Death at Gilboa

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wrecNcaver

Contributor
Messages
227
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0
Location
S.E. Michigan
# of dives
500 - 999
Just heard on the local news that there was a death at Gilboa on Sunday. Very few details but the news program did say the diver was in a class and made a rapid ascent.

Thoughts and prayers to the divers family and friends.
 
I will be praying for the family and friends as well. As we should remember the other students in the class as I am sure this was a terrible experience for them as well.

Chad
 
my prayers go out to the diver and family and all those affected by this misfortune.:(
 
Condolences to the family. Now the rant...
I dive and teach at Gilboa often. Mike Wilson (the owner) is a freind of mine. I ,of course, do not know for sure what happened but I have seen enough things at gilboa that I am willing to make some general statements. Even if my comments don't apply well to this death they certainly do apply to the other injuries. The year before last there were like 9 EMS responses to Gilboa. I was present for two of them. Each was either a free flow that resulted in panic or a diver who had air but thaught he didn't with panic and a rapid ascent as the result. A couple of weeks ago on another thread somebody mentioned that they saw 5 free flows in one weekend. Mike tries to encourage instructors to be careful. He tries to keep most divers on the shallow side. In the last couple of years I have seen Gilboa become very popular. I see things every dive that would curl your hair. The instructors can't dive. The classes are large. Equipment is not secured. There have been times that I left so mad that I was shaking. If these instructors get paid at all, I should get millions. People buy this stuff because it is cheap or convenient or they just don't know the difference. This aint the Caribbean folks. Do not take your bargin basement Caribbean equipment on a deep dive at Gilboa. If all your deep dives have been in the Caribbean in a thin or no wet suit you are not ready to go over the wall at Gilboa. Never has one of my students had a free flow at Gilboa. You must dive a reg that works in cold water. Divers with little experience in a heavy suit wearing a bunch of lead get to 100 ft their suit is compressed they are overweighted, their buoyancy stinks, they work hard and then...they think their not geting enough air or the demand on the reg promotes a free flow the diver doen't respond as trained. They shoot to the surface and land in the back of an ambulance. How is that for a run-on sentance. These instructors and for that matter the divers get away with doing 100 ft dives in the Caribbean without taking all the classes that some of you think are just a plot to get your money. They don't get by so well here though. This aint the Caribbean. When turned loose at Gilboa without supervision and without a bottom divers (including instructors) just don't do well at all. Vacation dives are canned dives. They were planned before you even booked your trip. The same dives are done every day. The bugs have been worked out. Don't let success under those conditions lead you to believe that you can dive when faced with choices to make and no help in making them. The proof is in the number of ambulance runs to Gilboa. For someone with the equipment and training Gilboa is a piece of cake. 140 ft max, small, no waves, no current and sometimes water temps at depth as high as 45 deg F. If you doubt anything I have said then you tell me why there have been so many of these types of accidents here. Even these instructors need a quarry with the bottom at 30 - 50. Then, they should go to the Caribbean where the diving is easy and safe. Sorry about the ramble.
 
You think?
 
Mike,

I hear you and agree with you completely. I see the same thing at Dutch Springs. I was just there this weekend, and I'm feeling extremely frustrated again. I'm going to PM you and rant about my experience. I think you and I should take yoga or something to relax.

Stacey
 
I see things every dive that would curl your hair. The instructors can't dive. The classes are large. Equipment is not secured

I agree wholeheartedly. It is easy to see students "sneaking" over the wall at Gilboa to get in a 100' dive without redundant anything, and with the buddy awareness of a tadpole. It surely is not Mike's fault, there are warnings all over, comprehensive waivers are signed, deep dive plans must be filed if you are going to exceed 80'.

There are swarms of OW and AOW students at Gilboa most weekends with an instructor to student ratio often in excess of 10 to 1. For those of you not familliar with the quarry, there are few places where you can put your feet down, and this is a significant challenge for the newbie. And, we all know what idiots newbies can be, they just don't know any better.

On the other side of the coin, many of the more advanced tech classes taught there limit the instructor to student ratio to 4 to 1. It is up to the teacher.

I know Mike is very concerned about this situation, and it wouldn't surprise me to see some rules imposed on instructors that they should have imposed on themselves.

Instructors and shop owners, train the newbies well, even if you can't make as much loot right now. Get them interested enough and they will make the jump from rec to tech, and NOW you are talking about REAL money, a good five figure sale.
 
Granted, the www.HowStuffWorks.com site is a good site to explain various things, including scuba. But using it as the "authoritative source" for the cause of death? Bad reporting.

Makes the non-initiated reader draw the wrong conclusions.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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