Diane is KITV4’s weekend evening anchor and weekday reporter. She hosts the Aging Well series on Tuesday evenings at 5, 6, and 10 p.m. She is a mother, a cat owner, and a yogi.
Questions about the safety of full-faced snorkeling masks are being brought up after a Washington couple drowned in Wailea last weekend. dsmb scuba
HONOLULU (Island News) - The family of the couple who died on Maui will be holding a celebration of life and funeral next Thursday and Friday.
Ilya Tsaruk and Sophia Kovalevich died last weekend while snorkeling wearing full-faced snorkel masks. This once again brings up the question: Are these kinds of masks safe?
Tony Hoff has worked at Aaron's Dive Shop in Kailua for a year, but has been diving for 50 years.
"Many in the industry believe they could be unsafe and we don't really have any solid proof of that," he said.
Hoff says for some years now, Aaron's Dive Shop has decided to not carry full faced masks - to either sell or to rent to customers.
"The reason they use for them being unsafe makes sense to us; that is, that the full-face masks and snorkel combination have a much larger volume than a standard snorkel," he continued.
He means the volume of carbon dioxide that can accumulate in the mask.
"You could be building up a volume of CO2 inside that mask that makes you unable to get enough oxygen. For that reason, we stopped selling full-face mask-snorkel combinations a long time ago," explained Hoff.
There are no conclusive studies, but Hoff says they heard enough stories that they'd rather be safe than sorry.
Island News also talked to Colin Yamamoto in Maui. He's a retired Maui County Ocean Safety Battalion chief and was a cofounder of the State Drowning and Aquatic Injury Prevention Advisory Committee; he sat on the committee looking at snorkeling safety. He still takes an active interest in what's happening with safety in our waters, including full-faced snorkeling masks.
He said he is not surprised by the recent drownings on Maui. "In my opinion, it's not just the high carbon dioxide that's causing issues. It's the low oxygen."
Yamamoto has run tests just because he's curious. He thinks it's the combination of high CO2 and low O2, which is due to the shape of the mask. "If you are older in poor physical health or you have pre-existing medical conditions, whether it's cardiac or respiratory, with these two combined things, that's when you can get into trouble. That's my theory. I have no way to prove it, but that's my theory and that's my opinion," he said.
The makers of those full-face masks would say they put a lot of time into testing and development that specifically prevents a CO2 build up and that you do get a full breath of fresh air upon every inhalation. For instance, earlier this year, Decathlon/Easybreath and OCEAN REEF issued a joint statement to address the numerous pieces of information surrounding the Easybreath full-face snorkeling mask.
“OCEAN REEF remains committed to producing high-quality, safe, and well-engineered products. These products come with comprehensive explanations and evidence-based guidance on how to engage with aquatic environments responsibly and cautiously, emphasizing the importance of respecting ecosystems that one needs to build experience for, before expecting to mostly control.”
Yamamoto believes regulations on snorkeling equipment would help create safety standards.
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The Department of Water (DOW) hosted its 19th Make a Splash with Project WET festival for fifth grade students on Friday, Sept. 20, 2024.
Diane is KITV4’s weekend evening anchor and weekday reporter. She hosts the Aging Well series on Tuesday evenings at 5, 6, and 10 p.m. She is a mother, a cat owner, and a yogi.
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