Simon Mitchell
Encyclopedia
Simon Mitchell (born 1958) is a New Zealand
physician
specializing in occupational medicine
, hyperbaric medicine and anesthesiology. Trained in medicine, Dr Mitchell was awarded a PhD for his work on neuroprotection
from embolic brain injury. Mitchell has also published more than 45 research and review papers in the medical literature
. Mitchell is an author
and avid technical diver. He also wrote two chapters of the latest edition of Bennett and Elliott's Physiology and Medicine of Diving and is the co-author of the diving textbook Deeper Into Diving with John Lippmann.
. In 2001, Diploma in Occupational Medicine (DipOccMed) from the South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society
. Mitchell then went on to complete a Doctor of Philosophy in Medicine (PhD) in 2001 and Diploma in Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine (DipDHM) in 1995 from the University of Auckland. Mitchell received his Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists
(ANZCA) Certificate in Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine in 2003, and became a Fellow of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (FANZCA) in 2008.
Dr Mitchell is a former vice president of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society
(UHMS) and currently serves as the chairman of the organization's diving committee. He became a Fellow of the The Explorers Club
of New York
in 2006.
Mitchell has dual Australian and New Zealand citizenship. He lives in Auckland
, New Zealand, with his wife Siân.
In 2010, Mitchell was awarded the Albert R. Behnke Award by the UHMS for his outstanding scientific contributions to advances in undersea biomedical activity.
technology to explore shipwreck
s at extreme depths.
Mitchell was a member of "The Sydney Project” in 2004 and located the letters U, M, and E that helped with the positive identification of the SS Cumberland. In 2007, Mitchell and Pete Mesley were responsible for identification of the Port Kembla including recovery of the ship's bell. Mitchell attempted to recover a Robinson 22 helicopter
engine from the poor underwater visibility of Lake Wanaka
for use in the Transport Accident Investigation Commission
investigation of the death of Morgan Saxton.
was a hospital ship
which was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Queensland
, Australia
, on 14 May 1943. Of the 332 medical personnel and civilian crew aboard, 268 were killed. Following World War II, several searches of the waters around North Stradbroke and Moreton Islands failed to reveal Centaur’s location. It was believed that she had sunk off the edge of the continental shelf, to a depth the Royal Australian Navy did not, and still does not, have the capability to search for a vessel of Centaur’s size.
In 1995, it was announced that the shipwreck of Centaur had been located in waters 9 nautical miles (16.7 km) from the lighthouse on Moreton Island, a significant distance from her believed last position. The finding was reported on A Current Affair, during which footage of the shipwreck, 170 metres (557.7 ft) underwater, was shown. Discoverer Donald Dennis claimed the identity of the shipwreck had been confirmed by the Navy, the Queensland Maritime Museum
, and the Australian War Memorial
. A cursory search by the Navy confirmed that there was a shipwreck at the given location, which was gazetted as a war grave
and added to navigation charts by the Australian Hydrographic Office.
Over the next eight years, there was growing doubt about the position of Dennis' wreck, due to the distance from both Second Officer Rippon's calculation of the point of sinking and where USS Mugford found the survivors. During this time, Dennis had been convicted on two counts of deception and one of theft through scams. Two wreck divers, Trevor Jackson
and Simon Mitchell, used the location for a four hour world record dive on 14 May 2002, during which they examined the wreck and took measurements, claiming that the ship was too small to be Centaur. Jackson had been studying Centaur for some time, and believed that the wreck was actually another, much smaller ship, the 55 metres (180.4 ft) long MV Kyogle, a lime
freighter purchased by the Royal Australian Air Force and sunk during bombing practice on 12 May 1951. The facts gathered on the dive were inconclusive, but the divers remained adamant it was not Centaur, and passed this information onto Nick Greenaway, producer of the newsmagazine
show 60 Minutes.
On the 60th anniversary of the sinking, 60 Minutes ran a story demonstrating that the wreck was not Centaur. It was revealed that nobody at the Queensland Maritime Museum had yet seen Dennis' footage, and when it was shown to Museum president Rod McLeod and maritime historian John Foley, they stated that the shipwreck could not be Centaur, as the rudder was incorrectly shaped. Following this story, and others published around the same time in newspapers, the Navy sent three ships to inspect the site over a two month period; HMA Ships , , and , before concluding that the shipwreck was incorrectly identified as Centaur. An amendment was made to the gazettal, and the Hydrographic Office began to remove the mark from charts.
In April 2008, following the successful discovery of HMAS Sydney
, several parties began calling for a dedicated search for Centaur. By the end of 2008, the Australian Federal and Queensland State governments had formed a joint committee and contributed $2 million each towards a search, and by February 2009, the tender for the project had received eleven expressions of interest.
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
specializing in occupational medicine
Occupational safety and health
Occupational safety and health is a cross-disciplinary area concerned with protecting the safety, health and welfare of people engaged in work or employment. The goal of all occupational safety and health programs is to foster a safe work environment...
, hyperbaric medicine and anesthesiology. Trained in medicine, Dr Mitchell was awarded a PhD for his work on neuroprotection
Neuroprotection
Neuroprotection within the nervous system protects neurons from apoptosis or degeneration, for example following a brain injury or as a result of chronic neurodegenerative diseases....
from embolic brain injury. Mitchell has also published more than 45 research and review papers in the medical literature
Medical literature
Medical literature refers to articles in journals and texts in books devoted to the field of medicine.Contemporary and historic views regarding diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of medical conditions have been documented for thousands of years. The Edwin Smith papyrus is the first known medical...
. Mitchell is an author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
and avid technical diver. He also wrote two chapters of the latest edition of Bennett and Elliott's Physiology and Medicine of Diving and is the co-author of the diving textbook Deeper Into Diving with John Lippmann.
Background
Mitchell received a Bachelor of Human Biology (BHB) in 1988 and later a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MB ChB) in 1990 from the University of AucklandUniversity of Auckland
The University of Auckland is a university located in Auckland, New Zealand. It is the largest university in the country and the highest ranked in the 2011 QS World University Rankings, having been ranked worldwide...
. In 2001, Diploma in Occupational Medicine (DipOccMed) from the South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society
South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society
The South Pacific Underwater Medicine Society is a primary source of information for diving and hyperbaric medicine physiology worldwide.- History :The SPUMS was founded on May 3, 1971 in the wardroom of HMAS PENGUIN...
. Mitchell then went on to complete a Doctor of Philosophy in Medicine (PhD) in 2001 and Diploma in Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine (DipDHM) in 1995 from the University of Auckland. Mitchell received his Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists
Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists
The Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists is responsible for examining and qualifying anaesthetists in Australia and New Zealand. The College maintains standards of practice in anaesthesia.-Membership:...
(ANZCA) Certificate in Diving and Hyperbaric Medicine in 2003, and became a Fellow of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (FANZCA) in 2008.
Dr Mitchell is a former vice president of the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society
Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society
The Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society is the primary source of information for diving and hyperbaric medicine physiology worldwide.-History:The Undersea Medical Society grew from the close associations of a small group of scientists...
(UHMS) and currently serves as the chairman of the organization's diving committee. He became a Fellow of the The Explorers Club
The Explorers Club
The Explorers Club is a professional society dedicated to scientific exploration of Earth, its oceans, and outer space. Founded in 1904 in New York City, it currently has 30 branches world wide...
of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in 2006.
Mitchell has dual Australian and New Zealand citizenship. He lives in Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
, New Zealand, with his wife Siân.
In 2010, Mitchell was awarded the Albert R. Behnke Award by the UHMS for his outstanding scientific contributions to advances in undersea biomedical activity.
Diving
Dr Mitchell began diving in 1972. His diving primarily involves the use of rebreatherRebreather
A rebreather is a type of breathing set that provides a breathing gas containing oxygen and recycled exhaled gas. This recycling reduces the volume of breathing gas used, making a rebreather lighter and more compact than an open-circuit breathing set for the same duration in environments where...
technology to explore shipwreck
Shipwreck
A shipwreck is what remains of a ship that has wrecked, either sunk or beached. Whatever the cause, a sunken ship or a wrecked ship is a physical example of the event: this explains why the two concepts are often overlapping in English....
s at extreme depths.
Mitchell was a member of "The Sydney Project” in 2004 and located the letters U, M, and E that helped with the positive identification of the SS Cumberland. In 2007, Mitchell and Pete Mesley were responsible for identification of the Port Kembla including recovery of the ship's bell. Mitchell attempted to recover a Robinson 22 helicopter
Robinson R22
The Robinson R22 is a two-bladed, single-engine light utility helicopter manufactured by Robinson Helicopter. The two-seat R22 was designed in 1973 by Frank Robinson and has been in production since 1979.-Development:...
engine from the poor underwater visibility of Lake Wanaka
Lake Wanaka
Lake Wanaka is located in the Otago region of New Zealand, at an altitude of 300 metres. Covering an area of , it is New Zealand's fourth largest lake, and estimated to be more than deep...
for use in the Transport Accident Investigation Commission
Transport Accident Investigation Commission
The Transport Accident Investigation Commission is a transport safety body of New Zealand. It has its headquarters on the 16th floor of the AXA Centre in Wellington.It was established by Act of the Parliament of New Zealand on 1 September 1990...
investigation of the death of Morgan Saxton.
AHS Centaur
AHS CentaurAHS Centaur
Australian Hospital Ship Centaur was a hospital ship which was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Queensland, Australia, on 14 May 1943...
was a hospital ship
Hospital ship
A hospital ship is a ship designated for primary function as a floating medical treatment facility or hospital; most are operated by the military forces of various countries, as they are intended to be used in or near war zones....
which was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, on 14 May 1943. Of the 332 medical personnel and civilian crew aboard, 268 were killed. Following World War II, several searches of the waters around North Stradbroke and Moreton Islands failed to reveal Centaur’s location. It was believed that she had sunk off the edge of the continental shelf, to a depth the Royal Australian Navy did not, and still does not, have the capability to search for a vessel of Centaur’s size.
In 1995, it was announced that the shipwreck of Centaur had been located in waters 9 nautical miles (16.7 km) from the lighthouse on Moreton Island, a significant distance from her believed last position. The finding was reported on A Current Affair, during which footage of the shipwreck, 170 metres (557.7 ft) underwater, was shown. Discoverer Donald Dennis claimed the identity of the shipwreck had been confirmed by the Navy, the Queensland Maritime Museum
Queensland Maritime Museum
The Queensland Maritime Museum is located on the southern bank of the Brisbane River just south of the South Bank Parklands and Queensland Cultural Centre precinct of Brisbane, and close to the Goodwill Bridge....
, and the Australian War Memorial
Australian War Memorial
The Australian War Memorial is Australia's national memorial to the members of all its armed forces and supporting organisations who have died or participated in the wars of the Commonwealth of Australia...
. A cursory search by the Navy confirmed that there was a shipwreck at the given location, which was gazetted as a war grave
War grave
A war grave is a burial place for soldiers or civilians who died during military campaigns or operations. The term does not only apply to graves: ships sunk during wartime are often considered to be war graves, as are military aircraft that crash into water...
and added to navigation charts by the Australian Hydrographic Office.
Over the next eight years, there was growing doubt about the position of Dennis' wreck, due to the distance from both Second Officer Rippon's calculation of the point of sinking and where USS Mugford found the survivors. During this time, Dennis had been convicted on two counts of deception and one of theft through scams. Two wreck divers, Trevor Jackson
Trevor Jackson (diver)
Captain Trevor Jackson is an Australian technical diver, shipwreck researcher, author and inventor. In 2002 he staged what became known as the "Centaur Dive", which subsequently led to the gazetted position of the sunken Hospital Ship AHS Centaur being questioned...
and Simon Mitchell, used the location for a four hour world record dive on 14 May 2002, during which they examined the wreck and took measurements, claiming that the ship was too small to be Centaur. Jackson had been studying Centaur for some time, and believed that the wreck was actually another, much smaller ship, the 55 metres (180.4 ft) long MV Kyogle, a lime
Lime (mineral)
Lime is a general term for calcium-containing inorganic materials, in which carbonates, oxides and hydroxides predominate. Strictly speaking, lime is calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide. It is also the name for a single mineral of the CaO composition, occurring very rarely...
freighter purchased by the Royal Australian Air Force and sunk during bombing practice on 12 May 1951. The facts gathered on the dive were inconclusive, but the divers remained adamant it was not Centaur, and passed this information onto Nick Greenaway, producer of the newsmagazine
Newsmagazine
A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published piece of paper, magazine or a radio or television program, usually weekly, featuring articles or segments on current events...
show 60 Minutes.
On the 60th anniversary of the sinking, 60 Minutes ran a story demonstrating that the wreck was not Centaur. It was revealed that nobody at the Queensland Maritime Museum had yet seen Dennis' footage, and when it was shown to Museum president Rod McLeod and maritime historian John Foley, they stated that the shipwreck could not be Centaur, as the rudder was incorrectly shaped. Following this story, and others published around the same time in newspapers, the Navy sent three ships to inspect the site over a two month period; HMA Ships , , and , before concluding that the shipwreck was incorrectly identified as Centaur. An amendment was made to the gazettal, and the Hydrographic Office began to remove the mark from charts.
In April 2008, following the successful discovery of HMAS Sydney
Search for HMAS Sydney and German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran
A search for the wrecks of the Australian warship HMAS Sydney and the German merchant raider Kormoran, that sank each other during World War II, ended successfully in March 2008. On 19 November 1941, the two ships fought a battle in the Indian Ocean, off Western Australia...
, several parties began calling for a dedicated search for Centaur. By the end of 2008, the Australian Federal and Queensland State governments had formed a joint committee and contributed $2 million each towards a search, and by February 2009, the tender for the project had received eleven expressions of interest.