AGENT ASSISTS IN RESCUE OF DIVER WITH BENDS

By Sr. Agent Keith Francis

The morning of July 15, 2002, began as most previous dive trips had - heading offshore at sunrise from Venice to Main Pass Rig 299.  On board the 24-foot Hydrosport were Wildlife Enforcement Senior Agent Keith Francis, aviation mechanic Steve McCullough, his two sons, Jordan and Taylor and State Trooper Patrick Dunn of Troop L.

After a forty mile boat ride, they arrived at Main Pass 299, which is approximately one mile in length.  Steve and Patrick put on their diving gear while Francis prepared the fishing poles.  Once in the water, Francis handed the divers their spear guns and watched them descend. 

 Within twenty minutes of the dive, Francis noticed something out of the ordinary - a tremendous number of air bubbles rising to the surface.  Little did he know that a life and death situation was unfolding below. 

 As the divers approached a cross-support beam of the rig, Dunn saw a large amberjack, estimated at 40 lbs., and thought he could get a kill-shot. The fish got close but, unfortunately for Dunn, he did not get a kill-shot.  Once just feet away from the rig, the fish twisted him around and pulled him down.  Trooper Dunn pulled, the fish pulled back, he pulled again, so did the fish.  During the struggle, Dunn was using up valuable oxygen at a rapid pace. 

 In an attempt to avoid being dragged down further, Dunn released his weight belt to give him positive buoyancy.  McCullough noticed the trouble his friend was having with the fish, so he swam to him to assist.   Dunn made it back to the rig, but he had another problem.  The fish had wrapped the cable around the cross beam, pinning his leg in the process.  McCullough managed to untangle the cable, freeing Dunn, but when he looked at his oxygen gauge he had a more immediate problem - he was out of air. 

 He signaled to McCullough that he was out of air, which wasn’t a problem since he always carried a spare tank.  But McCullough was unaware that Dunn had dropped his weight belt and was ascending.  McCullough tried to hold onto him while at the same time give him the regulator for his spare bottle.  In the fight with the fish, Dunn’s spare tank had been purged and was useless.

 McCullough tried to maintain his grasp on Dunn to “buddy-breathe” on their way up.  But without a weight belt, Dunn was going up quickly and McCullough couldn’t stop the ascent unless he could grab hold of the rig.  He tried and did, but with the sudden stop, Dunn lost his grip on McCullough and was on his way to the surface, with nothing to prevent the inevitable – “the bends.”

 Meanwhile, Francis was rigging poles when he heard a strange sound coming from near the bow of the boat.  When he walked to the bow and looked over the side, he saw Dunn on the surface.  His face was blue with a foamy substance around his mouth and nose.  His right hand was slightly elevated out of the water, while he tried to utter the words, “Help me.”  Agent Francis grabbed Dunn’s hand and pulled him to the back of the boat.  McCullough had come to the surface, got on board, removed his gear and assisted Francis in getting Dunn on board.  Once on board, they quickly administered pure oxygen to him in an attempt to save his life.  Dunn was in serious need of immediate medical treatment.

 Unable to reach the U.S. Coast Guard by VHF radio, Francis used his cell phone to contact his supervisor, Lt. Pete Bordes, who called the Coast Guard by telephone.  A helicopter was dispatched to assist.  Francis was administering oxygen to Dunn, when the Cal Diver II, a commercial dive vessel, called and informed Francis that they had a decompression chamber on board. They were located in the same offshore block only a half mile away.  Francis rushed Dunn to the dive vessel, where he was immediately placed in the decompression chamber. It took six and one half hours for him to decompress. The decompression medical technicians onboard doubted that Dunn would have survived a flight to the hospital, due to the degree of his injury. 

 Thanks to everyone involved, and especially the professionalism of the crew of the Cal Diver II, Trooper Dunn has lived to tell his story.