Man dies while diving on the Oriskany

PENSACOLA, Fla. - A man died while diving on the Oriskany off the coast of Pensacola.

The accident happened Saturday afternoon.

People come from all over the world to dive on the Oriskany.

"The top of structure at 78 feet, flight deck 145," Fritz Sharar, co-owner of MBT Surf and Dive said.

The aircraft carrier was commissioned just after World War II and was used through the Vietnam conflict.

On Saturday, 51-year-old Timothy Teagarden started having problems shortly after the start of his dive. He was taken to Baptist Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The news traveled quickly through the diving community.

"It's like any type of sport. You can qualify this as an extreme sport. You're going to have incidents like this. Very unfortunate, very rare," Sharar said.

Teagarden dove with a group on a charter boat out of Gulf Shores. He was visiting from Georgia. Officials still don't know how he died.

When things like this happen, the first thing they do is send the gear in to be tested to make sure it wasn't an equipment failure that caused something to go wrong.

Diving professionals say the danger lies in that anything can happen while you're out there and help isn't always close.

"Due to it's location in the Gulf, it's further out there, so rescue time for the Coast Guard can be very lengthy. If there is a problem, it may take a while, and we tell people that's an inherent risk," Sharar said.

Two years ago, another Oriskany diver died from an apparent heart attack.

An autopsy was done Monday afternoon. The medical examiner's office expects to get results back in three to four months.