Diver dies after rapid rise from Tutukaka wreck

A man has died after a Northland shipwreck dive.

The Timaru man died yesterday after diving near the sunken naval boat Tui in about 32m of water off the Tutukaka coast.

The 40-year-old was part of a group diving from the charter vessel Hendrik J, operated by Dive! Tutukaka, New Zealand's largest dive charter operator.

He was reported to have ascended quickly to the surface as other divers tried to slow him.

Dive! Tutukaka spokesman, and president of the New Zealand Underwater Association, Jeroen Jongejans, said diving conditions had been ideal with good visibility and little swell.

Thirty-two metres was also considered a safe depth for a recreational dive.

Mr Jongejans said it was the first diving death out of Tutukaka in two years and the third in the last four years.

"For some reason he became uncomfortable and tried to do a rapid ascent. Our staff tried to slow him down, but when he hit the surface he was unconscious."

Mr Jongejans said yesterday's death was the first problem associated with a dive at the Tui after hundreds of dives to the vessel since it was sunk in 1999. International research showed an accident such as yesterday's happened about once every 12,000 dives.

"In the past four years close to 50,000 dives have taken place (from out of Tutukaka) and we have had three fatalities in that time," he said.

The area the man was diving in was a "very safe" environment, but the man had apparently become uncomfortable. He appeared to still have had air in his diving tanks when he surfaced, Mr Jongejans said.

Charter boat operators and ambulance staff tried for 35 minutes to save the man using cardio-pulmonary resuscitation and oxygen.

Mr Jongejans said the man was not an inexperienced diver.

An investigator from the Occupational Safety and Health service is investigating the death as it occurred on a commercial dive.

- NORTHERN ADVOCATE (WHANGAREI)