ron akeson
Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2015 4:34 pm
It's time for a post script to this story. It has been a struggle to find the words to effectively communicate our findings. Ron was a long time friend of almost 2 decades and many dive adventures spanning from Canada to Bikini Atoll.
As best we can tell Ron succumbed to an oxygen toxicity event on a fairly benign & routine dive with 2 rebreather students. Dive was not in technical depths and planned with minimal deco.
We (MDS) conducted the initial inspection of Ron's gear as soon as we were given access to it from his family. This was approx 4 weeks after his accident. His RB was assembled correctly and passed all pre dive checks, gasses analyzed, scrubber was ISC 8lb radial. We have no idea how much actual time was on the scrubber. However after doing some research approx 3hrs was the number we settled on. So no real smoking gun initially.
We encountered some reluctance by Ron's family to let us conduct a wet test. The primary concern was our safety. We finally secured permission to dive his unit in "as is" condition to assess it's operation. After talking to a few people close to Ron we discovered that he had been having issues with a cell getting voted out. He had done several dives with it and was trying to troubleshoot the issue. Our assessment post dive was that 2 cells were current limited and the suspect cell was the most accurate. This was conducted by doing an O2 flush in approx 20-25fsw. This test was conducted approx 8 weeks post accident. We have no way of determining how much cell deterioration took place between accident and test. It was very obvious during the wet test. It would be unlikely that a diver with this experience level wouldn't have been able to sort this out. There would have been several things that would have indicated that something was wrong.
We researched the S/N of the cells he had installed and they were not the most recent he had purchased.
Here's where it gets a bit complicated. In our opinion knowing Ron his decision to dive that day was a business decision & not a diving decision. He never had a problem calling a dive on a deep wreck. It had happened 2 weeks prior over the Admiral Sampson. He just didn't feel right and sat out both days. No amount of talk could have changed his mind. But his store had been having a difficult winter and with spring approaching things were picking up. He mainly taught RB & tech students and he was getting busy. Then he came down with a vicious flu the week of the accident, and he needed to finish up his current students to move on to the next. So the moment he felt he was able he went diving. As it turned out it was way too soon.
We won't go into much detail about the dive other than it was 30 min into a planned 130' at Muk (depth & time are approx). The 2 students did a good job of getting him to the surface and the beach where paramedics could attend him.
On the accident dive the higher po2 than he thought combined with being physically diminished from the flu along with being very dehydrated (confirmed by hospital staff) most likely brought on this O2 event.
If even one of those things had been different I probably wouldn't be posting this.
Initially this was hard to accept. But the simplest answer is usually the correct one. After all the long and deep stuff. A simple class dive comes along.............
Hope this answers most questions.
MDS staff
As best we can tell Ron succumbed to an oxygen toxicity event on a fairly benign & routine dive with 2 rebreather students. Dive was not in technical depths and planned with minimal deco.
We (MDS) conducted the initial inspection of Ron's gear as soon as we were given access to it from his family. This was approx 4 weeks after his accident. His RB was assembled correctly and passed all pre dive checks, gasses analyzed, scrubber was ISC 8lb radial. We have no idea how much actual time was on the scrubber. However after doing some research approx 3hrs was the number we settled on. So no real smoking gun initially.
We encountered some reluctance by Ron's family to let us conduct a wet test. The primary concern was our safety. We finally secured permission to dive his unit in "as is" condition to assess it's operation. After talking to a few people close to Ron we discovered that he had been having issues with a cell getting voted out. He had done several dives with it and was trying to troubleshoot the issue. Our assessment post dive was that 2 cells were current limited and the suspect cell was the most accurate. This was conducted by doing an O2 flush in approx 20-25fsw. This test was conducted approx 8 weeks post accident. We have no way of determining how much cell deterioration took place between accident and test. It was very obvious during the wet test. It would be unlikely that a diver with this experience level wouldn't have been able to sort this out. There would have been several things that would have indicated that something was wrong.
We researched the S/N of the cells he had installed and they were not the most recent he had purchased.
Here's where it gets a bit complicated. In our opinion knowing Ron his decision to dive that day was a business decision & not a diving decision. He never had a problem calling a dive on a deep wreck. It had happened 2 weeks prior over the Admiral Sampson. He just didn't feel right and sat out both days. No amount of talk could have changed his mind. But his store had been having a difficult winter and with spring approaching things were picking up. He mainly taught RB & tech students and he was getting busy. Then he came down with a vicious flu the week of the accident, and he needed to finish up his current students to move on to the next. So the moment he felt he was able he went diving. As it turned out it was way too soon.
We won't go into much detail about the dive other than it was 30 min into a planned 130' at Muk (depth & time are approx). The 2 students did a good job of getting him to the surface and the beach where paramedics could attend him.
On the accident dive the higher po2 than he thought combined with being physically diminished from the flu along with being very dehydrated (confirmed by hospital staff) most likely brought on this O2 event.
If even one of those things had been different I probably wouldn't be posting this.
Initially this was hard to accept. But the simplest answer is usually the correct one. After all the long and deep stuff. A simple class dive comes along.............
Hope this answers most questions.
MDS staff