Diver missing on Oriskany 10/22/11

[Dive-aholic]

I have to disagree, Rick. I've done dives that would have been much more dangerous with a buddy than solo. Granted, I'm referring to dives in small cave passages where there is almost a guarantee that you will be stuck at least once. Also, one only has to look at the incident in Cozumel last week. There were 4 other divers in the water and it still ended as a fatality. The team did everything possible to make it end otherwise. Let's not put this on it being a solo dive, please.

 

[heavierthanlead]

Diver ID'd (not by name) as "vacationing from CA, with his wife"...

WEAR ABC 3 :: Top Stories - The Search For A Diver Lost Near The USS Oriskany

 

[Dive-aholic]

That was indicated in an earlier story.

For the record, currents weren't that bad Saturday. What was bad was the wind.

Also, the search has been called off pending new information, from what I understand.

 

[mselenaous]

Here is the text that goes with the above link for future reference:

ESCAMBIA COUNTY - Crews continue the search for a missing diver who never came up from a dive of the USS Oriskany on Saturday.

Escambia County search and rescue looked for hours today, but there's still no sign of the missing diver.


"Escambia Search and Rescue says they worked all night coming up with a plan to hit the water earlier Sunday morning. They searched for hours throughout the Oriskany with over a dozen divers still, they found no trace of the missing diver."

"The gentleman was an advanced diver, a re-breathe diver."

The man was diving alone. Although he was considered one of the most advanced levels of divers, the Oriskany can still be a challenging dive.

'"The current was fairly rough yesterday."

Over a dozen divers searched for hours.

"We did a very thorough search of the entire vessel from the bow to the stearn, top to bottom inside some of the areas we thought the gentleman might have gone to."

A search team of some of the area's finest divers. Covered the 1,000 foot vessel that reaches more than 220 feet deep. Still, no luck.

"Unfortunately, we were unable to recover the gentleman this afternoon."

A tragedy not only for the missing diver's family, but for the search crews who consider any diver one of their own.

"The chief of the search team says at this point they have no plans to go back out and search the Oriskany. However, this case does remain open."

The Coast Guard still has not released the missing diver's name. However, Channel Three News has learned the man is not a local. He was here on vacation from California with his wife.

Sunday, October 23 2011, 11:22 PM CDT

 

[Rick Murchison]

I have to disagree, Rick. I've done dives that would have been much more dangerous with a buddy than solo. Granted, I'm referring to dives in small cave passages where there is almost a guarantee that you will be stuck at least once. Also, one only has to look at the incident in Cozumel last week. There were 4 other divers in the water and it still ended as a fatality. The team did everything possible to make it end otherwise. Let's not put this on it being a solo dive, please.

Re-read my post. I did not say solo had anything to do with this incident. I said that solo carries the additional risk that a debilitating event will kill you, and that that eventuality must be part of the solo decision. Let's not overcomplicate it.
Sure, you can construct a dive scenario where the debilitation=death risk is already part of the plan anyway, and in that case the decision on whether or not a buddy adds use or risk to the dive must be part of the decision-making process... but how many dives have that as part of the plan? Aside from a few one-man-job dives or dives where the cave looks like it's giving birth to a diver there just ain't many, and to base a "solo is just as safe" philosophy overall on those few is just not supportable.
My concern is that inexperienced divers who look up to you will take the "solo's just as safe" at face value and add the debilitation=death risk to a dive where it needn't be, without first admitting they're adding that risk, and accepting that they're adding that risk. No one wants to admit they may be suddenly incapacitated, but it does happen. It needn't be an automatic death sentence, unless you're solo (or on the extreme edge of the envelope).
Rick

 

[ucfdiver]

I have to disagree, Rick. I've done dives that would have been much more dangerous with a buddy than solo. Granted, I'm referring to dives in small cave passages where there is almost a guarantee that you will be stuck at least once. Also, one only has to look at the incident in Cozumel last week. There were 4 other divers in the water and it still ended as a fatality. The team did everything possible to make it end otherwise. Let's not put this on it being a solo dive, please.

Ok, those dives represent a small portion of the dives done (even a small portion of the solo ones), yet get brought up every time the solo vs non solo comes up. The fact remains that in cave diving, nearly half the deaths are solo and no where near half the dives are solo (in part due to state park rules). Make whatever you desire from those statistics.

It's a safe assumption here that no matter what happened, with a buddy this diver would have been either rescued, or easier to recover and give the family some closure (not to mention financial aspects of the recovery), and hopefully we'd have something to learn from-- which we don't have now.

 

[Teamcasa]

I have to chime in on this since I knew the missing diver.
Yes, he was indeed a very skilled diver. Yes, he often dived solo and understood the risks. The issue as it relates to being solo is that no one realized he was in trouble or even where he was when whatever problem arose. We still don't know. If he was with a buddy, he stood a better chance of being helped or at least found. So, if you plan on diving solo, realize what may happen, not to you but to everyone who cares about you.

 

[TSandM]

The other thing about diving solo is the uncertainty. I mean, this incident has resulted in a huge search effort, simply because nobody knew where the diver WAS. Even if your buddy can't help you, and even if you get SEPARATED from him, at least he can give some information about where you were last seen and under what conditions, that can help guide a search. For example, in this case, if it were known that the diver had exited the wreck, then an expensive and risky effort wouldn't have to be made to search the interior for him. On the other hand, if a buddy reported he never came out, it might have focused efforts ON the wreck, rather than a big surface search. You really impair efforts to retrieve you, when you deprive folks of that information.

 

[Mark Derail]

Wow, sad indeed.

Trying not to get all these 'scary' stories to prevent me into more advanced diving in the future (with appropriate training!).

Is the Oriskany a drift dive? Eight people before? Did these people venture inside?

Just to put things into context. So that other sub-100 dives Divers don't get freaked out, and collectively we learn, and thus dive better with more safety.

ie - I now have attached whistles and SMB's as a permanent attach to our BCD's - that as few as four dives ago I had none of this. Also, snorkel easy access in vest.
Just because of what I read here on ScubaBoard.com.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

Said his name was Jim.