How To Stop Quiet Deaths | DEBREIF | @Scuba Diver Magazine
Hawaii found a worrying trend in snorkeling tourist deaths increasing and a snorkel safety study found that Rapid Onset Pulmonary Edema is a likely cause. Snorkel design and snorkeling practices could lead to these silent deaths and highlight red flags that you should pay attention to stay safe in the water.
#snorkel #safety #scuba #scubadiving #scubadiver
LINKS
https://www.snorkelsafetystudy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Snorkel-Study-Findings-and-reports.pdf
https://www.snorkelsafetystudy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Snorkel-Study-Survey.pdf
https://www.snorkelsafetystudy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Snorkel-SafetyMessages.pdf
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00:00 – Intro
00:47 – Snorkel Safety Study
02:55 – R.O.P.E.
04:46 – Findings
08:45 – Conclusion
Thank you so much for this Short Class vlog i learned a lot. Take Care!
i am dead set against ful face mask snorkel , a few times i was snorkelinmg with ppl waring them and 3 times i had to interveene as the person waring the ful face type snorkel was in serious distres , i have been snorkeling sinds i was a kid and i wood not tuch those type of full face mask snorkels with a 10 feet pole .
gosh, you are scaring me.. i never used a snorkel and I am going to cancun in one week and I’m planning to use one.. I bought gear and everything… i dont plan to dive only stay on top with a life vest… i bought ultra dry snorkel. How long should i wait to snorkel after 5 hr flight. no no no, i dont esnt to br scared.
How can you test the airflow resistance of a snorkel before buying it? Even if they aren’t sold in sealed packages (which I don’t know), I would expect that a store owner would object to customers putting unsold snorkels in their mouths.
excellent video , thanks
Interesting…Pulmonary edema is very rare…Why is this a sudden increase…Could be a possible Covid response…Covid has had a very high effect on the pulmonary effects…
As a kid I snorkelled by myself many times never thinking I was in any danger. But then there was the time I took a day scuba diving trip on a big catamaran, also as a kid, from the hotel on the beach in Hawaii, and we were as a group suiting up to go diving. At some point they said to jump in the water, but I had forgotten to inflate my buoyancy compensation vest. I also didn’t have my mouth piece (regulator) in my mouth, or maybe it fell out when I jumped in, but anyway, I sank like a stone. I had to kick my feet like hell to get to the surface. I couldn’t find my regulator as I desperately tried to stay on the surface, so I then grabbed the Buoyancy compensation inflation tube and blew it up until I could float. It scared the crap out of me and it appeared that no one even saw what happened, and I was like 14 years old! I could easily have drowned before anyone saw.
Wow, that must have been so scary, especially since it was your own courage, brute strenght and level head that saved yourself.
There is an added danger now added to the equation which apparently baffles most doctors these days.
Good information, headed to Tobago in two months.
The only thing I learnt were a whole bunch of abbreviations and acronyms. Fascinating but silly…
I’m a fairly experienced snorkeler but I did a snorkel tour on my last cruise holiday. It was probably a lot safer than I felt. The water wasn’t rough. But I was definitely not doing well. I didn’t feel safe because I didn’t have a designated buddy. I covered this by staying real close to the tour guides. But my heart was pounding and my breathing was certainly on the wild side. Looking back on it, I made the right call to stay on the boat and not swim the last area. I’d decided to keep the poor girl who’d been stung by a blue bottle company. I don’t think I’d ever go on another snorkel tour again. I also wonder just what affect undiagnosed high blood pressure might have had.
Back in the early 90s I spent a few years living in Tenerife. I wouldn’t class myself as a strong swimmer at all, but I loved snorkelling, and on several occasions I used to snorkel about a mile around the coast to our appartement. I never felt in any danger at all (apart from the fear of sharks I had 😆) and with those flippers it was almost effortless.
So I had to watch this video because if there was one water activity with all those deaths attributed to it, I would not have guessed in a million years that it was snorkelling 😮
I would probably blame the amount of cheap snorkel equipment online for a start, and I find those full face snorkels particularly scary. To anyone tempted to buy one of those – Don’t! You’re not a f@cking navy seal, a simple J pipe is probably the best design for simplicity, and when you need it to breathe, you need it simple 👍
Great advice, especially for older folks who can easily overdo it. We had a classmate in his mid 20s who drowned near the surface from a scuba gear issue. I don’t doubt there was some ROPE factor involved.
I play underwater hockey. I will have to research this danger to see how it impacts our sport.
This should be compulsory viewing for anyone considering snorkelling, especially for the first time.
Excellent summary, presented clearly and concisely. Not a wasted word. Thank you for putting out information on a seemingly benign, but possibly deadly activity 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Amazing always thought of snorkeling as a safe low impact sport.
This seems like a thorough approach except there is a concern I have always had when traveling. Tourists are the ones using rented equipment. If they are cleaned with any disinfectant, it is not anything one would want to inhale. Any remnant of the disinfectant could cause bronchial irritation or even an allergic reaction which can lead to pulmonary edema.
I always assumed the were rinsed with water after the disinfectant?
@HueYen True, lots of good, clean, H2O would be needed. I’m just thinking that if people were having respiratory problems snorkeling then the equipment was not rinsed properly.
Everyone always says to never swim alone, which is a good recommendation, but I humbly recommend not stopping there. Talk to your swimming buddies about how to signal distress to each other, have a general plan for what to do when someone is in trouble, and practice rescuing each other. (It is *much* harder to swim supporting an unconscious person than you would expect. You don’t want the first time you try it to be when your friend’s life is on the line).
Good points, sadly most will ignore them.
It’s interesting to see pressure as the cause of fluid build up in lungs as the mechanism. I remember always finding that I have extra mucus to cough out of my lungs after snorkeling and attributed this to humid air and evaporation from my own breathing condensing back into the lungs. This study explains it well!
It’s a simplification, but pressure from immersion tends to squeeze fluids out of you. For scuba divers the regulator means they’re inhaling air at the pressure of the regulator, which is based on the depth of the regulator. Snorkelers are breathing air at surface pressure, while being partially submerged means the pressure on their lungs is slightly higher. That’s one of the factors in the work of breathing along with any resistance from the snorkel itself, and means that inhaling requires more vacuum in the lungs compared to breathing while out of the water.
I’m going to link this to a NZ gold miner who uses a snorkel while working hard.
What a fantastic description of safety of scuba & snorkeling. Absolutely superb. Thank you for sharing this . I have heart problems, an abnormal heart rythum so snorkeling out of the question then , although scuba diving with full breathing apparatus is out of the question also ? I’d loved to learn to scuba dive . Many thanks for sharing such crucial information. With Love & Light from Niki here in the UK 🇬🇧 Stay safe 🙏🏻🙏🏾❤️💙💗
Just some advice for anyone who inhales water into there lungs and you cough it up and think your ok, go to the emergency room or doctors, you can die from something called secondary drowning. Goggle it, you can save someones life. I found out about this after I inhaled salt water and Coughed for aat least a week like i still had water in my lungs. Luckily i got better. I found out later about secondary drowning.
Not to mention the risk for pneumonia is extremely high and can also be fatal.
Very informative, never heard of this. I wonder if they’re breathing very shallow and Using a lot of physical energy and their carbon dioxide level builds up till they pass out, then they float there till there till there larynx relaxes and water goes in there lungs at that point. Nobody notices and they basically drown. It would happen to tourists more cause they do not know how to breath properly through a snorkel and relax. They are totally out of there environment and are using lots of unnecessary energy cause they have no ideas how to snorkel and fins efficiently. People die all the time because they go into a environment that they know nothing about. It is so easy to die quickly in the ocean.
What you’re saying is true… But these masks do feel weird… I’m not going to bash on them, but I just had a not so pleasant experience snorkeling with one of them for the first time (I’ve been swimming and snorkeling since kid) and boy these things feel like when you workout with a thick face mask for the first time… You can definitely feel the lack of oxygen even if you know what you’re doing and breathing calmly… Definitely not a good choice for using them in deep water or without a vest for prolonged time.
I am a beginner , a poor swimmer and just got back from snorkeling in a quiet bay in Maui (Honolua bay) and I have a poor heart (smoker). Very very very useful video. It is easy to get careless , blasé while snorkeling, like I found myself doing. Very grateful for this video.🙏🏽
Better than dying in an old age home.🤷🏻♂️
lots of info 👍
Big Island of Hawaii. First year was so awesome that we went back two years later and even booked a cheap condo in the general vicinity of a nice body-surfing beach with snorkeling close by. First swim…. I went way out and looked back at the shore. I noticed a group of people all pointing frantically in the same direction. Sensing danger, I immediately made my way back to shore. Next thing I know, I am being slammed against the rocky bottom by waves, even diving under them did not work. My mask was ripped off my face but I had a good grip on the snorkel with my teeth so I was able to put my mask back on and blow it out just in time for another wave. As I got closer, I started to hear them shouting but could not hear a thing over the waves. It got HARDER as I got closer to the shore until I finally felt the bottom and propelled myself out of the water… a bloody mess of superficial cuts. Turns out, it is called the “Disappearing Sand Beach” for a very good reason and the ‘natives’ were trying to guide me towards a sand channel. Live and learn: if you don’t see anyone else in the water at a beach in Hawaii it is probably because it is too dangerous to go in. That was the cue I missed in my excitement to get in to the water.
Better yet, swim only were there is a lifeguard and stop and ask them what you need to know for that area. Always. What you don’t know will kill you. It’s a lot easier to save somebody by telling them the dangers on the beach than actually going out and saving a drowning person. If you’ve never done it you have no idea how hard it can be in the ocean with waves and currents. If you don’t no don’t go.
Heeey ☺️, as soon as you said you rented a condo on the Big Island I wondered if you were by Magic Sands! Favorite beach. I always saw turtles there.
@Mariah Lehman Can’t remember, been over 20 years. Based on your comment, I wonder if my memory of the place name is correct?
It’s called “Magics” there are lifeguards on duty there.
Thanks for the excellent information. I just shared this w my teens..
Well worth watching, and a reminder that just about any activity in the water has the potential to be dangerous. Safety first.
The most dangerous part of diving is if you forget you have a mouth.
Forget that & you’re in some shit right there.
I can’t count the number of days that I went out by myself. Me and my Hawaiian sling. Locals go diving by themselves all the time it’s not a big deal. They also know there is an inherent risk and they assume that risk willingly.
Some people might be susceptible to this condition and not know it. I would advice new snorkels to start carefully and have a snorkel buddy. I have snorkeled and free dived all my life with no issues, reaching 40 ft easily and never had any issues. Learn your limits and don’t push yourself!
Interesting… thought this was going to be about shallow water blackout.
Another dangerous phenomenon we should all be aware of
I wonder how much of this is due to the recent health thing, that thing is known to cause lunge damage even after a seemingly mild case, I know I have it, and perhaps a lot more people also have reduced oxygenation capacity after getting the thing, which could contribute to breathing issues when doing above normal (to them) physical activities
You mean you’re wondering how many of the deaths from 2010 to 2019 were caused by that “recent health thing” that cropped up around the very end of 2019? I’m reasonably sure it was very few of them.
Good point
To be honest I love swimming looking at fish But I don’t find snorkels comfortable and usually just free dive or hold my breath instead.
Sorry but this is BS. People who die snorkeling were going to die in short order. Hawaii gets 10 million tourists each year. If they engage in water sports, snorkeling is the predominate one. That 200 would die is meaningless statistically. This is much to do about nothing. The anecdotes in the comments are silly.
A lot of snorkelers fully submerge under water without removing the snorkel from their mouths. This is a major mistake because under water, if the swimmer accidentally tries to breath, they will end up sucking in water.
Who removes their snorkel from their mouth when going underwater? You leave it in your mouth and tilt your head back to blow the water out as you get to the surface.
@Primalxbeast I’ve seen a lot of people do it when spear fishing. But they aren’t really just snorkeling they’re going for a extended dive and generally when they come up they want unrestricted breathing for a few minutes before resetting for the next dive.
@Slim Jim It’s still not a mistake to leave the snorkel in your mouth as the OP suggested. Anyone who doesn’t automatically hold their breath when going underwater without a regulator in thier mouth should stick to dry land.
I knew a guy named Brad Day….little fella and from a very wealthy family from western Oregon…was walking the beach in Molokai Hawaii…..felt the urge to dive into a very rough and tumble surf…..he was 56, he also was athletic….alas he washed up on the shore and his 12 year old grandson tried mouth to mouth, he was dead (signs on the beach said “NO SWIMMING)!
Possibly broke his neck. People think body surfing is a fun easy indulgence….but if they grab you and pile-drive you on your head while your arms can’t break the motion…it’s deadly..even few feet from shore. Happened to one of our engineers literally on the first day of their vacation in the Bahamas…he ran into the water…caught a small wave..was flipped…and has been a quadriplegic for the last 20 years…I’m always aware of this now…
I almost drowned at Saint Johns USVI snorkeling the East side of Hawksnest bay. I lived there at the time and was an avid snorkeler but I swam from near the beach where we moored my friends boat all the way to the point by Perkins Cay. While heading back a storm blew in bringing heavy rain and wind. It got choppy I was exhausted and then one of my legs started to cramp. I barley made it to a mooring bouy in the middle of the bay and clung to it till I thought I was strong enough to make it back. I did but barely, it scared the you known what out of me and I never snorkeled again without a inflatable vest. No one had a clue about my situation as they all went down into the boat when the rain started and it was also off season we were one of the few vessels in the bay that day.
Thanks for sharing your experience. The snorkle vest is probably scoffed at by most people, but your experience is a good example of why the vest could be a life-saver (literally).
@Steadman Uhlich Thanks, and yes you nailed it with the vest. I was in Saint Croix snorkeling a few months later with my girlfriend and we got smirks from another group out there because we had them on. I’m thinking the jokes on you guys we are the ones better equipped, nothing wrong with that.
Well done for surviving.
Thank you for the video was very informative! I have a question though. Shouldn’t that study include the amount of people participating in the water events? Fir example: Maybe there are 10,000x more snorkellers than free divers giving the number of deaths 200 and 44 respectively a completely different meaning!
Number of participants is a major factor, and not just for the different activities that resulted in drowning. Hawaii sees millions of tourists in a normal year and a significant percentage of them go snorkeling. The 200 dead tourists in that 10 year period was probably out of at least 30 to 50 million people who went snorkeling. Very rough guess, but lets say that adds up to 100 million hours of snorkeling, which means there’s one death for every 500,000 hours of snorkeling. To put that in perspective there’s about 1 traffic fatality for every 75 million miles of driving in the US, which is perhaps 1 for every 2.5 million hours. That a watersport might be 5 times as dangerous as driving doesn’t strike me as meaning there’s a particular problem that requires a lot of attention.
@Sue Denim Thank you! This is what I tried to say but waaaay better! Thank you.
Humans were not made to go into every environment on the planet with no health consequences.
This doesn’t answer the real question, why are snorkeling deaths going up rapidly?
When was this study done?
Perhaps the problem with snorkeling is hypercapnia & respiratory acidosis induced pulmonary edema. As an open circuit scuba diver, I control my exertion and breath well within my air supply. Snorkelers can’t and are constantly exerting themselves while holding their breath while under water in a dive, and at the surface involuntarily, taking many short breaths – air volume that barely clears the snorkel, due to face being in the water, relaxation, excitement, hypothermia, fear of water getting in the snorkel, etc. snorkeling should be restricted to water less than chest depth unless certified as an open water snorkeler and equipped with fins and an inflatable buoyancy device or buoyancy compensator. Many snorkelers are unaware of the dangers of surf and riptides, corals & sea life. Snorkelers need to watch their breathing, just like scuba divers. Drown-proofing is another essential skill many snorkelers lack – if you become out of breath or get a mouthful of water, you need to know how to recover. Snorkeling seems like a very simple activity, but like scuba has many risks.
Maybe we should require people to be certified before offering their uninformed opinions on the internet. A significant proportion of the snorkeling deaths in Hawaii happened in water shallow enough to stand up in, but the people who end up in distress often don’t get the chance to stand up. I’d also think somebody who’s “open circuit” certified should be better than the average person at figuring out that pretty much every snorkeling problem can be solved while still floating face down.
@Sue Denim Your comment isn’t helpful. The issue is snorkeling induced rapid onset pulmonary edema (SIROPE), a condition caused by fluid from the body drawn into the lungs. Acidemia is common in severe pulmonary edema & a study shows it’s caused by metabolic and respiratory acidosis. Swimming-induced pulmonary edema is a leading cause of triathlon-associated emergencies and death, so it’s not the snorkel. I believe SIROPE is caused by the body’s inability to manage the buildup of carbon dioxide. Swimming uses a lot of muscles & those muscles are going to generate a lot of carbon dioxide. If you’re holding your breath regularly or frequently, as swimmers naturally do, it’s going to build up in the body.
@Steven M Great. Now some moron will probably come along and suggest that we require people to get certified for swimming unless they stay in the kiddie pool.
@Sue Denim Better than some left-leaning commie wanting to ban water sports altogether. “If it saves one life…” Better to world-proof our children rather than trying to child-proof the world. ☝️
I wonder how this data maps out per capita of people taking part in each activity. Snorkelling is so accessible and requires very little expertise or equipment that I imagine the numbers of unsupervised participants is vastly higher than most others.
Why is it surprising that 90% of the snorkelers were tourists?
it isn’t
@minimalist_82 1:34 I know its not, but he says it is. I’d like to know why he thinks it is surprising that 90% of the snorkling deaths are tourists when it makes perfect sense.
great explination
Open water snorkeling is a serious activity that most people think is completely safe. They think that because they have no experience with open water dangers. I do agree that all water sports should be done in pairs or in groups. My guess is that nearly all of these deaths occured in people who were alone.
No more snorkeling for me.
Snorkling was the last session of my PADI open water cert. Divers have vast knowledge of the water. Covid is a lung disease and virus. The stats in the article are alarming.
this video doesn’t tell how to stop quiet deaths.