We were diving with Conch Republic out of Tavernier Creek Marina at the time of the incident and heard a slightly different story from one of the paramedics who was still on the scene when we arrived a few minutes after the victim was transported. Police, paramedics and the coast guard were all still on the scene and interviewing people when we arrived at the dock after our dives. The men's room at Conch Republic Divers at Tavernier Creek Marina was closed, so they were sending people to the Bait and Tackle shop at the other end of the dock (where all the emergency personnel were), and there was a paramedic washing up in the men's room. I asked what was going on (I had no idea at the time) and he told me it was a dive accident - that the victim had a serious leak in his BCD and, at the end of his dive was struggling to stay at the surface, and that his buddy was unable (unclear as to why) to keep him at the surface and get him to the boat. He also told me that the buddy left the distressed diver to go to the boat to get help and when he returned, the victim was on the bottom and unconscious.
I realize this is hearsay, and I did not probe for details. But this was a starting point for our small group of mostly inexperienced divers to practice a "what if" exercise. What if your BC fails and you are negatively buoyant and struggling to get to the surface? In this case, all my new divers answered: ditch your weights, and if your buddy's BC doesn't have enough lift to hold you both up at the surface have HIM ditch his weights, too, so you can both use his BC for flotation and to get back to the boat. None of us could understand why the buddy would leave a distressed, negatively buoyant diver to go to the boat, even for help. But we are operating on second-hand info (at best).
