You win some, you lose some!

Good Morning Everybody!!

Sean is now fully recovered and already wanting to get back in the water for a dive again!! Sorry for the delay in updating you on what's been going on but the team has been immensely busy over the past few days, so here goes...

 

The first report made by the divers back to land support during the cold water challenge was that the bottom sea temperature was fluctuating between 14/15 degrees. Baring in mind that Guinness stipulate that in order for the record to be accepted the temperature must be 14.9 degrees or lower, the team agreed that even though GWR  might not have accepted our dive as a world record, we would still carry on with the event regardless. The World Record Diving Malta team came together with the scope of promoting Malta as an ideal destination for divers, promoting the sport of scuba diving as well as raising environmental awareness and finally bringing the diving community together for team building and fun activities; and so the team all agreed to carry on with the dive and do just that.

However, as you all know, only a few hours after Sean got in the water for the cold water challenge, he became aware that water was slowly seeping into his drysuit. The amount of water seeping in increased drastically and he was sitting in water from the waist down. Baring in mind that Sean was extremely warm wearing a heated vest as well as the excellent Whites Fusion under-suit, the sudden rush of cold water into the suit caused his body temperature to fluctuate too quickly resulting in Hypothermic shock.

Therefore, Sean and the safety divers with him at the time agreed that the dive should be aborted. Sean was dragged out of the water in shivering fits by the St. John Rescue Corps who performed exceptionally with getting Sean out of the water safe. Sean was treated with first aid and oxygen, warmed up and sent to the hospital by ambulance, where he was treated for hypothermia and kept under surveillance for several hours through to morning.

World Record Diving Malta would like to say a huge thanks to the St. John Rescue Corps for their help and support throughout the event. We were extremely overwhelmed by their performance and orginisational skills while helping the divers in and out of the water and doing such a great job with getting Sean safely out of the water. We would like to continue encouraging donations to them which can be done by visiting www.stjohnrescuecorps.org.
 

 

Since then, the team has taken a look at the drysuit used by Sean during the event in order to try and decipher where the leak was coming from. We have found that the problem was not with the dry suit itself or with any of the kit sponsored by our supporting organisations but with a leaking electric switch which was connected to the heating system worn by Sean for the event. This was a technical problem which unfortunately could not be foreseen and no one is to blame for.

 

Admittedly Sean was disappointed by what happened however he still has a smile on his face and the first thing he said the next morning morning was "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and he believes that this event contributed towards his training for upcoming events and he is already talking about plans for his next record attempt.

 

The team not at all downhearted by what happened during the cold water challenge, are all the way behind Sean and spent the day in the water yesterday at Starfish Diving School, Marina Hotel at the Corinthia Beach Resort cleaning up the seabed from any debris found as was planned to do during the record dive. The team retrieved a variety of debris such as empty plastic bottles, glass bottles, parts of sunbeds, parts of fireworks, metal poles, etc. We would like to say a special thanks to Green Skips Malta for providing us with skips for the clean-up.  

 

World Record Diving Malta would once again like to thank our sponsors for their constant support the whole year through: Starfish Diving School, Corithia St.George Hotel, The Marina Hotel -Corinthia Beach Resort, M&A Diving Supplies Ltd, Apeks, Aqualung and Whites Drysuits.  For more information on upcoming events please continue to visit our blog.