Joe Anderson, who was starting a summer-holiday job clearing weed and litter from Lac Lavon, a recreational lake in the town of Apple Valley, Minnesota.
Anderson, a student at nearby Bethel University, had been training to use scuba equipment to collect debris from the lake-bed, according to his family, but his qualification level if any is unclear, as is whether any surface cover was provided.
The flooded gravel pit had been turned into a fishing lake, though anglers are said to be deterred by its profuse weed growth. On the morning of 21 May Anderson undertook what relatives described as “one of his first-ever scuba dives” with co-workers, including friends, in the lake, in an area only about 8m deep.
Following a group surface check and having given the OK sign, Anderson descended with the other divers. The rest of the group resurfaced “shortly afterwards” as planned, but when Anderson’s absence was noted the other divers redescended to locate him.
One of them found him at the bottom “after a few minutes” with his regulator second stage out of his mouth and lifted him to the surface, where CPR was applied. Emergency services arrived quickly to find that although Anderson was not breathing he retained a faint pulse.
Paramedics got his heart beating and reported that he appeared to be suffering from severe hypothermia. He was stabilised and moved to an intensive care unit at a nearby hospital and later transferred to another unit, but he had only low blood oxygen levels, sporadic brain activity and fluid in his lungs, the latter described by his family as “not lake water but probably a result of the trauma from the accident”. He died on 24 May.
No problem was reported to have been found with Anderson’s dive-gear. Minnesota Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) is investigating the incident.
CLUE wreck-diver dies in Lake Erie
Elsewhere in the USA, the body of a 70-year-old wreck-diver was recovered from Lake Erie in Ohio on 1 June. David VanZandt, a space-flight engineer, was also founder, director and chief archaeologist of the non-profit group Cleveland Underwater Explorers (CLUE).
VanZandt had been diving a recently discovered wreck some 10km out from Cleveland on what was said to be his first underwater trip of the year. After failing to return to the dive-boat at around 3pm the US Coast Guard co-ordinated a search operation and recovered his body at around 7.45 that evening. He was said to have “suffered a fatal diving accident”.
A mixed-gas diver, VanZandt had started diving in 1995 and searching for shipwrecks from his boat in 2001. With a masters degree in maritime archaeology, he belonged to many professional archaeological bodies as well as being an Explorers Club fellow.
Also on Divernet: CCR SCOOTER DIVERS WERE SUCKED INTO DAM INLET, DIVER SUCKED INTO DAM-PIPE: OPERATOR SETTLES, GOLFBALLS WERE ATTACHED TO DIVER’S WEIGHTBELT, ALLIGATOR GRABS GOLFBALL DIVER
