Leduc

TIVERTON — An off-duty firefighter who died during an attempted scuba diving rescue in Stafford Pond in 2008 had a blood-alcohol level of .25 percent, more than three times the state’s legal threshold for intoxication.

Gerald Leduc, 52, who also had an underlying cardiac condition, ignored two firefighters who urged him not to dive. He jumped into the water without using fins that were essential to his underwater mobility, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

In an exhaustive report just released, NIOSH recommended that all fire departments adopt and enforce the zero-tolerance policy for alcohol and drinking of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.

That policy prohibits anyone who has consumed alcohol within eight hours from carrying out any duties as a public safety officer. Also excluded from duty is anyone who is still noticeably impaired from alcohol drunk prior to that eight-hour period.

The NIOSH investigation was requested by Fire Chief Robert Lloyd about six weeks after Leduc’s death in August 2008.

On the day of the incident, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2008, Lloyd did not see Leduc and wasn’t able to evaluate his condition before he went into the water.

Tiverton had called for divers from three neighboring communities, including Little Compton and Fall River, to help search for a boater who had fallen overboard in Stafford Pond as a fast-moving thunderstorm swept in unexpectedly. Until then, it had been an idyllic Sunday afternoon.

Leduc had been at home — he lived on Stafford Pond — and heard the radio call. He jumped onto his Jet Ski with his diving equipment — later found to be unsafe — and headed for the dive site.

Leduc did not respond to Lloyd’s radio transmission asking him to check in with the chief at the command post at a boat ramp before beginning his dive, according to NIOSH.

Instead, Leduc pulled up alongside a lieutenant and a firefighter who were in a Fire Department rescue boat that stood by at the dive location.

According to the NIOSH report, the lieutenant advised Leduc to wait for a dive team that was motoring across the pond to the site.

“Talk with them to see what your plan is going to be,” the lieutenant told Leduc, according to NIOSH investigators.

After Leduc said he wouldn’t wait, the lieutenant insisted he do so, saying that it had been almost an hour since the rescue call had been received. The firefighter also urged Leduc to wait for the other divers, according to the report.

But Leduc stepped off his jet ski into the water. He was wearing his scuba equipment, but no fins.

The lieutenant and the firefighter on the boat greeted an approaching boat of divers and notified them that Leduc was in the water. While the Tiverton boat headed to shore to pick up other divers, the second boat moved slowly toward a makeshift buoy which marked the dive site. The divers on that boat quickly realized that Leduc was lying face-down in the water and was unconscious. Efforts to revive him failed.

An independent lab found several deficiencies in the diving equipment that made it unsafe, but NIOSH investigators could not say whether the equipment failure caused Leduc’s death.

A medical examiner concluded that he died of “probable cardiac arrhythmia in a person with hypertensive cardiovascular disease in the setting of acute ethanol intoxication.”

The investigators said that Leduc’s recreational scuba diving certificate, dating from 1982, did not qualify him for public safety rescue diving, which requires a much higher level of skill and should be certified annually “to ensure continued competency.”

The Tiverton Fire Department does not have funding available for its own dive team.

NIOSH made 11 recommendations applicable to any fire department, including the establishment of clear rules for accountability.

“Departments should have clear SOPs [standard operating procedures] for personnel accountability and members should understand how the check-in process is an important component of accountability,” the report said.

The command structure should include specially trained public safety officers in “technical” rescue fields such as scuba diving, the report said.

Lloyd, the fire chief, did not respond to a reporter’s call Wednesday. Town Administrator James Goncalo declined immediate comment.

gmacris@projo.com