SAN DIEGO, California (15 July 2008) — Authorities released the name today of a 60-year-old Mendocino County man who died in a hospital after being stricken by an unknown medical emergency while scuba diving near San Clemente Island. David McCorkle of Willits was spear-fishing off a charter boat about two miles from the Navy-owned isle, 75 miles northwest of San Diego, when he indicated that he was low on oxygen around noon Monday, according to the county Medical Examiner's Office. McCorkle surfaced, then lost consciousness upon getting back onto the boat, a coroner's investigator said. The operators of the diving service contacted the Coast Guard, which sent a helicopter to pick up McCorkle. The copter crew hoisted him and another passenger, a nurse, aboard and flew them to the Coast Guard's San Diego Harbor station. From there, medics took McCorkle to UCSD Medical Center in Hillcrest, where he was pronounced dead shortly before 2:30 p.m., officials said. An autopsy was inconclusive, and a cause-of-death ruling is on hold pending further tests, the Medical Examiner's Office reported. | | U.S. Air Force reserve sergeant Douglas M. Lowery, 41, drowned while diving in the U.S. Virgin Islands last month. |
