A scuba diving instructor, who went into medical distress while still under water in West Vancouver on Sunday, has died.
The instructor was giving a lesson and by the time students saw him surface in the waters off Whytecliff Park he was in full cardiac arrest.
Paramedics performed CPR on the 61-year-old for nearly half an hour.
"He came up really fast from about a hundred feet, so any diver will tell you , you are not supposed to come up fast , but slow,'' said Capt. William Leas of West Vancouver Fire Dept.
"We don't know if he had a medical problem prior to that when he was down,'' he said.
Student diver Dave Ward agreed that the instructor must have resurfaced too quickly.
"You have got to do compression, stop half way up, 15 feet for three minutes,'' said Ward. "He probably didn't do that. The air probably expanded in his lungs,'' he said.
The man was taken to Vancouver General Hospital, but could not be saved.
This incident marked the second time in a week that a scuba diver has needed medical help while diving in the waters off Whytecliff Park.
With a report by CTV British Columbia's Lisa Rossington.
