catherine96821:
Has happened. Delivery van parked in back of dive store with motor running, electric compressor running. Guess what.
3 Divers lost on the Spiegel Grove
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Has happened. Delivery van parked in back of dive store with motor running, electric compressor running. Guess what.
catherine96821:
CO isn't the only thing that can end up in breathing gas contaminating it. Most of the the other contaminants are much more difficult to detect.
mike_s:
I sure am glad everything is black and white these days. . .
mike_s
Contributor
catherine96821:
actually if a gas/diesel compressor, you don't even need the van.
H2Andy
Contributor
Buoyant1:
yes
most diving accidents are
like Rick says, this should really put to rest the strobe v. line debate ... but it won't
Missdirected:
Miss, where are you getting this information from? as far as i know, penetration dives are allowed in the Spiegel Grove, and this is a particulalry popular passage to explore (up to the engine room)
i haven't seen anything to indicate this was a marked-off area they were diving in
Man, these stories really scare the hell out of me! I’m already afraid of wreck dives even from the outside. I can’t imagine the discipline and concentration needed to go inside a sunken ship, poke around awhile (carefully of course), and then methodically exit the way you came in.
I am a guy routinely confused on upright floating ships with lights and gangway markers. The notion of going into a dark, twisted mass of metal that is resting sideways or standing upright at say 30 meters scares the hell out of me. Even with a well-studied map, I would be so concerned about kicking up a mess of settlement, losing my way in a confused lapse of attention, slicing a hose on jagged pieces because I let my buoyancy slip for a second, etc. that the dive would be less than enjoyable and one I would be happy to end.
I realize this is probably an irrational fear to most experienced penetration divers.
How does one get to a level of confidence with these types of dives without ever having to push the envelope at various stages along the learning curve? To me and my inexperience, this doesn’t seem possible without taking at least incremental risks so that one can graduate to harder wreck dives. I could easily see a few well trained individuals thinking about skipping an inconvenient step or two along the way. The process of wreck dives and perhaps the thrill one gets in doing them seems rife with the potential for enticement into questionable decision making. Maybe that’s just diving in general.
The horror these guys must have endured when they realized they were stuck inside “somewhere”, out of air, and going to die. I can’t imagine. I don’t want to imagine.
I am so sorry for their families…
Cheers!
I am a guy routinely confused on upright floating ships with lights and gangway markers. The notion of going into a dark, twisted mass of metal that is resting sideways or standing upright at say 30 meters scares the hell out of me. Even with a well-studied map, I would be so concerned about kicking up a mess of settlement, losing my way in a confused lapse of attention, slicing a hose on jagged pieces because I let my buoyancy slip for a second, etc. that the dive would be less than enjoyable and one I would be happy to end.
I realize this is probably an irrational fear to most experienced penetration divers.
How does one get to a level of confidence with these types of dives without ever having to push the envelope at various stages along the learning curve? To me and my inexperience, this doesn’t seem possible without taking at least incremental risks so that one can graduate to harder wreck dives. I could easily see a few well trained individuals thinking about skipping an inconvenient step or two along the way. The process of wreck dives and perhaps the thrill one gets in doing them seems rife with the potential for enticement into questionable decision making. Maybe that’s just diving in general.
The horror these guys must have endured when they realized they were stuck inside “somewhere”, out of air, and going to die. I can’t imagine. I don’t want to imagine.
I am so sorry for their families…
Cheers!
DennisS
Contributor
I routinely get turned around on upright dry ships. Why anyone would want to go into the hull of a completely stripped out ship is beyond me. There's nothing there but steel bulkheads.
Missdirected
Contributor
H2Andy:
I know divers penetrate the wreck all the time. However, my understanding was that this particular area was one that had initially been blocked off. Have we found that to be untrue? If so my apologies and please correct me. I thought at this point that still held true. No?
mike_s
Contributor
It appears they were in a "pump room" from this report.
(I've replaced names with ***** per TOS of the forum).
A shower of silt believed to have doomed 3 divers
Monday, March 19, 2007
BY LAURA JOHNSTON AND CARLY ROTHMAN
Star-Ledger Staff
Swirling silt likely blinded three New Jersey divers and blocked their exit from the pump room of a sunken Navy ship, officials and scuba experts said yesterday.
The three men, ****** ******** and ****** ********of Westfield and ****** ******** of Chatham Borough, died Friday after running out of air in the belly of the USS Spiegel Grove, 134 feet underwater, six miles east of Key Largo, Fla. A fourth diver, ****** ******** of Westfield, escaped.
"Visibility went to zero," said Tom Doherty of Old Bridge, a dive instructor who knew all four men and spoke with ****** after the accident. ******** managed by feel, literally, to find the hatch opening in the floor and drop through it. That's how he survived."
Although the Monroe County Sheriff's Department originally reported ******** stayed outside the wreck while his friends explored the labyrinth within, officials said yesterday all four divers swam to the pump room, a particularly dangerous part of the ship that was supposed to be sealed shut.
According to the sheriff's department, ******** said the divers weren't sure where they were, but he thought he knew the right direction. As he ran low on air in his tank, he tried to tell the others which way to go, but they didn't listen.
"He went one way and they went the other," Detective Mark Coleman said. "He lived because he went the right way and got out."
The Spiegel Grove, a 510-foot Navy landing ship dock, was sunk five years ago as an artificial reef and diving attraction. Each year an estimated tens of thousands of divers visit the wreck, though only the most experienced venture inside, where intense dark and strong currents can be disorienting.
The men dove the wreck about five other times, including on Thursday, when they also explored the pump room, friends said. They were experts, and all except Coughlin were instructors.
******** , 52, is a prominent Union County attorney and former Union Township municipal court judge.
******** , 55, a karate instructor and father of two grown children, was co-owner of the Carpet Mill outlet in East Hanover. ******** , 51, had battled back from homelessness and alcoholism to amass significant property holdings in New Jersey and elsewhere, said his friend, Bob Moran. And ******** , 38, had two young sons and worked as a financial adviser for Smith Barney in Roseland
"The dive friends, everyone kind of came from different backgrounds and really got along well," said ******** 's wife, Regina. "They were older than he was, but they really bonded together."
Drawing the men -- who planned their trip in November -- were 166 species of fish, including barracudas and bull sharks, and the history of the ship, which was commissioned in 1956 and once carried Navy amphibious craft to Cold War hot spots.
"It's a thrill," said Tony Donetz of Flemington, who dove at Spiegel Grove last year with all four men. "You never know ... what's going to be around that corner. It could be nothing. It could be some nice fish. It could be a shark. That's why you're exploring."
******** declined yesterday to speak to reporters. But friends in New Jersey, divers with whom he had made dozens of trips, spoke with ******** .
"He was just hysterical," said ******** ******** , ******** ******** wife. "I said, 'You did everything you could do.'"
******** had grabbed ******** by the hand, friends said. But when ******** tried to help another friend, he lost his grip.
"He (******** ) lost more than just a dive buddy," said Jim Flanagan, president of the Ocean Wreck Divers of New Jersey. "He lost his best friend."
The whole scary ordeal must have taken place about 20 minutes into the men's dive, said Doherty, explaining a tank could hold about 20 to 25 minutes of air at that depth.
The men had brought extra "stage tanks" with them, but left them closer to the entrance, unreachable once the curtain of silt descended, sheriff's officials said. And they didn't have dive reels -- spools of line tied to the dive entrance so divers can find their way back.
"It doesn't take very much movement to kick that silt up and cause problems with your ability to see," Coleman said. "Without a line to follow out and with lots of silt in the water, it would have been virtually impossible for them to find their way out of the wreck."
The men did set up strobe lights at the entrance and exit to each room, separated by narrow passages, friends said.
Small, high-intensity lights, they can be dropped "like laying bread crumbs" as divers move through a wreck, said R. J. Hartman, owner of the Treasure Cove dive shop in Westfield that brought the men together.
But in the silt -- sand stirred up from the ground and rust raining down from above -- the strobe lights were not enough. Silt can take up to an hour to clear, even outside of wrecks, Doherty said.
Sheriff's officials also contend the men did not have a dive plan, something their friends dispute. Donetz said he spoke with Stanley last Monday and knew their plan, which included exploring the pump room.
The bodies of ******** and ******** were brought to the surface Saturday after a team of rescue divers found them.
Two other divers had brought ******** s body to the surface on Friday. A boat from the Atlantis Dive Shop, of Key West, Fla., was out by the Scuba-do, the vessel which had taken the four Jersey friends out to the wreck, Atlantis co-owner Spencer Slate said yesterday.
The two divers on his 40-foot commercial boat the Starfish Enterprise, then went into the water, Slate said, but they were not immediately aware of the tragedy unfolding.
The divers told Slate they were swimming along the left side of the Spiegel Grove's deck, when they came upon ******** , who wasn't moving. It took them only a minute to surface with ******** , and a Coast Guard boat was there to take him away.
"He had about made it, he was almost in open water," Slate said. "He must've just blacked out from exhaustion. He was just 70 feet from the surface."
Autopsies were scheduled for yesterday, but results were not available. The sheriff's office investigation is ongoing.
"It's a terrible tragedy," Doherty said. "I don't think we'll ever clearly understand what happened."
Staff writers Suleman Din, Ralph Ortega and Alexi Friedman contributed to this report.
(I've replaced names with ***** per TOS of the forum).
A shower of silt believed to have doomed 3 divers
Monday, March 19, 2007
BY LAURA JOHNSTON AND CARLY ROTHMAN
Star-Ledger Staff
Swirling silt likely blinded three New Jersey divers and blocked their exit from the pump room of a sunken Navy ship, officials and scuba experts said yesterday.
The three men, ****** ******** and ****** ********of Westfield and ****** ******** of Chatham Borough, died Friday after running out of air in the belly of the USS Spiegel Grove, 134 feet underwater, six miles east of Key Largo, Fla. A fourth diver, ****** ******** of Westfield, escaped.
"Visibility went to zero," said Tom Doherty of Old Bridge, a dive instructor who knew all four men and spoke with ****** after the accident. ******** managed by feel, literally, to find the hatch opening in the floor and drop through it. That's how he survived."
Although the Monroe County Sheriff's Department originally reported ******** stayed outside the wreck while his friends explored the labyrinth within, officials said yesterday all four divers swam to the pump room, a particularly dangerous part of the ship that was supposed to be sealed shut.
According to the sheriff's department, ******** said the divers weren't sure where they were, but he thought he knew the right direction. As he ran low on air in his tank, he tried to tell the others which way to go, but they didn't listen.
"He went one way and they went the other," Detective Mark Coleman said. "He lived because he went the right way and got out."
The Spiegel Grove, a 510-foot Navy landing ship dock, was sunk five years ago as an artificial reef and diving attraction. Each year an estimated tens of thousands of divers visit the wreck, though only the most experienced venture inside, where intense dark and strong currents can be disorienting.
The men dove the wreck about five other times, including on Thursday, when they also explored the pump room, friends said. They were experts, and all except Coughlin were instructors.
******** , 52, is a prominent Union County attorney and former Union Township municipal court judge.
******** , 55, a karate instructor and father of two grown children, was co-owner of the Carpet Mill outlet in East Hanover. ******** , 51, had battled back from homelessness and alcoholism to amass significant property holdings in New Jersey and elsewhere, said his friend, Bob Moran. And ******** , 38, had two young sons and worked as a financial adviser for Smith Barney in Roseland
"The dive friends, everyone kind of came from different backgrounds and really got along well," said ******** 's wife, Regina. "They were older than he was, but they really bonded together."
Drawing the men -- who planned their trip in November -- were 166 species of fish, including barracudas and bull sharks, and the history of the ship, which was commissioned in 1956 and once carried Navy amphibious craft to Cold War hot spots.
"It's a thrill," said Tony Donetz of Flemington, who dove at Spiegel Grove last year with all four men. "You never know ... what's going to be around that corner. It could be nothing. It could be some nice fish. It could be a shark. That's why you're exploring."
******** declined yesterday to speak to reporters. But friends in New Jersey, divers with whom he had made dozens of trips, spoke with ******** .
"He was just hysterical," said ******** ******** , ******** ******** wife. "I said, 'You did everything you could do.'"
******** had grabbed ******** by the hand, friends said. But when ******** tried to help another friend, he lost his grip.
"He (******** ) lost more than just a dive buddy," said Jim Flanagan, president of the Ocean Wreck Divers of New Jersey. "He lost his best friend."
The whole scary ordeal must have taken place about 20 minutes into the men's dive, said Doherty, explaining a tank could hold about 20 to 25 minutes of air at that depth.
The men had brought extra "stage tanks" with them, but left them closer to the entrance, unreachable once the curtain of silt descended, sheriff's officials said. And they didn't have dive reels -- spools of line tied to the dive entrance so divers can find their way back.
"It doesn't take very much movement to kick that silt up and cause problems with your ability to see," Coleman said. "Without a line to follow out and with lots of silt in the water, it would have been virtually impossible for them to find their way out of the wreck."
The men did set up strobe lights at the entrance and exit to each room, separated by narrow passages, friends said.
Small, high-intensity lights, they can be dropped "like laying bread crumbs" as divers move through a wreck, said R. J. Hartman, owner of the Treasure Cove dive shop in Westfield that brought the men together.
But in the silt -- sand stirred up from the ground and rust raining down from above -- the strobe lights were not enough. Silt can take up to an hour to clear, even outside of wrecks, Doherty said.
Sheriff's officials also contend the men did not have a dive plan, something their friends dispute. Donetz said he spoke with Stanley last Monday and knew their plan, which included exploring the pump room.
The bodies of ******** and ******** were brought to the surface Saturday after a team of rescue divers found them.
Two other divers had brought ******** s body to the surface on Friday. A boat from the Atlantis Dive Shop, of Key West, Fla., was out by the Scuba-do, the vessel which had taken the four Jersey friends out to the wreck, Atlantis co-owner Spencer Slate said yesterday.
The two divers on his 40-foot commercial boat the Starfish Enterprise, then went into the water, Slate said, but they were not immediately aware of the tragedy unfolding.
The divers told Slate they were swimming along the left side of the Spiegel Grove's deck, when they came upon ******** , who wasn't moving. It took them only a minute to surface with ******** , and a Coast Guard boat was there to take him away.
"He had about made it, he was almost in open water," Slate said. "He must've just blacked out from exhaustion. He was just 70 feet from the surface."
Autopsies were scheduled for yesterday, but results were not available. The sheriff's office investigation is ongoing.
"It's a terrible tragedy," Doherty said. "I don't think we'll ever clearly understand what happened."
Staff writers Suleman Din, Ralph Ortega and Alexi Friedman contributed to this report.
lamont
Contributor
catherine96821:
Ideally they should have split up into two teams of two and ran two lines, but not in the same area of the ship and with totally different objectives. With three divers you would normally only run one line.
When it comes to laying the line the divers should have been trained to avoid creating line traps other techniques to minimize the chances of entanglement or line cuts. If the line was cut they should have been trained to not reel it in, but to drop the reel and trace the line back to the cut, and then do a lost-line search. If they became entangled, silted out and/or the line was cut they should have at least had twice the gas to get out as they had to get in.
When we did our first penetration of the saskatechewan and cape breton in january (the cape breton seems pretty comparable to the spigel grove), we had full double-130s so we had almost 3.5 times as much gas on our backs, we dove 1/6ths, limited our penetration to 10 mins going in, and should have had over an hour to deal with any cluster we ran into. We also stayed on one of the upper decks and didn't go crawling around inside the siltier bowels of the ship, so that even though we tried our hardest to silt it out in one room we never really lost visibility. We were also using 30/30 so there was no fog of narcosis at all...
Just having started doing these kinds of dives, it definitely reinforces the need to go very slow and build up experience with big fat safety margins...
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