Fiona Sharp death in Bonaire

[hroark2112]

On my last several trips to Bonaire I had a number of people tell me "you aren't allowed to solo dive here!" at Buddy Dive. Even during Tek Week people would still try to tell me it's not allowed. I have always just employed the "smile and nod" defense while I walked down the stairs into the water.

If the resort has decided to discourage the practice from their dock, I'll respect that. I'll just go somewhere more fun!

The problem with people demanding answers will never go away. We will never definitively know exactly what the cause of this accident was in its entirety. We might be able to piece together what we think is the most likely scenario. I have read 2 different diluents mentioned, but not one that I'd feel safe using at 300'. The final determination in most dive related deaths is drowning, what we will never know is the exact cause. The most important lesson we can learn from most of these incidents is that we need to remember that when we're diving, we're in a hostile environment, one that requires equipment to sustain life, and we need to be diligent in the use and maintenance of that equipment.

 

[NothingClever]

I've pulled six dead people out of caves. Every single one of them took an emotional toll on me. One of the worst was a double fatality, where the two divers were well known by a couple of close and dear friends.

We were still in the process of trying to recover all of the gear and come to grips with what happened while people were on the internet demanding answers. Unfortunately, we didn't have any answers at the time, it literally took Shearwater a month or two to be able to develop software that would allow us to interpret the computer download. Yet, people were demanding answers at a time when some of the people involved in the recovery simply wanted to be left alone to grieve for the loss of their friends.

While I agree that accident analysis is important to try and learn from mistakes so we can prevent them in the future, no one has an absolute right to all of the details, and in some cases, the lesson learned is nothing new.

Do we really need to go into extreme details of the events surrounding Dr. Sharp's death in order to learn that diving to 300' on air is a bad idea?

Thank you, @kensuf, for being an experienced voice of reason here.

 

[lermontov]

we'll never really know if Fiona planned to go to 91m - looking a the gas selection and quantities its hard to reconcile - theres no diver in my circle that would contemplate it. Maybe thats what people (me) are struggling to understand. How can someone of her calibre and experience make such an error? or at the least take such a huge risk?

It seems such an incongruent picture, so much so I find myself reaching for other explanations. Like trying to complete a jigsaw with pieces that dont seem to add up.

I guess there are those that knew her in the weeks before the dive, of her frame of mind and her personal life, these are things that we arent entitled to know, but want to know to try and make sense of it all, in part so that we can justify our own risk threshold, to see if were still inside the line.

 

[kensuf]

FWIW (probably not much), but anyways:
My utmost respect.

That wasn't the point, but thank you.

 

[kensuf]

I agree with you here for the most part. We see the same type of response in aviation initially. Everyone wants to know what happened right away. Because of course they do. They're probably going out flying that night. The difference is that you can say "just wait for the SIB and AIB to release their findings" and it calms some those impulses because people know the facts are coming. Even if it was 100% poor judgement, "what kind of idiot would do that" type stuff, the facts are all coming out.

All too often, we hear about a diving fatality and never get a comprehensive report or even structured details. It leaves people with questions. Do we need to be told yet again that 300 ft on air or taking a half dozen blind jumps is bad? No. Does it hurt to be reminded of the consequences? Definitely not. I think there's a need for more structure and publicized formal reports in accident analysis. The impulse to want the details right away will never go away. But if people know the key takeaways are coming, it'll temper those reactions.

Fair point.

During my first recovery there was a person posting on Facebook "live from the scene" -- he got a lot of facts wrong and it turned into a $h!t show. This is a beer discussion, you coming over for Thanksgiving?

 

[John the Pom]

In 200 dives off Bonaire, I have my share of solo dives. Heresy, I have never dived with a redundant gas source. Many of my dives are reasonably shallow, but I have been down to recreational limits, and a bit below. No excuse, I have been solo diving for quite a long time and have been SDI Solo Diver certified since 2013. On my last visit to Bonaire, I was doing a solo dive at about 70-80 feet on Bari Reef. A woman who I had met on the pier, who lived on Bonaire, was below me, at the bottom of the reef, for the 1st half of my dive. She must have been at around 130 feet. Solo diving on Bonaire is quite common, not that it has anything to do with Fiona Sharp

If someone does the training but doesn't put it into practise, then I guess whether or not they've done the training is irrelevant. We all tend to fall into bad habits, and sometimes a bit of a scare can serve as a healthy reminder. Unfortunately, if you are diving well outside the safe envelope, a bit of a scare can be enough to finish you off...

 

[The Chairman]

And we've collectively agreed as a community that it's more important to know everything in the interest of safety than it is to hide facts in a pointless attempt to protect someone's reputation at the expense of possibly preventing future accidents. We have a huge problem adopting this kind of attitude in the cave community and it's going to get more people killed.

Incredibly well put. Thanks.

What I fund lamentable is the presumption that anybody with information should rush right out and post it on Scubaboard.

I don't think the word "rush" was ever used. Neither was "right now" or a number of other terms conveying an immediacy. SB happens to be the largest forum for divers, so here would be a great place to inform others about how to stay alive. However, anywhere would be great... but we don't see that. We see people entrenched in keeping secrets from others and telling us we have no right to know.

Yet, people were demanding answers

Quite often, simply asking a question is seen as "demanding answers" from those involved in a recovery. I remember the event at Eagle's Nest well and I was accused of demanding answers when I had simply posed a question. I read and reread my question and never saw a demand. Perhaps, the emotional nature of the recovery made people read more into my question than what was there? Ken, you know I respect you and probably reccomend you more than anyone else for Cavern through Cave. I just don't see demands being made when a simple question is asked.

Wow, how quickly things get escalated and misinterpreted.

Lots of international divers here and English is not their first language.

 

[Colliam7]

On my last several trips to Bonaire I had a number of people tell me "you aren't allowed to solo dive here!" at Buddy Dive. Even during Tek Week people would still try to tell me it's not allowed.

Wow, that is a bit disconcerting. I have never had that experience at Buddy, diving recreational singles, or doubles with bottles. But, I have not been there the past two years.

I am curious - were these 'staff' people, or just other divers that told you that?

If the resort has decided to discourage the practice from their dock, I'll respect that. I'll just go somewhere more fun!

Yeah, that's the beauty of Bonaire. It would really be disappointing, though, if there really has been a policy shift at Buddy. The reason that I always stay at Buddy, is the convenience of diving on the house reef - with others, AND BY MYSELF.

The problem with people demanding answers will never go away. We will never definitively know exactly what the cause of this accident was in its entirety. We might be able to piece together what we think is the most likely scenario. I have read 2 different diluents mentioned, but not one that I'd feel safe using at 300'. The final determination in most dive related deaths is drowning, what we will never know is the exact cause. The most important lesson we can learn from most of these incidents is that we need to remember that when we're diving, we're in a hostile environment, one that requires equipment to sustain life, and we need to be diligent in the use and maintenance of that equipment.

VERY WELL STATED!

 

[boulderjohn]

And we've collectively agreed as a community that it's more important to know everything in the interest of safety than it is to hide facts in a pointless attempt to protect someone's reputation at the expense of possibly preventing future accidents. We have a huge problem adopting this kind of attitude in the cave community and it's going to get more people killed.

The National Speleological Society (NSS) publishes descriptions of accidents and incidents involving caving, including cave diving. I am involved with the writing of many of the cave diving descriptions, and in doing so I frequently have to do investigations to determine what actually happened to the best of people's knowledge. In most cases, everyone involved is very helpful--extremely so. It is not, however, always the case. In some cases, I can tell people are withholding information or flat out lying to me in order to prevent the publication of information embarrassing to themselves or to others. It puts me in a real bind.

In one (fortunately non-fatal) near-miss incident, there was a significant dispute as to what happened at one point in the incident. People published conflicting accounts in different media sources. I interviewed the key people involved and got the two different stories directly from the only two people who were truly there. When the stories are published, I have to identify sources, and I have to have their permission to do so. I was pretty sure Source A was telling the truth, and I was pretty sure Source B (the victim) was lying about the disputed portion of the incident, but Source B told me he would not allow anything he said to be used if I included Source A's information. Since without Source B's story, we really had no story at all, we made the decision to leave out the disputed part of the incident entirely. While technically that meant we were not taking sides in the dispute, the effect was exactly what Source B (who I believe was lying) wanted.

There have also been cases where I think the withholding of information or the inaccurate descriptions were to avoid possible legal action. If you think you are going to be sued or prosecuted if you tell the truth, you have a powerful incentive to avoid that truth. That then brings an incentive to me as the reporter to avoid writing what I believe to be true in such a dispute, since I could then become unhappily involved in the legal proceedings. It makes things very tricky for me, and I have to use good judgment about what is published. That is the reason for some of the plain vanilla and non-informative publications of information.

 

[Storker]

That wasn't the point

I know. I still wanted to say it.