Divers Died Due to Saltwater Drowning
WEDNESDAY, 21 MARCH 2007
The autopsy of the three scuba divers who died while exploring off Key Largo was released by Monroe County Medical Examiner. Fifty-five year old Jonathan Walsweer of Westfield New Jersey, thirty-eight year old Kevin Coughlin and fifty-one year old Chatham Borough was said to have died due to saltwater drowning and ran out of air during a 135 foot dive inside the USS Spiegel Grove.
According to fifty-two year old Howard Spialter, the fourth diver who survived the incident, his three fellow divers must have survived if they had followed him. The body of two divers, whose body was recovered Saturday was said to have reached 90 feet from the nearest exit which is an off-limit area. The third diver, Coughlin who survived the incident but later died in Mariner's Hospital in Tavernier was believed to have either run out of gas or was embolized in a section of the wreck. A diver is said to embolized when gas bubbles enter the bloodstream, causing potentially serious blockages.
Survivor Howard Spialter admitted that they had not properly prepared for the dive. They lacked a dive plan, did not use a safety line to exit the wreck, did not take enough air tanks with them and did not properly distribute tanks along their path in the wreck. The warship was sunk off the Upper Keys in 2002 to create an artificial reef.
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