Bad news, from Sweden

[Flojt]

HI
I have translated this from the swedish article from the newspapper Sundsvalls Tidningen. From what I understand in the thread "Live from egypt 2006";
The freediver they refer to in the article, has now passed away. The doctors have pulled the plug since all hope where out.

Serious accident at Sporthalls-
badet

SUNDSVALL (ST) 2006-11-30 03:00

The Schoolkids thought that the man had been on the bottom of the pool, strangely long time. When their teacher dove down he found the 33 y old freediver unconsiousnes. The condition for the man was yesterday evening very critical.

It was yesterday at 15:00 that the accident happend at Sporthallsbadet.
When the teacher had got the man (a freediver from sundsvall) up of the water, He and the lifeguards at the poolhouse, started CPR to revive the man.When the paramedics arrived, they sucsseded to get his heart started again.
But yesterdat evening, his condition where critical and the police contacted his family located in the middle parts of sweden, so they could travel up to the hospital.
– Them man was practicing freediving when the accident happend.
"we at the poolhouse, knew that the man used to com to the pool and do freediving. He would come here and jump to the bottom with weights and sit there and hold his breath. Its many times that we had our heart in our throaths. says the lifeguard in charge Per-Erik "Peppe" Ulander.
– This time he cheated both the brain and us. It was realy scary. We are all very chocked over what has happend.
On the evening the Paramedics came to the Sporthallsbadet and held a debreifing for the staff.
The man have to the lifeguards, erlier this year, told the lifeguards at Sporthallsbadet, that he have held his breath for 7'38" at it best.
And that he is a part of the Swedich Elite in freediving.
–To save life is a chain. We coulden have done more. This is awfull and very stressfull for all that was involved, says "Peppe".
After the accident, there was a quick meeting with all of the staff, and was made a decision.
– We selldom ban things here, everybody have a right to be here to exercise within reasonable limits. But from today its not allowed to do freediving at the Sporthallsbadet.
After the accident, the pool was cleared of visitors, untill the freediver had been taken care of.
He was first brought to the emergency ward, when they made it clear that his heart was pumping he was moved to the intensive care unit, where he was taken care of during the evening.

http://www.st.nu/nyheter/lokalt.php?action=visa_artikel&id=602892

 

[Rogert]

poor fella hope he is ok

 

[naiad]

I am very sorry to hear that. Condolences to his friends and family.

Was he a DB member?

Lucia

 

[Spaniard]

poor fella hope he is ok

He died unfortunately.

 

[fcallagy]

condolences sorry to hear about the loss

 

[maytag]

I am very sorry to hear this loss. Condolences to all who knew the diver.

 

[trux]

My sincere condolences to all relatives and friends. Also my condolences to all Swedish freedivers, since they will now apparently have very difficult life in public pools thanks to this incident. I know it is not nice telling such things in this situation, but on my mind the guy really deserves the Darwin Award. Anyone who trains in this style should be immediately banned from any freediving association, club and from every swimming pool. I can't believe that it was a top-level freediver. I can't believe that an experienced freediver who well knows the risks, could be stupid enough to train statics weighted at the bottom of a pool alone! What a lack of respect!

 

[Erik]

My sincere condolences to all relatives and friends. Also my condolences to all Swedish freedivers, since they will now apparently have very difficult life in public pools thanks to this incident. I know it is not nice telling such things in this situation, but on my mind the guy really deserves the Darwin Award. Anyone who trains in this style should be immediately banned from any freediving association, club and from every swimming pool. I can't believe that it was a top-level freediver. I can't believe that an experienced freediver who well knows the risks, could be stupid enough to train statics weighted at the bottom of a pool alone! What a lack of respect!

+1.
Erik

 

[demasoni]

same as above...very sorry to hear about the loss and to the future hardship facing the Swedish Freediving community

 

[trux]

Did any of the Swedes here on the forum know they guy? If he really did 7:38 in static, then I guess he was certainly not a unknown person. Not sure how many Swedes do 7:30+ statics, but I guess you can count them on fingers of one hand. Possibly more of us knew him from competitions.

 

[jimdoe2you]

As often as I hear about it, ...........it never ceases to amaze me! We just had this conversation six weks ago.

[ame="http://forums.deeperblue.net/showthread.php?p=615739#post615739"]Freediving Death... - Page 2[/ame]

 

[naiad]

Someone here must have known him. I know of at least one DB member who is Swedish and 33 years old, I hope it is not him.

We have said so many times to never dive alone. Of course some people dive alone to practice dynamic technique, see the fish etc, but we can all agree that doing statics alone at the bottom of the pool is unacceptably dangerous. I am very surprised that an experienced freediver was regularly training like this.

Edit: the member I was worried about has PMed me to let me know he is OK.

 

[wes]

Yes, I say condolences to the staff of the pool and to his family and friends. To do statics this way in a pool with weights and to tell the staff you can do almost 8 min so not to worry about you seems like the most dangerous possible way to train and also quite disrespectful of the pool staff. How could the pool staff provide any meaningful safety for you in this case? It would be nice if someone could communicate to the pool staff that the way this person trained is very against the even informal code that the feediving community has.

I would like to add to what Naiad said about training dynamics "alone". I do train this way though feel it is much safer than doing statics like the freediver above. I do 2x25m on 90 sec intervals continuously for my session, maybe 30 min to 1 hour sometimes. I do this right infront of the lifeguards when the pool is not busy. Also my PB is over 4 x 25m so this is not practicing max attempts or even close. If I do max attempts I always do with a spotter. I also check in with the lifeguards that they feel comfortable watchiing me as I practice and that they make eye contact with me on each lap. This is not to say that what I do is absolutely safe. There is more I plan to do to train the staff in the rescue and revival techniques I have learned thru PFI courses. I have described to them what the techniques are but have not trained them in the water. The pool staff is very interested to learn these techniques so is something that I have only to arrange.

It seems like to develop a safety protocol for what pools could allow freedivers to do while in the pool would be very productive. It easy to say "never dive alone" though for the pool staff this isn't much help. Does this mean never swim underwater (even 1/2 a lap) or never hold ones breath underwater (even 10 or 20 secs to "relax"). Even if one has a buddy while doing statics if the buddy does not have a system to do taps and signals then they are just like the lifeguards waiting for someone at the bottom of the pool to come up and what if they don't? It seems like a safety protocol to cover these "grey areas" would help pools to allow freediving and to tell someone like the guy above, hey you can freedive sure but you can't do unsupervised weighted statics alone. This is against the AIDA (or whomever) safety code for freedive training. Anyway thanks for listening - Cheers Wes

 

[cdavis]

Hi Wes,

I do the same thing with dynamics, although it is very easy for me to get sloppy and not make sure the guard at the time is really watching. A well developed safety protocol would be a great help.

Start a thread on this idea?

Connor

 

[naiad]

It seems like to develop a safety protocol for what pools could allow freedivers to do while in the pool would be very productive. It easy to say "never dive alone" though for the pool staff this isn't much help. Does this mean never swim underwater (even 1/2 a lap) or never hold ones breath underwater (even 10 or 20 secs to "relax"). Even if one has a buddy while doing statics if the buddy does not have a system to do taps and signals then they are just like the lifeguards waiting for someone at the bottom of the pool to come up and what if they don't? It seems like a safety protocol to cover these "grey areas" would help pools to allow freediving and to tell someone like the guy above, hey you can freedive sure but you can't do unsupervised weighted statics alone. This is against the AIDA (or whomever) safety code for freedive training. Anyway thanks for listening - Cheers Wes

If I do any training alone, I assume that I am alone and the lifeguard may not be watching me, so I always do things like short dynamics, duck-dives and equalisation, never any kind of static training, long dynamics or other hard training. It just isn't worth the risks. I agree with Wes that we have to communicate to pool staff what is acceptable and what isn't. They have no knowledge about freediving, so they may go to either extreme, banning it altogether because it is 'dangerous', or allowing unacceptable risks because they don't know any better.

What I do about training alone...
http://forums.deeperblue.net/showthread.php?p=582064&#post582064

Lucia

 

[kirez]

Someone here in DB could create a protocol for swimming pools / centers, safety protocol, listing the conditions under which safe freedive training can be conducted.

It could be aimed to help both the freedivers, and the swimming pools, as well as making explicit and simple the rules. Obviously #1 is NOT ALONE or BUDDY SYSTEM

ah, I didn't read far enough down the thread...

 

[efattah]

A guy in Canada died in 2000 while doing statics on the bottom of the pool with weights... he told the lifeguard to watch over him, but the lifeguard was of course distracted by many other things.

Pool statics with weights, on the bottom, with no buddy surely must be the #1 most likely path to death in the sport.

 

[rbsub]

I know that you should never do it alone - but for the case:

If you do wet statics alone (flooting on the surface), which time is seems to be safe? 50 % of your PB? Less? More?

Same question with dynamics. 50%?

I know that it depends on your daily condition (and other things too) but I think by the time you get a feeling for the signals from your body.

Or is it safer to stop after a certain time after your first contraction or a defined quantity of contractions?

 

[jome]

Personally, I would say that 0% static in the water alone is safe. And not just the risks, but the way it looks to outsiders...I simply recommend against it.

Besides, there is no point. If you do, say, 50% statics in the water alone, you would get many fold better progress by doing harder statics dry...

At least with dynamics, people will be able to see that you are moving and thus at least for the moment ok. With statics, no one knows if you're dead or just having a really good day.

About the protocolos, yeah, at least in Finland we have quite and extensive one for all disciplines but it's all in finnish...But if there is enough interest, sure we could translate it...

 

[rbsub]

Personally, I would say that 0% static in the water alone is safe. And not just the risks, but the way it looks to outsiders...

What about the idea that you do it by holding yourself at the border of the pool and lift your finger every 5 seconds? You can inform the life guard or a friend about that.

I think there must be something like a rule to find out the time during which you are safe. All that under the knowledge that it is the best to do it with a partner!!