Oxygen toxicity, panic may have led to deaths of 5 tourists on scuba dive in Maldives: experts

Oxygen toxicity and sheer panic are among the potential factors that could have led to the deaths of five Italian tourists who vanished on a daring scuba dive in the Maldives, experts say.

Pulmonologist Claudio Micheletto told the Italian outlet Adnkronos Thursday that “it’s likely that something went wrong with the tanks,” as all five divers died on the same 160-foot excursion in the waters of Vaavu Atoll, which sparked a police investigation.

“Death from oxygen toxicity, or hyperoxia, is one of the most dramatic deaths that can occur during a dive – a horrible end,” Micheletto, the director of pulmonology at the University Hospital of Verona, added.

Scuba divers generally breathe compressed air – which is composed of 21 percent oxygen and 79 percent nitrogen – from a tank, but sometimes may turn to nitrox, which features a higher concentration of oxygen. This can help when it comes to extending the amount of time underwater.

Micheletto warned that inhaling higher concentrations of oxygen can be fatal.

“When you breathe in too high a concentration of oxygen, the gas becomes toxic to the body,” he said.

“During the dive, dizziness, pain, altered consciousness and disorientation occur, making it impossible to surface.”

It’s not just oxygen toxicity that may have contributed to the divers’ death. Panic may also have played a part, according to Alfonso Bolognini, the president of the Italian Society of Underwater and Hyperbaric Medicine.

“Inside a cave at a depth of 50 meters, all it takes is a problem for a diver or a panic attack for a diver,” he said.  

“The agitation will cause the water to become cloudy and can impair visibility,” adding it can lead to “fatal errors.” 

But he stressed, “It’s not easy to say now what exactly may have happened at the bottom of the sea.”

The authorities are still probing what caused the tragedy, which Maldivian authorities described as the worst single diving incident, according to the ANSA news agency.

Monica Montefalcone, a marine biology professor at the University of Genoa, and her 20-year-old daughter, Giorgia Sommacal, were among those killed.

Three other adventure seekers on the trip — Muriel Oddenino of Turin, Gianluca Benedetti of Padua, and Federico Gualtieri of Borgomanero — also failed to resurface from the dive.

Benedetti was a diving instructor and boat captain, while Gualtieri, 31, produced his thesis on the Maldivian atolls, Italian outlet Il Sole 24 Ore reported.

Benedetti was described as an “energetic and extremely sporty person” as well as someone who loved reading, classic movies, and chess. 

Oddenino had produced works on marine conservation. 

The divers had boarded the Duke of York yacht on Thursday morning before taking the plunge at one of the country’s most popular diving spots, local media outlet The Edition reported.

They jumped off the boat on Thursday morning and were reported missing when they failed to resurface around noon.

Maldivian authorities dispatched their Coast Guard ship “Ghaazee” as part of the mission, and one body – thought to be Montefalcone’s – was recovered from an underwater cave around six hours later.

Investigators suspect the other four divers are in the same location.

The maximum depth for recreational diving in the Maldives is around 100 feet.