Bride-to-be died from shortage of oxygen after dive
A BRIDE-TO-BE died from a lack of oxygen to the brain while scuba-diving on a holiday island just days before her wedding.
A BRIDE-TO-BE died from a lack of oxygen to the brain while scuba-diving on a holiday island just days before her wedding.
A Doncaster inquest concluded that Jayne Elizabeth Bloom surfaced too quickly from a dive on the idyllic South Pacific island of Chuuk Atoll, where she was to spend her honeymoon after marrying fiance Jeffrey Keep, 46.
Miss Bloom, an IT consultant, became seriously ill after a 43-minute dive exploring shipwrecks.
On surfacing from depths of around 42 metres she said she "could not see anything" and collapsed in the boat.
She was given oxygen by fellow diver Dr Pavel Valek, who was due to be the couple's best man, and taken back to shore to a decompression chamber. However, she had to go to hospital when nobody could be found to man the chamber.
The inquest heard that medical facilities on the island, part of the Federated States of Micronesia, fell short of what might be expected but better treatment would probably not have saved her.
Other members of the expedition, who came up from exploring shipwrecks in the diving mecca at the same time, suffered no ill-effects, the hearing at Doncaster Coroner's Court was told.
Two separate investigations found no defects on the diving equipment she used.
Miss Bloom and her fiance, from Reddish, Stockport, were part of an international expedition exploring sunken ships from the Second World War on June 29, 2008.
Mr Keep told the inquest Miss Bloom showed no signs of stress, before they went up together, stopping at recommended depths to ensure decompression.
He said: "There was nothing unusual. You can tell if there was something wrong by a diver's eyes but she was completely normal throughout.
"Jayne surfaced first, when I got on the boat I went over to Jayne and had some banter with her. After a short time she said she had a problem and I asked what was wrong.
"First of all she said she couldn't see anything. I said 'don't be daft'. She said 'really' so I got her to sit down."
Mr Keep said Miss Bloom was an experienced and meticulous diver who was comfortable in depths of up to 60 metres.
He added when they arrived at the hospital, the facilities were "sparse", dirty and doctors did not seem to be qualified to deal with such a serious incident.
Miss Bloom, whose mother lives in Edenthorpe, was treated at the hospital and spent eight hours in a decompression chamber. She then returned to hospital and died a short time later on June 30.
A post-mortem examination showed she had died from lack of oxygen to the brain.
Analysis of the wrist computer Miss Bloom was wearing on the dive showed she had ascended slowly but on 11 separate occasions she had gone above the recommended depth where she should have stopped for a time, the hearing was told.
Recording a verdict of accidental death, deputy coroner Fred Curtis said: "Although that was relatively short on each occasion the fact remains there were 11 times when the stop depth marker was broken, which is a precursor to decompression illness."
Mr Curtis also warned scuba divers to consider what medical cover was available when diving in remote locations.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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