2nd diver dies from same boat off Montauk

A scuba diver died Thursday soon after surfacing from a shipwreck about 70 miles southeast of Montauk, authorities said, the second death off the same boat in five days.

East Hampton police Chief Eddie Ecker said diver Timothy Barrow, 64, of Reading, Pa., apparently went into cardiac arrest after being pulled out of the water by the crew of the John Jack dive boat, and died despite attempts by the crew to resuscitate him.

"All we heard over the radio is, 'We've been attempting CPR for 10 minutes and we're going to keep trying.' " said U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Ryan Clendenen, who took the mayday call from the John Jack about noon.

Earlier this week, East Hampton police said they could not explain how a young California man became separated from a dive rope Sunday and died in the deep waters near the wreck of the Italian ocean liner Andrea Doria off Massachusetts. Michael A. LaPrade, 27, of Gardena, Calif., also was diving off the John Jack, which is based temporarily in Montauk.

Barrow and another diver were exploring the wreck of the Norness, a tanker sunk by a German U-boat in 1942. They entered the water about 11 a.m., Ecker said, and surfaced about 15 minutes later.

"Everything seems fine, the other diver comes up and does his normal decompression," Ecker said. "Then Barrow comes up to the surface, and puts his hand up like he's in distress."

Barrow, whom Ecker said was an experienced diver, was unconscious when the crew pulled him into the boat. Ecker said Barrow's body will undergo an autopsy by the Suffolk County medical examiner, and that his equipment also will be inspected.

"It's a very dangerous sport," Ecker said. "There's not much room for error."

The British-born diver was married and was the owner of the Oley Valley Animal Clinic in Oley, Pa. He was one of five veterinarians in the practice and was on vacation this week. Leigh Frazier, another vet in the clinic, said Barrow was an avid diver and often spent vacations scuba diving.

"He was very well-trained," said Frazier, who worked with Barrow for 10 years. "He was very passionate about it. I'm sure he did everything correctly and very conscientiously."

As a veterinarian, Frazier said, Barrow was "very compassionate. . . . All he ever cared for was the animals. He was a wonderful doctor."

The John Jack took several hours to return to Montauk.

Jeff Hall, spokesman for the Coast Guard's First District in Boston, said a Coast Guard flight surgeon decided against aerial evacuation because it would have required stopping the CPR during the transfer.

Plans to have a Coast Guard vessel from Montauk pick up Barrow also were scrapped.

"The crew of the John Jack was doing CPR and they called us back and reported that he was unresponsive and decided to just come back to Montauk," said Petty Officer Erik Swanson, a Coast Guard spokesman in Manhattan.

The wreck of the Norness is at depths ranging from 210 to 280 feet, said diver Bradley Sheard, 53, of Maryland, who was among the first to dive to the wreck in 1993. He said the wreck is far less popular than that of the Andrea Doria, which lies in 240 feet of water, partly because of how deep it is. At one time, the Andrea Doria was within 170 feet of the surface.

"It's deep and difficult to get to," Sheard said of the Norness. "It's not that popular. I rarely hear about divers going there. It's actually a spectacular dive. It's dark, but very clear."

The Norness was a 9,557-ton, Panamanian tanker with a Scandinavian crew of 40. It was the first ship of World War II sunk off American waters. All but two of the crew were rescued after the ship was struck by three torpedoes.

LaPrade was the 16th diver to perish at the Andrea Doria site, which is about 40 miles south of Nantucket Island. His death came just one day before the 55th anniversary of the collision of the New York-bound passenger ship and the Swedish liner Stockholm on July 25, 1956. Forty-six of the 1,660 on board the Andrea Doria died, and it sank the next day.

With Bill Bleyer, Gary Dymski and John Valenti