A member of the ‘Supercat’ catamaran staff died last night (Tuesday, 26th June 2012) and another member of staff is in a critical condition after a fault hit the catamarans septic tank at the Puerto Rico harbour in the south of Gran Canaria. According to reports, the woman, a currently unidentified 50 year old had gone down to the ‘bildge’ area of the catamaran to try and identify a fault in the catamarans septic tank, after opening the tank she suffered from toxic fume inhalation and then fell into the tank.

The report quotes that one of the members of staff initially went down to investigate the fault, but fainted when opening the tank, he later maanged to leave the area after inhaling toxic gasses. Later, the deceased woman, apparently the owner/captian of the catamaran then went down to investigate what the problem was and suffered the same gas inhalation and fell into the septic tank.

Two colleagues came to help her but also became intoxicated by the fumes emanating from the septic tank and one of them also ended up falling into the tank. As reported by the Canarian Government’s 1-1-2 emergency department, when the emergency services arrived on the scene, two of those affected were in cardiac arrest and a third had symptoms of poisoning, but was conscious and oriented. The Emergency Department performed advanced cardiopulmonary resuscitation to the two most serious intoxicated and were able to recover the man, but not the woman.

The body of the deceased, a 50 year old woman whose identity has not yet been released, remained in the harbour guarded by the Guardia Civil, until the judge ordered their removal.

The most serious injured person, a 45 year old man, was evacuated to the Hospital Universitario Insular de Gran Canaria in critical condition.

The third injured person, a 55 year old man suffered a mild intoxication, which has been treated at the health center in Arguineguin.

This is the second incident on a tourism boat in the same area in under 9 months when a boat caught fire in Puerto Rico injuring up to 23 people, as reported here.