KEY WEST, Florida (19 Mar 2008) — Expert divers Raul Peña-Lopez and Rusty Mason were working together on a sea bottom survey for a coral reef restoration project in the Dry Tortugas Ecological Reserve. But while routinely returning to the surface, something went deadly wrong. Mason, a 54-year-old marine mechanic with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, lost consciousness. Peña-Lopez, an officer with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, desperately tried to give Mason air until his own air supply became dangerously low. Peña-Lopez had to let go of his friend. He watched as Mason sank 100 feet, to the ocean floor. Peña-Lopez surfaced the final 15 feet for help. Two divers immediately retrieved Mason from the sea bottom, giving him CPR the entire 15-mile boat trip to Fort Jefferson and a 75-mile rescue helicopter flight. Mason was pronounced dead Monday afternoon at the Lower Keys Medical Center near Key West. ''We don't know what happened out there; everybody is scratching their heads,'' said Anne McCarthy, a consultant working on the restoration project for Continental Shelf Associates Inc. An autopsy will be performed Wednesday. It's the second diving death in the Keys in the past week. On March 13, 18-year-old Joshua Choi died in a recreational free diving accident near Bahia Honda State Park. THE TASK Mason was one of seven people working Monday aboard the Key West-based Peter Gladding, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration patrol vessel. They were at the site of coral reef damaged last October by the anchoring of a boat called the Green Chile in the middle of the protected sanctuary about 15 miles southwest of the Dry Tortugas. The group was surveying the sediment to see what kind of mooring buoys to install. The buoys will be used temporarily for a commercial boat to anchor to while doing the reef restoration. Mason's tank was recovered empty, according to the Monroe County Sheriff's Office, which is investigating. Mason also was still wearing a weight belt. Usually it's the dive buddy's job to remove weight belts in emergencies. ''I know Raul tried his best to get Rusty to the surface,'' McCarthy said. Peña-Lopez told investigators his account: The pair had completed their dive at the sea bottom and signaled to each other that it was time to ascend the approximately 100 feet, utilizing an ascent line. They had reserve air tanks staged at about 15 feet from the surface, a distance where divers often make a safety stop for three to five minutes. | | But when they got to the reserve tanks, Peña-Lopez said he looked at Mason: ``I could see Rusty was not breathing.'' Peña-Lopez said he tried repeatedly to put a regulator, which provides air, into Mason's mouth: ``But Rusty wouldn't respond.'' When he realized he couldn't help Mason, he swam to the surface to alert the safety diver, Bruce Reyngoudt, Mason's supervisor. McCarthy said Mason's diving skills were so admired that he often was the one chosen to escort VIPs from Washington on sanctuary dive trips ''to make sure they stay safe.'' Most recently he escorted James Connaughton, chairman of the Council for Environmental Quality. LIVED HIS DREAM At an informal memorial service held Tuesday in Key West by many of his co-workers, friends and family, several stories were told about the fun-loving man who gave doughnuts at staff meetings and bear hugs to everyone. Friend Marylou Webster laughed as she told the often repeated story about Rusty as a young boy growing up in Indiana. He was always pretending to be a diver on his favorite show, Sea Hunt. ''He'd strap a pillow around his back with a belt and do back flops off the couch, like he was going off a dive boat,'' she said. Mason graduated from the Florida Institute of Technology in 1976 with a BA in Oceanographic Technology. He moved to the Keys in 1990 to work at the Looe Key Reef Resort as a vessel operator and dive instructor. In 2002, he went to work for the Florida DEP's Office of Coastal and Aquatic Managed Areas. SCUBA FORUMDISCUSS THIS TOPIC - Dive in and have your say at Scuba Forum |
