She had ordered the mask on Amazon and tried it out in the local pool near her California home in preparation for the September trip to visit longtime friends on the Big Island.
But less than an hour after entering the relatively calm bay, Peacock was dead.Five months later her husband, Guy Cooper, is still searching for answers.
Did she drown because of the mask’s unique design, which covers the entire face so you can breathe out of your mouth and nose as opposed to the traditional snorkel tube in your mouth? Or was it a freak accident, even for a healthy 70-year-old who was at least somewhat familiar with Hawaii’s waters?
Cooper’s quest has brought to light significant gaps in data collection by government agencies, inadequate policies with the chain of custody for evidence and confounding decisions by the county medical examiner.
“My God, these masks could be killing others and no one has a clue,” Cooper said. “Isn’t that something you would want to know, that the public needs to know?” (...)
Robert Wintner, who owns Snorkel Bob’s snorkel-rental stores on four of the Main Hawaiian Islands, said his employees tested the full-face masks.
“They have been so aggressive in their marketing. ‘You’ve got to give it a try, you’ve got to give it a try, you’ve got to give it a try,'” he said. “We tested it and said, ‘No way. We won’t carry it.’”
Wintner noted its potential for carbon dioxide buildup due to the full-face design and likelihood of leaking because of using a cheap substitute for silicon to create a secure seal when worn.
“You have to base your assessments on experience, intuition and instinct,” he said. “When I saw that thing, it didn’t look right.”
Wintner said he could see how the mask could create a situation that cause its user to panic, which ocean-safety experts often identify — along with age and underlying health conditions — as a primary reason why so many visitors die while snorkeling in Hawaii. (...)
Preserving the equipment that a person was using in a drowning is just the first step to Cooper.
He ultimately wants to see a database that logs information about the equipment in each incident so authorities can identify dangerous trends, much the same way that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration collects data to determine if a particular type of airbag is faulty in fatal car crashes.
Hawaii is not alone. Cooper has spent hours researching this issue but has been unable to find any government agency in the U.S. or abroad that has created a database that includes details about the equipment worn in a drowning or near-drowning incident.
“As I looked into it further, I was stunned to find that apparently no one in the world makes the connection,” he said. “No one is paying attention. In my wife’s case, neither the first responders nor the police nor the coroner had any concern for the equipment. My wife’s mask was just tossed in the trash. I also found no evidence of any independent testing or certification of these things.”
The Hawaii Department of Health’s Injury Prevention and Control Section compiles records about the number of ocean drownings, the location of the incident, the victim’s residence and what they were doing.
But there are few details beyond a label of “snorkeling,” for instance. Nothing about what brand of mask was worn, what type of snorkel or fins.
Cooper maintains that recording the make and manufacturer is critical. He said the Azorro brand of mask his wife wore seems to be a Chinese knock-off of the original French design.
The Azorro mask goes for $49.99 on Amazon, compared to up to $199 for the version by Tribord, which says on its website that it created the first full-face snorkeling mask “allowing you to breathe just as easily and naturally underwater as you would on land.”
Attempts to find contact information for Azorro were not successful.
by Nathan Eagle, Honolulu Civil Beat | Read more:
Image: Nathan Eagle
[ed. See also: Stand Up Or Die: Snorkeling In Hawaii Is A Leading Cause Of Tourist Deaths]
