Accident & Incident Discussion - Northernone - aka Cameron Donaldson

[mtngoat2674]

Sadly enough, without meaning to be morbid, thats what we / I thought of folks like Sheck Exley, Rob Palmer, Steve Berman, etc, etc; and several of my closer friends, unfortuately. Bad things happen to good people / divers, again, unfortunately.

Yeah. I can understand that too.

 

[2airishuman]

It is my observation that Lynne Flaherty died in a diving accident involving unusually strong currents about 3-4 years ago. She was an experienced diver and highly regarded member of these boards.

I wonder whether the risks of diving in strong currents are well understood.

 

[2airishuman]

Some collected posts that may provide insight into his way of thinking about things.

As a child I wanted to dive more often and in worse conditions than anyone I knew.

So I dove alone once I didn't need someone topside running the bellows on our homemade surface supply rig.

Moving another 1200 km north to the Arctic ocean also ingrained this childhood belief...

Until I started making new divers out of anyone interested.

Cameron

I dove alone before being trained.

This is why I am fairly consistent about the need for training (mentorship, a course etc) of some kind for safely solo diving.

Reinventing the wheel while risking drowning by cascading failures I didn't see coming isn't the method of learning I'd like to suggest to others.

... In full disclosure, I still don't have a solo card. But I also don't have anyone to show it to.

Murphy is a willing dive buddy.

Cameron

On longer dives I carry a water bladder (with water in it, not to be confused with my SM bcd) some other's use water bottles in pockets. Drinking underwater feels odd, blowing into the container adds air which displaces the liquid into your mouth. Doable in both hard or soft containers. (Note buoyancy shift)

That said, I'm not prepared for long term being lost at sea as part of my dive planning given my environment. If I was a little more concerned I'd love up on radio/satphone/cellphone.

See Blackout. Currents. Rebreather for his first-person report of a near miss, quite possibly at the same location as the accident that led to this thread. Excerpt:

...
I called a rebreather dive yesterday due to downwellings and rip currents during a warm water wall drift dive. In a cascade of inadequate contingency planning, poor decisions and equipment failure I had a near miss.

...
Swimming from shore out to the wall (a routine dive site 10-20 minutes away depending on my ardure) I noticed eddies and unusual stirred up sediments but the current wasn't unusually strong so I continued my decent to 150ft. Upon nearing my target depth a down current strengthened and it took hard finning to find and maintain shelter on the wall.

I aborted the dive and with great effort ascended to top of the wall at 90 feet keeping close to the wall finning hard . Once the top of the wall I was unable to swim against the rip current. (At this point I flooded my backup deco rebreather by opening the dsv inadvertently.) I took shelter and decided to wait out the current (typically they don't last long) while slowly making my way inland 40 minutes later the current was not stopping. I had 30 minutes accelerated deco obligation according to the x1. On the sandy bottom I hand over hand dragged myself.
....
Cameron

 

[markmud]

That said, I think discussing the perils of diving solo in a volatile high current area is worthwhile.

Hi mtngoat2674,

Thanks for expressing my point very well. I tried, you nailed it.

May I add, 1) diving in a volatile high current area, 2) with known down currents, 3) with an open sea beyond, whether solo or not, 4) without a boat and crew above, is a worthwhile discussion.

I've never had a boat sink out from under me, but I've seen lots of boats I wouldn't get on that later sank.....

Hi Wookie,

As a former professional mariner and marine surveyor, I have walked in those shoes.

and that means never falling prey to the trap of complacency.

That's my point--complacency. Successfully doing a dive 25 times that was "pushing the envelope" of known protocol, or exceeding the standard in the industry, and calling it normal, is complacency.

The normalization of deviance. I believe some of the posters above are in that category.

I am hoping that @boulderjohn's solo tec dives were in benign conditions. I hope Kay Dee's deviance from tec diving norms were on a beautiful calm ocean with no swirling currents below. A more controlled environment.

I have been stuck in a swirling river. Held down by undertow. I saved my head by covering up with my arms. My arm was bruised and ripped because of the impact with the boulder. The boulder did not feel a thing. That crystal clear water did not care.

5 to 6 knots of current is fast. Water is dense. Water is powerful.

I stand by my statements even though I don't have your experience. I have been involved with the normalization of deviance in other endeavors. I know it when I see it. It is human nature.

Have you normalized your deviances from technical diving safety standards?

I have hundreds of thousands of miles logged on the oceans. Respect it, or lose.

markm

 

[markmud]

I wonder whether the risks of diving in strong currents are well understood.

I don't think so. But, I am not a technical diver.

m
PS: Having piloted vessels around Cape Flattery in the winter, summer, fog, rain, and etc., I still respect her. I was always on the bridge, no matter how good the mate who had the conn.

 

[Shasta_man]

<<strong current risks>> I'd suggest it's well understood to be risky but what you can do about it is what is limited.

 

[boulderjohn]

There are expected strong currents, and a skilled and experienced diver knows how to handle them.

Then there are the "Holy crap! What just happened?" currents. In that case, all bets are off.

That is what happened to Lynne Flaherty. She and her husband were progressing along as planned, and then suddenly they were blown around. When that ended, the two were separated by a fair amount, but both seemed to be OK. Peter looked away from her for a minute to to do something, and when he looked back, she was gone. Those were two very experienced and very, very careful divers.

Many years ago a friend of mine was diving in Cozumel with her husband. They were two basic recreational divers doing a basic recreational dive off of Yucab Wall. They were in a typical, mild Cozumel current. They went low on air before the rest of the group and started ascending up the SMB line ahead of the others. Suddenly everything started to spin, and they were completely at the mercy of something like a whirlpool. They went deep, and then suddenly they were at the surface. A look at their computers showed they had been down to 100 feet. Then all the heads of the rest of their group popped to the surface. Same thing. They all went to the chamber as a precaution, but they did not have any treatment.

Such events are fortunately extremely rare, but they happen.

 

[lv2dive]

I am tech/cave diver and I am a team diver. I have never dived/dove (never know the right way to express past tense of “dive”!) solo and I don’t have any plans to do so in the future (never say never )

That being said, I do not believe that Cameron’s solo diving is reflective of significant deviance from norms of technical diving, or “pushing the envelope.” A LOT of people solo shore dive on air to 150’ in areas known for currents - maybe they don’t talk about it on ScubaBoard but a lot of people do it. It is definitely not something that I would choose to do, but it’s not that atypical.

I do agree that it is certainly worthwhile to discuss how these factors could have contributed to this incident-perhaps even more worthwhile due to the fact that IMO, what he did was not that atypical!

Hi mtngoat2674,

Thanks for expressing my point very well. I tried, you nailed it.

May I add, 1) diving in a volatile high current area, 2) with known down currents, 3) with an open sea beyond, whether solo or not, 4) without a boat and crew above, is a worthwhile discussion.



Hi Wookie,

As a former professional mariner and marine surveyor, I have walked in those shoes.



That's my point--complacency. Successfully doing a dive 25 times that was "pushing the envelope" of known protocol, or exceeding the standard in the industry, and calling it normal, is complacency.

The normalization of deviance. I believe some of the posters above are in that category.

I am hoping that @boulderjohn's solo tec dives were in benign conditions. I hope Kay Dee's deviance from tec diving norms were on a beautiful calm ocean with no swirling currents below. A more controlled environment.

I have been stuck in a swirling river. Held down by undertow. I saved my head by covering up with my arms. My arm was bruised and ripped because of the impact with the boulder. The boulder did not feel a thing. That crystal clear water did not care.

5 to 6 knots of current is fast. Water is dense. Water is powerful.

I stand by my statements even though I don't have your experience. I have been involved with the normalization of deviance in other endeavors. I know it when I see it. It is human nature.

Have you normalized your deviances from technical diving safety standards?

I have hundreds of thousands of miles logged on the oceans. Respect it, or lose.

markm

 

[Dan]

His note, below, also a good reminder for me to carry a spare ziptie in my BCD pocket. It happened to me once in a stiff current twisting my reg 90 degree and I started to swallow salt water. I immediately switched to my octo. My buddy was wondering why I was using my octo.

...A more enjoyable incident which happening some time ago was when my mouthpiece ziptie broke (no second reg) mid dive. I was the photographer in the group, I informed them of the problem and continued the dive. If I turned my head the mouthpiece left me sucking water while the liberated reg made it's getaway to the depths before dangling like a disappointed chained dog. Turns out I turn my head frequently, particularly when positioning strobes and framing people in a brisk current. A spare ziptie makes for a good dive buddy...

 

[abnfrog]

cam and I had a few conversations about the way he dived , from what I gleamed about his gear config it was at best recreational SM.....he knew a lot more about Cozumel's currents than I ever will, he did push his limits , but that was just him being him.........