NJ-EMS

A man on a diving excursion about 20 miles off Manasquan died today, the third accident reported by the Coast Guard involving the Gypsy Blood diving vessel since 2008.A crew member aboard the Gypsy Blood contacted Coast Guard Station Manasquan around 10 a.m. today to report the diver was unresponsive, the Coast Guard said. The man, whose name was not disclosed, had been diving off the Manasquan Inlet.

The Coast Guard station dispatched a 47-foot motor life boat crew, which included two emergency medical technicians who performed CPR on the diver as he was taken back to the station.

But the man was pronounced dead shortly after the boat crew arrived. A cause of death was not immediately known, the Coast Guard said.

The Gypsy Blood, a 50 foot Evans custom dive boat homeported in Brielle, performs regular dives for groups and individuals, according to its website.

A message left for the Gypsy Blood’s captain, Jim Wilson, was not returned last night.

In 2010, 28-year-old Yasuki Okada, of Princeton, died from injuries sustained when she failed to resurface from a 122-foot dive 15 miles east of the Shark River Inlet, John Lindberg, a Coast Guard officer told The Star-Ledger at the time.

In 2008 a 32-year-old woman had to be taken off the Gypsy Blood by helicopter 34 miles off Barnegat Light when she became unconscious after surfacing from a scuba dive. Francine Sinotski was flown to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, where she was in stable condition the next day.