Veteran UNOCAL commercial diver drowns during CCR rebreather wreck dive

Fred Evans    1955-2006

For corrections and additions, please contact me directly Steve Burton 16 April 2006

Fred Evans - Rebreather incident causes tragic loss

On the 4 April 2006, I was given the extremely sad news that Veteran UNOCAL commercial diver and local wreck diving legend Fred Evans died during a CCR rebreather dive on the Japanese shipwreck Tottorri Maru in the South China Sea.

Fred was perhaps the most respected, skilled and totally competent diver in South East Asia. Fearless & indestructible; with a diving experience honed from 30 years offshore commercial diving and cautiously developing his already not inconsiderate wreck diving skills penetrating the engine rooms of more wrecks than even I know about. I will personally miss Fred; I feel much less safe on every dive I make now, knowledgeable that if an unforeseen diving incident can strike a diver like Fred, then what chance do I have? I can only imagine that some form of totally unforeseen rebreather control loop problem caused his tragic loss.

Incident Report

Fred was eventually recovered and found to be unresponsive lying on the wreck in approx 50meters depth, approx 30mins after an attempt had been made to assist him to the surface while he was apparently suffering the symptoms of an acute CNS Oxygen toxicity attack.

On this fateful day, a second diver also drowned. Fred's buddy, diver Paul Wilson from England put in an absolutely outstanding rescue/body recovery attempt - staying with Fred on the bottom at 50meters until his last breath of bottom gas. It was only the extremely violent nature of Fred's Acute O2 CNS attack with flailing limbs everywhere that made it impossible to assist him to the surface. Paul then had to make an emergency out of air ascent to the surface after approx 35mins of bottom time, blowing off all his very formal decompression obligations. In desperation, he took a breath from his own Oxygen deco gas at 30m or maybe even deeper, and immediately succumbed to an acute CNS O2 attack as would be expected; He too then passed out and drowned. 

As Paul convulsed on the down line, another dive team member Stewart Oehl tried to make Paul take a regulator to breath from, but without success. As Paul passed out, Stewart put a puff of gas in his BCD to send him towards the surface, where he might stand a better chance of survival.

Divers at the surface recovered Paul's body quickly, and he was swiftly lifted onto the dive boat. He was confirmed apparently dead with no breathing. After 5 mins non breathing, he spontaneously regained vital signs during a desperate attempt at revival by the teams videographer Vidiot whereupon Paul coughed and regained semi consciousness, only to succumb a second time to severe, life threatening DCS from his missed formal decompression and rapid ascent. By no small miracle, Paul later made a full recovery following several US Navy treatment tables administered a few hours later on board a nearby oil rig Diver Support vessel with onboard recompression facilities under contract from Mermaids Maritime Co Ltd (Laem-Chabang, Thailand), and further treatment received at the Koh Samui recompression chamber.