Diver Missing - Lyme Regis

Our Local MRCC was busy yesterday with this incident:-

At just after 5.30pm this afternoon Portland Coastguard received a call from dive boat Blue Turtle, which was three nautical miles off Lyme Regis. They reported that a diver had failed to surface after a 20 metre dive. His buddy had made a rapid ascent and was recovered to the dive support vessel before being put on oxygen.

The cause of the incident is unclear at this time, however it is known that one diver made a rapid ascent and the other was last sighted below the surface of the sea.

The Coastguard Rescue helicopter from Portland was immediately sent to the scene to take the buddy of the missing diver back to the Poole hypobaric chamber for medical treatment. Sidmouth Independent Lifeboat, Lyme Regis and Weymouth RNLI Lifeboats and the Coastguard Rescue helicopter from Lee-on-Solent were sent to search for the missing diver whilst Poole Coastguard Rescue Team went to secure the helicopter landing site. The Lyme Regis Harbour Launch, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) Gold Rover and vessels Scrumpy and Bardsey Island also joined the search. Once the Lee-on-Solent Rescue Helicopter had completed their search, they were relieved by the Portland Coastguard Rescue Helicopter to continue the tasking.

Despite an extensive and lengthy search by multiple rescue units the missing diver has not been located and the search was suspended due to the onset of darkness at approximately 9.00pm.

Andrew Jenkins, Coastguard Watch Manager said:

"Although prompt search and rescue action has resulted in one diver receiving timely medical treatment at the specialist Hyperbaric Unit in Poole and is likely to make a full recovery, despite an extensive surface search of the area, the missing diver has not been located.

At this stage, It would be wrong to speculate about the cause of this particular incident, but this is the second serious diving accident to have occurred off the Dorset coast already this season and I would like to take this opportunity to remind all divers to make sure they are well prepared, fully trained for the level of dive they are about to undertake and their equipment is properly maintained."

Easter weekend is normally the 'start' of the diving season for most and I'm sure Swanage Pier will be busy this weekend. Hopefully everyone will be sticking to their training and doing some shallow warm up dives to refamiliarise themselves with their kit before plunging to greater depths. I know we hear a lot about of diving incidents although to be fair more people are diving, more often and as such we have more incidents. Often the smallest things that go wrong can cause bigger problems. Divers refer to it as the 'Incident Pit'. I'll explain more tomorrow.