Oxygen toxicity, panic may have killed 5 tourists on Maldives scuba dive: experts

A grieving Italian scientist who lost both his wife and a daughter in the Maldives diving tragedy insisted Friday that something wildly unexpected must have happened because his wife was too experienced a diver to have taken risks.

Carlo Sommacal raised his concerns after his wife, Monica Montefalcone, 52, and their 20-year-old daughter, Giorgia Sommacal, were among the five who failed to resurface during the scuba diving trip in a cave on Thursday morning.

“The only certainty I have is that my wife is among the best divers on the face of the earth. And that she’s always been conscientious. Never would she have endangered the life of our daughter” or the others with them, Sommacal told La Repubblica on Friday.

Giorgia Sommacal in the Maldives, scuba diving.
The father of Maldives diving victim Giorgia Sommacal, 20, has broken his silence.Giorgia Sommacal / Instagram
“Something must have happened down there,” the retired scientist stated firmly.

“Maybe one went into trouble, maybe the oxygen cylinders, I have no idea. But I’m ready to swear anything about Monica’s behavior,” insisted the new widower

Monica and Giorgia were in the Maldives on an expedition with a group from the University of Genoa, where the mom was an associate professor of ecology, and her daughter a student. Two of the other three who died were part of the same uni group.

Monica Montefalcone, one of the victims of a diving accident in the Maldives, smiling in a wetsuit on a boat.
Giorgia’s mother, Monica Montefalcone, 52, also died in the tragedy.ZUMAPRESS.com
The grieving widower never suspected anything could happen, and his last message to his wife was a WhatsApp “to tell her that the cats were fine,” he told the Italian paper.

Now, he anxiously awaits news of the recovery mission, which had to be called off Friday due to “very bad” weather in the area. Officials say only the body of one diver — Gianluca Benedetti — has been found, correcting earlier reports it was Sommacal’s wife.

Carlo Sommacal being interviewed.
Carlo Sommacal said his wife was a highly experienced diver.Network4
“Yesterday they said they had found the bodies, but it is not true,” Sommacal said. “And I don’t know what to think, because I would at least have them back here for the last goodbye, but I don’t know if I could bear it.”

He unexpectedly has to “be strong” for his son, Matthew, who is still in high school.

Sommacal said he met his wife, a renowned marine biologist, in Milan, and they only moved to Genoa because Monica told him, “I love the sea.”

Around 20 people, all Italians, were on board the “Duke of York,” the ship involved in the deadly dive, at the time.