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POLICEMAN SAVED COLLEAGUE MOMENTS BEFORE HE DIED |
 A policeman who died after diving on a wreck had moments earlier dramatically saved the life of a colleague, an inquest heard recently. Detective Sergeant John Gilbert realised he and his friend Christopher Read were running out of air and in danger so cast off his friend's heavy lead dive belt to allow him to rapidly as-cend to the surface. However, in following him the 58-year-old suffered severe decompression sickness and was killed, the coroner heard. Both men were members of the Metropolitan Police Sub Aqua Club and were diving 30 metres beneath the surface of the sea when they started running out of oxygen. Christopher Read's weighty diving belt was released by his friend and they both started a rapid ascent. However, Det. Sgt. Gilbert, a respected child abuse investigator with the London force, made an ascent from the wreck several miles south of Worthing, West Sussex, which caused him to suffer decompression sickness. On the surface, fellow officers who were also club members, battled frantically to revive the experienced diver and despite being airlifted to Worthing General Hospital, he died the following day, West Sussex Deputy Coroner Martin Mil-ward heard. Giving evidence at the inquest in Worthing, Mr Read, who had been a friend of the father-of-two for 15 years, said the pair had joined two other divers and the skipper of the police club's Blyth catamaran Proteus at Littlehampton Ma-rina on August 8 this year in perfect weather conditions. After about 25 minutes, the pair were six me-tres below the surface when Mr Read, who had changed from his first tank to his second, found he could no longer breathe in oxygen. Increasingly panic-stricken, Mr Read conceded he could have placed the original regulator at-tached to the empty cylinder, forcing 6ft 3in tall Mr Gilbert to move in with his spare oxygen. During the emergency, the pair sank back to the wreck and at this point Mr Gilbert appar-ently took the decision to remove his friend's weight belt and allow him to rapidly ascend to the surface because both their oxygen supplies were perilously low. Despite risking decompression sickness or the bends, it was this decision that saved Mr Read's life, an expert witness told the coroner. Jim Watson, Safety and Development Manager at the British Sub Aqua Club, said: "There is no doubt in my mind that John's actions saved Chris' life. "He certainly provided something to breathe in a water environment which is very important and there can only be one ending if you stay under water without oxygen." Skipper Kevin Fletcher-Biles, a serving Metro-politan police officer, said Mr Gilbert was a "careful and prudent" diver, and told how he was a veteran of more than 350 dives when the acci-dent happened. Mr Fletcher-Biles made a Mayday call which was responded to by a lifeboat and then a coast-guard helicopter which airlifted both injured divers to hospital. Mr Read made a full recovery but Mr Gilbert, of Woodmere Avenue, Watford, Herts., died the next day of what pathologist later described as decompression sickness, meaning oxygen bub-bles which had expanded in his lungs had en-tered his brain, killing him. Recording a narrative verdict, Mr Milward said: "Whilst all care was taken on this occasion there is always a risk that a problem can occur despite all the training. "I believe the assistance John gave Chris not only at the surface but in making the emergency ascent by discarding his weight belt, those ac-tions by John have undoubtedly saved Chris' life. "Tragically John has not been so fortunate." Mr Milward described the death as an accident and singled out divers Stephen De Burgh-Thomas and Paul Beekan for praise for the way in which they administered CPR during the trag-edy. Paying tribute to the officer, Detective Super-intendent Reg Hooke of the Metropolitan Police's child abuse investigation team (CAIT) said: "John will be sadly missed by everyone who had the privilege of working alongside him - both within the MPS and outside it."
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