Cozumel Incident 9/4/11

[driftin' by]

This thread really disturbs me!!!!!

This forum is specifically set up for this kind of discussion/speculation and not intended for the victims, families or loved ones.

Of course they are, but recreational divers are the only ones doing them.

You're absoulutly right... that was kinda redundant.

When the most highly advanced recreational diver exceeds recreational limits and creates that ceiling without using the training and equipment that technical divers use when they are beneath that ceiling, then they are rolling the dice. Everything will be just peachy, as long as nothing goes wrong. If something goes wrong and they don't have the safety mechanisms in place that trained technical divers use, then there is a problem.

Excellent point!

If the professionals in Cozumel are so concerned about the impact this will have on tourists who are afraid of getting caught in killer downcurrents, then perhaps they should stop dropping veiled hints and tell us what they know about this incident.

There is a diver clinging to life that is in need of financial contributions. I suspect that the details/truth is being withheld as not to cast a dark shadow over the accident knowing that it my deter people to contribute. That's human nature. Right, wrong or indifferent, what's done is done and a member of the dive community is in need of help.

I think I'll wait to read about this in an upcoming Lessons For Life article in Scuba Diving Magazine which I'm sure it will be featured in.

Unless someone dies, it probably won't. Most deal with deaths and hopefully that is not in the near future for the three victims.

My descent continued, I kept adding air. I tried to be calm and added only short bursts of air, I didn't want to overcompensate.

I thought you are NOT supposed to add air, rather swim out of it? I wouldn't want someone with less knowledge or experience to read this and think to nonchalantly add air while just cruising along starring at your gauges is the way to deal with a down-current.

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As always, please keep your comments within the ToS and be aware of any special rules for the forum you are posting in.

Any thread about the subject has required a lot of mod attention. Perhaps it's time to start flexing some Mod ToS muscle and boot people. When you're ready, I've got a few I can recommend.

 

[cenotist]

LESSON.

THE RETRO IS BACK!!! Back in music, back in fashion and seems to be back in diving also. Let us remind why diving organisations were established. For systematic training and safe diving. In cave diving there was so many fatal accidents that it was almost prohibited.

Now we are back in the beginning. A,B,C,…X-Planners are accessible for all of us and we can make our own dive plans in our virtual world. There is no need for old tables and restraining rules. Different planners give you different decos, but 300 ft bounce dives with 100cu ft of air and 6 min bottom time are doable (all this planning is for ideal conditions, without contingency plans and not considering narcosis). SO - I can do it also!!! I am master of myself and there is no scuba police to stop me.

WRONG! We are responsible not only for us. We are all in one boat of diving community and right now we have responsibility to give message to rec divers, that DIVING INSIDE THE LIMITS IS SAFE. IN COZUMEL, IN RED SEA, IN EVERYWHERE. Keep retro for music and fashion, do not make retro experimental dives – too many people have been dying doing that, no need for more.

Do not exceed your training.
Do not trust your life to the hypothetical diving plans.
Do not believe bragging “I have been there and done that” – mostly it is exaggerated
ENJOY YOUR DIVES!!!

 

[mstevens]

VB wall. Now I really have to wonder why they went back in to deco rather, that close to the chambers.

The most likely reasons the divers might have made such a decision are:

1) Confusion and disorientation on the part of divers who have been through a stressful experience and are starting to have CNS symptoms.

2) The same sort of judgment (or "risk assessment", "sense of invulnerability", call it what you will) that might lead to a dive plan of 300 fsw (or 200, or even 150) with 80 cf of air.

Ultimately, though, this particular decision should not have been the divers' alone.

Given the location, I really think there has to have been a boat captain involved. Such a captain should have radioed the chamber and headed for shore irrespective of what any bewildered divers may have said and irrespective of whether one of those divers was the owner.

 

[ianr33]

The most likely reasons the divers might have made such a decision are:

1) Confusion and disorientation on the part of divers who have been through a stressful experience and are starting to have CNS symptoms.

2) The same sort of judgment (or "risk assessment", "sense of invulnerability", call it what you will) that might lead to a dive plan of 300 fsw (or 200, or even 150) with 80 cf of air.

1) CNS has nothing to do with it. Maybe you meant DCS?

2)Getting back in the water to do missed deco stops if you HAVE NO SYMPTOMS seems a reasonable option. IF you have tons of gas and IF you know what you are doing.

 

[DandyDon]

1) CNS has nothing to do with it. Maybe you meant DCS?

2)Getting back in the water to do missed deco stops if you HAVE NO SYMPTOMS seems a reasonable option. IF you have tons of gas and IF you know what you are doing.

And the divers might have started going back in, at least the first one, before the captain even knew what had happened below - perhaps.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

Let me throw out some of what is pure speculation on my part:

• A boat was involved;
• A boat captain was involved;
• Other divers were witness;
• Other divers took part;
• A wall of silence has been erected around the occurrence (save for a few isolated posters);
• Being treated for DCS is expensive;
• One would not want reckless behaviour to invalidate insurance;
• Some divers have developed a "reputation;" and
• The Cozumel dive community is tight-knit so peer pressure plus self-preservation is keeping "those who know" silent.

You must have got the same PM I got last night from someone with more detailed knowledge of what happened. As a great lady has in her sig line -"Stupid should be painful."

 

[driftin' by]

The most likely reasons the divers might have made such a decision are:

1) Confusion and disorientation on the part of divers who have been through a stressful experience and are starting to have CNS symptoms.

2) The same sort of judgment (or "risk assessment", "sense of invulnerability", call it what you will) that might lead to a dive plan of 300 fsw (or 200, or even 150) with 80 cf of air.

Adding one:

3) Egos and reputation of those involved once word got out. A trip to the chamber would be difficult to keep quiet on the island and beyond if they were able to "fix" the problem themselves.

 

[Crush]

You must have got the same PM I got last night from someone with more detailed knowledge of what happened. As a great lady has in her sig line -"Stupid should be painful."

Jim, what I posted was not prompted by any PM's, rather, by a careful reading of what has been posted in the various fora, what has been omitted, and what has been posted then rapidly removed in the various fora.

 

[Crush]

Adding one:

3) Egos and reputation of those involved once word got out. A trip to the chamber would be difficult to keep quiet on the island and beyond if they were able to "fix" the problem themselves.

 

[driftin' by]

You must have got the same PM I got last night from someone with more detailed knowledge of what happened. As a great lady has in her sig line -"Stupid should be painful."

I've had similar PM's but according to ToS, since I don't know their source and have no first hand knowledge, I'll hang in the ebb and flow of speculation for now.