Filmmaker Rob Stewart dies off Alligator Reef

[CuzzA]

Very unfortunate to hear the outcome. I watched Sharkwater the other night due to this incident and his work against shark finning is commendable. It's a horrible fishing practice and needs to stop.

Regarding analysis... Surely authorities have spoke to the other diver right? I would be shocked if we don't at least get an explanation why the other diver passed out. I hope someone is asking the right questions.

Nevertheless, I find it hard to believe he was still on the surface when the crew saw he was gone. So far the only lesson I see here until more information is released is when you surface from a dive get positive immediately. I imagine many of us just keep gently kicking thinking we have obtained positive buoyancy; however, once you stop kicking you may actually be negative.

 

[Wookie]

Yes, 17 pounds at the surface is about right. Now work out how much that is at over 200 ft. Arbitrary argument now, he was found at depth.

Yup, another point of reference to add to my store of useless knowledge.

On another note, we lost an anchor on the wreck of the Araby Maid last year in 220 feet of water. We knew exactly where it was when we threw it, and exactly where it was in relation to the wreck. We sent 8 teams after it with DPVs over 3 days. It's still there. The anchor would be larger than a body is.

 

[flyboy08]

And if your on the boat and a victim falls ill with divers still in the water....send eyes overboard to watch!

Yes, hard to Monday night QB, but make sense.

 

[reefrat]

Very sad, a great guy who had the best interests of the ocean and humanity at heart!
There seems to be a trend toward acceptance of deep diving on rebreathers, as though it's OK because its a rebreather. Rebreathers may enable cost effective deep diving- but they do not make it safe, nothing does. Diving beyond 100ft for any reason involves escalated risk no matter how we do it or why we do it and the deeper we go the greater the risk, period!

 

[lamont]

The FBI dive team leader says it will generate 17 lbs of lift as long as the skin (drysuit) remains intact. Assume a diver who was close enough to neutral to make it to the surface in the first place....

A diver who is close to neutral on the surface is going to be heavily negative on the bottom as everything compresses. Try sinking to 220 feet without adding any gas to your drysuit.

Anecdotally none of the bodies we've lost around here have floated to the surface that we're aware of. Ones that have been found years later were on the bottom.

EDIT: this gets worse on a rebreather, particularly if the DSV is open, since the air in the can and lugs compresses just like any other gas and the pressure will suck in water and crush the lungs, producing more negative buoyancy. I imagine even with the DSV closed that at some point the pressure tears open the loop (i.e. pressure starts acting like that delta-P video with the loop playing the part of the crab, and the canister playing the part of the pipe).

EDIT2: although I forgot about the ADV and if that is open and there's dil it should activate to feed some gas in to maintain loop volume automatically. also on the O2 side the solenoid would continue to fire to maintain ppO2 up until the point the O2 was consumed or the setpoint rose enough. so with the DSV closed the picture is probably less clear than i thought -- although with the DSV open i think it got it more or less correct -- crushed inhale loop, water in the exhale side and can.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

And if your on the boat and a victim falls ill with divers still in the water....send eyes overboard to watch!

Yes, hard to Monday night QB, but make sense.

I think you would have to consider the number of people on the boat and the severity of the initial victim. If the buddy gives the OK at the surface, I can hardly find fault for the crew being 100% focused on getting a victim who passes out stabilized and on oxygen for a 2-3 minute period.

If you have a bunch of (extra) people on board you could throw a line to the other diver on the surface, set a watch or maybe even put a swimmer in if you got nervous about the situation, say they arrived on the surface too soon, or too late.. etc.

But a diver could sink in a few moments and would be invisible and unrescuable within 15-20 seconds of inattention. Even when conditions are calm, a lot can happen really fast on a boat in the ocean,

I would need to see a ton of negative information before I would be allocating any blame toward the boat driver and crew.

I am surprised he was found so close to the dive site, after this long of a time. Based simply on this observation, it makes me wonder if the technical cave diving community is much, much better organized in handling missing diver situations than the local technical divers.

With scooters, clear water and the ability to conduct a search well off the bottom, it presents less challenges than some of these deep caves, although there is probably a much larger search area.

 

[stiebs]

Anecdotally none of the bodies we've lost around here have floated to the surface that we're aware of. Ones that have been found years later were on the bottom.

That may be so, but if a diver has surfaced, there is at least a chance that he may be buoyant.

My first thought was that there was a high likelihood of him sinking, but the search options from that point are to find the diver underwater within minutes before it becomes a recovery, or find the diver within days on the surface before it becomes a recovery.

 

[PfcAJ]

Missing documentary filmmaker’s body found after underwater shoot gone wrong

Looks like his body was found.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

A diver who is close to neutral on the surface is going to be heavily negative on the bottom as everything compresses. Try sinking to 220 feet without adding any gas to your drysuit.

Anecdotally none of the bodies we've lost around here have floated to the surface that we're aware of. Ones that have been found years later were on the bottom.

Several years ago, a tech diver wearing a wet suit i believe was lost in Palm Beach in around 300 ft (along with his student and another victim). The instructor was found floating about 3 weeks later w/o his tanks and harness.

But this is along the lines of my prior question, if a dry suit diver starts sinking from the surface he is going to be heavy on the bottom - and I really don't know about the rebreather flooding or compressing which would also have an effect I assume.

 

[uwxplorer]

This loss is a loss for the tech diving community at large.
I feel just as terrible now that when I surfaced more than a year ago only to learn than my former buddy had been taken away by the lifeguards... Or when a few years ago, I learned that a diver I had joked with on the boat during the surface interval had been taken away by the USCG... Or when, not even a tech diver, I learned that a diver I had dove with had lost his life using the unit I was planning to get trained on... Each time, I learned that something that I thought could not happen had happened, or something I did not know could happen, had happened. In all cases, anger or incredulity eventually was replaced, after many months, by a reinforced respect for procedures and caution. And the promise made to myself to never forget those buddies and what they had gone through tragically.
Be sure that the family and friend, the buddy, the boat crew... all are running theories and trying to answer questions as to why that day ended so tragically. Try to be a little more sensitive (and sensible) when expressing your opinion on this tragedy. Hindsight is 20/20... and compassion.