Rescuers reached a diver who perished in Folly Cove on Sunday morning more slowly than they would have had the Bay View fire station been open at the time, but that delay was likely not a factor in the 40-year-old man's death, according to fire officials.
The diver, identified yesterday as Patrick Collins of Belmont, died after he stopped swimming as a group in dry suits dived in 10 feet of water around 100 feet from the Folly Cove shoreline and was dragged to the beach.
Gloucester dispatchers received a call from members of the diving group at 10:04 a.m. reporting a diver had stopped breathing. A police cruiser was the first to arrive at the scene, followed by a Fire Department ambulance and fire engine from Central Station on School Street at 10:16 a.m., according to department logs.
Patrolman Scott Burke, the first to arrive on the scene, said members of the diving group had tried to revive Collins using cardiopulmonary resuscitation, according to the police report, and he used a portable defibrillator to try to revive the Belmont man.
The 12 minutes it took rescuers to reach Folly Cove from Central Station on Sunday was around double the time it would typically take to reach the same location from the Bay View station, Gloucester Fire Chief Barry McKay said.
But McKay said instructors with the diving group who had tried to revive Collins had enough emergency medical training and began work on the stricken diver so soon after he stopped breathing, it was unlikely a faster fire response would have saved Collins.
"There were four instructors from the group that went to work immediately," McKay said. "You had well-trained people similar to what a first-responder, like a firefighter, would have. Yes, that station was closed and there was an increased response time, but I don't know that it would have made a difference here."
The Essex County District Attorney's office is calling Collins' death accidental and has not released a cause of death.
Bay View Station is open contingent on having enough firefighters on duty to staff it as well as the West Gloucester and Central stations during a given shift. Magnolia station was closed indefinitely due to budget cuts July 1.
According to the latest annual report on station closings issued in July, Bay View Station is open more than 85 percent of the time during the year. But with more vacations typically scheduled in summer months, those closures are likely heavier this time of year.
Collins had been a certified dry suit diver since 1999, according to the police report.
The group of around a dozen divers was swimming in a procession using snorkels, according to the report, when the dive leader and Collins' dive partner noticed Collins was lagging behind the group.
When the leader and dive partner went back to check on Collins, they found him underwater and unresponsive with neither his snorkel nor regulator in his mouth. Collins was immediately dragged to shore, where resuscitation attempts began.
Patrick Anderson can be reached at panderson@gloucestertimes.com.
