Rescued diver makes full recovery

SPEAR fisherman Kelvin Grung, who suffered a shallow-water blackout while diving near Sodwana Bay on the Easter weekend, has made a full recovery and was released from hospital last week.

Manie Lombaard, Skipper of the boat Maginty, provided the Zululand Observer with detailed information of the incident.

Grung and friends Rhyn and Jonathan Harding were diving with two others on Nine Mile Reef north of Sodwana Bay.

The five friends split into two groups to implement the ‘one-up, one-down’ system. After realising that Grug, the last diver down, hadn’t returned after his last dive, the three-man group started searching. The boat was called in to search the surface.

‘Rhyn Harding eventually found Kelvin’s limp body floating face down without his speargun about one metre below the surface’, said Lombaard.

The brothers immediately started administering mouth-to-mouth and started pumping water from his lungs. Grung was loaded onto the boat where CPR and further mouth-to-mouth were administered.

‘At that stage there was no heartbeat and Kelvin had been underwater for possibly 5-10 minutes already’, recalled Lombaard.

The other two spear fishermen, about 300 metres away, were collected and a helicopter was arranged from the boat.

CPR and mouth-to-mouth continued with another of the divers, Richard Colyn, assisting.

‘It was a very emotional and tiring situation as Kelvin and the two brothers were friends for many years. At one stage the divers felt that it was a waste of time to continue with their resuscitation efforts, yet everybody persisted,’ said Lombaard.

With assistance from Herman Combrinck of Sodwana Bay, a helicopter landing pad was arranged on the beach, as well as a van to transport Grung to the helicopter.

About five minutes before arriving at the launch site, Grung started coughing and breathing on his own and his heart resumed beating, but he was still unconscious.

‘Kelvin started to regain consciousness and was semi-awake when the boat beached, but still totally disorientated,’ said Lombaard.

Oxygen was made available from Coral Divers and a doctor on the beach attended to Grung until he was airlifted to Ngwelezana Hospital where he was kept under observation before being discharged.