Warning to Hawaii snorkelers after couple drown on Maui vacation

A 'babymoon-ing' couple died while snorkeling in Hawaii, raising questions regarding the dangers of the vacation activity's often used gear.

Ilya, 25, and Sophia Tsaruk, 26, of Snohomish, Washington, drowned on Saturday while snorkeling in unguarded waters off the coast of Maui, Hawaii - and family and experts speculate that their death may be related to the use of full-faced snorkeling masks.

Several snorkeling accidents including fatalities associated with the use of full-face snorkel masks have been reported over the years, raising concerns over the gear and the effectiveness of the mask's CO2 filtering system.

Use of the full-faced diving gear can result in re-breathing, which is when you breathe in most of what you've exhaled (mostly carbon dioxide).

This leads to hypercapnia and hypoxemia - both of which occur when there's too much carbon dioxide in the blood - that can result in difficulty breathing and respiratory failure.

'I felt like the mask was just suffocating me and I had to rip my mask off to breathe,' Ilya's sister-in-law Taisiya Tsaruk, who was on vacation with the now-deceased couple, said.

'I do believe that it played a role [in their deaths]. Because, like I said, I experienced a loss of breath in the mask and we were wearing the same masks,' she added.

Full-face snorkel masks are widely used in vacation hotspots, particularly by 'tourist divers,' and were adopted as protective personal equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

While these masks provide an 'easier' alternative to the traditional mask-and-snorkel combination, there are concerns over the potential for rebreathing exhaled gas high in carbon dioxide, a National Library of Medicine study disclosed.

Compared with a standard tube snorkel, full-faced snorkel masks have a larger 'dead space' - space with non-recycled air - which can lead to a buildup of carbon dioxide causing headaches, dizziness, panic and even unconsciousness.

'The reason for them being unsafe makes sense to us; that is, that the full-face masks and snorkel combination have a much larger volume than a standard snorkel,' Tony Hoff, a dive shop employee in Kailua, told Island News .

'You could be building up a volume of CO2 inside that mask that makes you unable to get enough oxygen. For that reason, we stopped selling full-face mask-snorkel combinations a long time ago,' he explained.

Other concerns have been raised regarding the use of the full-faced diving equipment including difficulty removing the mask, difficulty clearing water from the mask, fogging and claustrophobia, among others.

The young couple was off on vacation to celebrate their soon-to-be second child when the tragedy took place.

Sophia was not a strong swimmer and mentioned feeling slightly ill as they donned snorkel masks and waded into the unguarded waters.

The group split up to explore the sea-bed before another swimmer approached Tiasiya and told her he had heard screaming in the water.

First responders were called at 12:02 pm and a responder a jet ski found Sophia floating unconscious in the water before bringing her to shore.

Emergency crews then headed back out to search for Ilya, who had disappeared from view before divers found him on the sea bed more than 100 yards from the beach.

An onlooker filmed the rescuers frantic attempts to resuscitate the couple as their horrified relatives looked on.

The pair leave behind their 18-month-old , now orphaned, in the care of family.

A GoFundMe campaign to raise money for the child and to bring his parents back home has exceeded its $100,000 target since being launched on Sunday.