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BARNEGAT LIGHT —The Coast Guard was called out Saturday to rescue a
Highland Park woman who was diving near the Jersey Shore and briefly
lost consciousness while trying to return to her boat.
Some time before 1 p.m., Francine Sinofsky was coming back from her
second dive about 30 miles off the coast around Brielle, when air
started to get caught in the feet of her dry suit, she said. She
reached the front of the boat but could not reach the rear, where the
ladder was located, because her feet had become like balloons’’ and
caused her fins to pop off.
I was stuck on front of the boat,’’ she said. And with the strong
current and since I was tired from the dive, I really didn’t have the
energy to get all the way back with out
anything to hold on to.’’
Sinofsky, 52, said she took the regulator out of her mouth to call for
help and must have taken a big gulp of salt water,’’ causing her to
lose consciousness. Her friends helped her back onto the boat … the
Gypsy Blood’’ … but had already called for help by the time they
realized she was fine.
I didn’t look too good from what they tell me, so they called the Coast Guard
helicopter,’’ she said.
Sinofsky said she was fine by the time the helicopter arrived, around
12:55 p.m., but the officers insisted on airlifting her as a
precaution.
Over the course about a half hour, she was taken to the Coast Guard
Air Station in Atlantic City and then airlifted to the Hospital of the
University of Pennsylvania, where she was treated in a hyperbaric
chamber, she said.
Sinofsky, who is a local physician and a frequent diver, was released
from the hospital on Sunday morning. Though it was ultimately an
innocuous incident, she said she hopes it never happens again.
This kind of experience is more than I need for a lifetime,’’ she said.
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