Pompano Beach Fatality Sunday April 16th
- Thread starter tekkydiver
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jcwalsh
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Terrible situation
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tekkydiver
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jadairiii
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My understanding it was South Florida Diving Headquarters, the boat was "Black Pearl"
If this is incorrect I will delete the post.
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tekkydiver
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The vessel was renamed to the Black Pearl after another fatality
We were fishing the area Friday May 5th and heard a radio call to the Coast Guard from the Black Pearl that they had a unresponsive diver and needed instructions, I believe they were met by fire rescue at a marina just inside the inlet. This was near the Rodeo 25 wreck, another dive boat operation was in the area and was waiting for remaining divers from the Black Pearl, we saw a dive boat circling the ball at the wreck for almost an hour and never saw any other divers surface. Anyone know what happened?
VsubT
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@DivingIvan - I was diving from a private boat nearby when this second incident occurred on 05 May, and we were likely the vessel you saw loitering. I've been watching the local news, USCG, and Broward County Sheriff Office sites, but there has been no mention of it since. I'm not sure about any family notifications, etc., but it sounds like the diver involved was local to SE Florida.
We were on the RSB-1 for our first dive, and when we surfaced there were new 2 divers standing on the deck who we didn't recognize. Our captain had picked them up while we were under, and there was a third diver from their group still hanging at the surface on a mooring ball at the nearby Captain Dan. Between these guys and the radio, we pieced together that the Black Pearl (SFDHQ) had to leave them on site due to an unresponsive diver from their group who had been brought aboard and was being given CPR enroute to Hillsboro inlet for transfer to EMS. From conversation with the BSO deputy who took information from the 3 stranded divers later, we heard that the unresponsive diver did not make it.
Current was reasonably strong that day, at maybe 3-4 knots. We hot dropped to RSB-1 with nearly a 400' lead, and it didn't take long to see the wreck once we were near the bottom. The group we picked up described their boat's plan as a mooring ball tie-in by a DM and the incident diver, with the DM surfacing to relay current info to the divers still on deck while the other diver remained below. They said that the DM had restricted the dive to rebreathers only because of the strong current, and that they saw the incident diver ascending away from the line as they descended on the mooring line to begin their dive. By the time they surfaced, the Black Pearl had departed for the inlet and that's what led to the pickups described above.
After a surface interval, our group hot dropped to Captain Dan and retrieved the mooring ball at the end of an uneventful second dive. We then delivered the divers & ball to SFDHQ's dock. Not sure that a ball tie-in was the way to go, given how much current there was. I'm local to the Pompano Beach area, but hesitant to dive with this operator. The recent Safari Diver sinking because of a stern tie-in to a wreck is one example of why.
Lance
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