Article: Don't Worry - It Will Be OK

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Just a reminder as we are heading into warmer weather and more divers will be planning trips.
 
As I am packing my gear tonight for our first shop trip to the quarry, I was thinking about Jennifer and her experiences as I will be working with OW students as a DiveMaster this weekend. I just passed all of my certification requirements so this is the first official trip for me. It has been a goal of mine since Jen's accident to help new divers gain experience safely.
Happy summer and stay safe! Practice the skills you have and learn new ones!
 
Thinking about Jennifer and the lessons to be learned from her accident this evening.
 
Winter is a great time to refresh skills in the pool!
 
It's been 8 years since Jennifer's accident - we just came back from a trip to dive in memory of Jennifer. She is always in my thoughts when I am diving!

Please stay safe this summer! Refresh your skills, take some new training, speak up if you see something that's not safe, keep diving and get your gear serviced :)
 
The link on the story does not work for me. I tried many times. My apologies.
God bless you and her.
Will wait for response.
 
It probably got messed up when they upgraded the site. I've been trying to find it and can't so maybe Bob can repost it in the new articles section and fix the link on his original post.
 
I will wait. I did google it with a few key words and it did not come up.
Thank you again.
 
Here's the original article - part 1
In Memory of Jennifer

by Bob Bailey and Julie Simonds

On a beautiful Saturday morning in July 2007, 25-year old Jennifer Coyne boarded a charter boat for a dive in the San Juan Islands. Their destination that day was a dive site off the west coast of Lummi Island. This was to be Jennifer’s first dive after having been certified nearly two months earlier.

It was the culmination of a dream that began when Jennifer enrolled in a Discover Scuba class along with her sister and mother in Hawaii. That dream followed Jennifer home to Seattle, where two years later she enrolled in and completed her Open Water certification. A month after completing her class, while visiting North Carolina with her sister, Jennifer had attempted to schedule a dive. But the weather and Jennifer’s lack of experience caused the dive shop to decide to call off the dive.

Upon returning home, Jennifer contacted the shop that had certified her, anxious to get in a dive. They told her about an upcoming dive charter to a place called Lummi Rocks, and assured her that the dives were within her ability. When she said she didn’t have a dive buddy, they told her she would be paired up with someone on the boat. She expressed reservations about the fact that all of her training dives had been from shore, and that this would be her first boat dive. She was assured that there would be a staff member on board and available if she needed help. With those assurances, Jennifer decided to join the trip.

The Dive
On the way to the dive site, Jennifer was introduced to her dive buddy. John had been certified in 2000, had a total of 18 dives, and had not been diving in over a year. Furthermore, almost all of John’s prior 18 dives had been in the Caribbean. His last cold water dive was nearly seven years prior to this trip.

As the boat approached the dive site, both Jennifer and John expressed some reservations about the dive when they learned that the shop representative was an instructor who would be working with an Advanced Open Water student rather than diving with the two of them, as she had believed from the dive shop’s earlier assurances. But they were told not to worry about it, that everything would be fine. Once on site, signs of nervousness were evident. Jennifer forgot to turn on her air. John complained about a BCD that was too tight, making it hard for him to breathe. Once in the water, Jennifer was not able to descend, and the boat crew slipped some additional weight into her BCD pockets. By the time that her weighting had been sorted out everyone else had started their dive, and so finally she and John were able to begin their descent.

As is typical in the San Juan Islands in July, the upper layer of water was rich with plankton, creating a bloom that made it difficult to see. They overcame their sense of anxiousness by giving each other the OK sign repeatedly as they were descending. At a depth of about 30 feet the visibility began clearing up, although it was dark and neither one of them had brought a light. John signaled that they should move across the sloping bottom toward some lights that they saw in the distance.

About 10 minutes into the dive John turned to look at Jennifer, who had been swimming slightly behind him, and realized that she was not there. Turning to look for her, he saw someone in the dimness ahead and swam in that direction. As he approached, he saw that it was Jennifer. He later said he realized she was unconscious, but doesn’t recall whether or not she had her regulator in her mouth. Grabbing her by her BCD, he attempted swimming to the surface. John was kicking hard, but not making any progress toward the surface. He did not think to release her weights or inflate her BCD, and in a very short time the exertion was taking a severe toll. John was feeling as though he couldn’t get enough air through his regulator, and he felt the onset of panic. At this point he released Jennifer and headed for the surface. On the way to the surface, John succumbed to panic and spit out his regulator. He hit the surface gasping and choking, completely unable to call for help. The captain and mate noticed him struggling and motored over to pick him up. Unable to talk or breathe, John kept pointing down.

Once the captain realized there was a problem, he initiated a recall by tapping on the boat ladder with a hammer. However, not all divers responded to the call promptly, and some decided to do a safety stop before surfacing. Precious minutes were lost until someone with rescue training was able to initiate a search for the missing diver.

Jennifer was located in approximately 60 feet of water by the instructor and another diver who was rescue certified. Once located, they were unable to get her buoyant enough by releasing her weight belt, and her BCD was not inflating. The instructor released his own weights in order to be buoyant enough to swim with her to the surface. Once on the surface and back on the boat, CPR was started. The Coast Guard had by then dispatched a boat to transfer Jennifer to shore where EMS was waiting. Jennifer’s heart was started in the ambulance on the way to St. Joseph hospital in Bellingham, where she was placed on full life support in the intensive care unit.

Jennifer never regained consciousness. Three days after the accident, her parents made the decision to remove her from life support when the doctors determined that she would never have enough brain function to breathe on her own. She died on July 24, 2007.
 
Original article - part 2
Analysis
Dive accidents are usually difficult to analyze, because the facts of what occurred often die with the victim. In this case, much is known about the events leading up to Jennifer’s death. And as is often the case, several significant factors contributed to the outcome.

Lack of Experience
Neither Jennifer nor John was adequately experienced for this dive. Jennifer had never done an unsupervised dive, nor had she previously dived from a boat. She was relying on someone else to guide her through the process. John had minimal experience over a prolonged period, and had not dived in cold water for several years. Neither diver had adequate experience to recognize the onset of the problems they would encounter, so they were unprepared to deal with those problems when they occurred.

Inadequate Training
An Open Water certification qualifies you to dive in the conditions in which you were trained. All of Jennifer’s training dives had been from shore. John’s initial training had occurred in northern California, and he had only done 14 subsequent dives in the previous seven years … all of which had been supervised dives in warm, tropical conditions. He had not been diving at all for more than a year, and had not taken any follow-on training or refresher classes to maintain his skills. Both divers were diving beyond their level of training.

Equipment Issues
Both divers were using rental equipment that was either poor fitting or poorly functioning. John had complained prior to the dive that his BCD was too tight and constricted his ability to breathe. When Jennifer’s regulator was tested after the accident it was determined to be performing well below the manufacturer’s specifications. An inability to breathe properly can result in a carbon dioxide buildup that could have led to both Jennifer’s unconsciousness and John’s sense of panic as he attempted to bring her to the surface.

Additionally, Jennifer’s BCD was found to have a bent inflator valve, which allowed the BCD bladder to fill with water. This could account for why the rescuers were not able to get her buoyant enough to bring her to the surface.

Trust Issues
Neither Jennifer nor John had any framework in which to evaluate whether the dive fell within the scope of their competence. Both divers were relying on someone else’s opinion that the dive was appropriate, and despite their misgivings, that everything would be “okay”. Jennifer lacked the experience to know what questions to ask, and so she trusted the dive shop employee who sold her the charter and told her not to worry. John expressed misgivings about his equipment prior to the dive, as well as his concern about a lack of supervision. Despite this, he trusted the instructor who told him it would get better once they were underwater. In both cases, each of the two divers decided to go ahead with the dive despite their own apprehensions.

Conclusions
There were many opportunities for this accident to have had a better outcome. Those opportunities began with Jennifer’s training. Jennifer had enrolled in an eLearning program, and while there are many merits to such programs, it depends on how they are taught. When eLearning is used to complement classroom experience, it helps the student come to class prepared with a better understanding of the academic material, and it gives instructors time to cover topics they feel are really important in greater depth. However, when eLearning is used as a substitute for class time, it significantly reduces the opportunities for students to interact in a way that helps put “real-world” context into the curriculum. More emphasis needs to be placed on making sure that students come out of these programs with a well-grounded understanding of the material, and what the course is intended to prepare them for.

The dive shop could have told Jennifer that this particular dive was not suitable for someone as inexperienced as she was. A boat dive in the San Juan Islands is by no means an appropriate choice for a diver’s first post Open Water dive, particularly with another inexperienced diver. It is even less so when a boat dive was not part of her initial training. The dive shop could have used it as an opportunity to sell Jennifer additional training, or recommend that she hire a private guide to accompany her on the dive.

There is tremendous pressure on dive operations to sell trips and equipment in order to stay in business. But safety must always be the ultimate factor in any transaction. New divers simply don’t know what questions to ask or where to set the bar for defining acceptable risk. A new diver is not in a position to make good decisions about something they’ve never experienced. They must rely on the advice of experienced mentors and dive professionals to develop and maintain appropriate safety guidelines.

More care in the maintenance of the rental equipment could have reduced the potential for stress-induced behavior on both John and Jennifer’s part. An experienced diver may be able to get by with a regulator that’s not breathing well. A new diver, on the other hand, will be putting significantly more effort into the dive, and putting more stress on the performance of the regulator. A poorly-functioning regulator causes a buildup of carbon dioxide in a diver’s body. This leads to a feeling of “I can’t get enough air”, and can cause a diver to panic or even pass out. Rental equipment is used frequently, and in ways that make it difficult for the shop technician to maintain properly. Whenever rental equipment is used, it should always be properly fitted and tested by the diver prior to leaving the dive shop. One should always approach rental equipment with the attitude that the last person who used it might have had a problem with the gear and failed to mention it to the shop staff when the equipment was returned. Reliance on rental equipment for diver safety places the diver in a position of trusting that the dive shop is maintaining the equipment properly. New divers are not usually trained in how to evaluate rental gear to assure that it is functioning as it should.

Perhaps the biggest issue was the buddy team. Placing two inexperienced divers together in conditions that are unfamiliar to them is rarely a good idea. Add to that a plankton layer that had reduced the visibility, and the shop representative or boat crew could have advised an obviously nervous pair of divers that conditions were not advisable for someone at their experience level. It’s a hard call to make, considering that they had paid for the dive, rented the gear, and made the trip. But making the decision that conditions were above their training, experience and comfort level would, in this case, have saved a life.

There were many opportunities for either Jennifer or John to have decided to call the dive. Granted that new divers may not have adequate background to anticipate the potential for an accident, but every diver needs to have ingrained in them the notion that if something feels wrong, don’t get in the water until you’ve addressed why you feel that way. Divers must be honest with themselves about their ability to do any dive safely. If you’ve never experienced something before, don’t assume that it’ll be OK to get that experience in the company of someone else who has also never experienced it. Yes, you’ve paid the money … and yes, you’ve made the effort … and yes, you really want to dive … but if it feels wrong – it probably is wrong. Take responsibility for your dive. You are the person who is primarily responsible for your safety. Whenever you get a feeling that something about the dive isn’t right, listen to your feeling … it’s trying to keep you alive. A good adage to live by is that problems on the surface never get any better once you submerge.

And finally, there was a difference in perspective between the dive leaders and the inexperienced divers. Neither John nor Jennifer recognized that this dive was inappropriate for their skill level, but apparently neither did the dive shop personnel or the boat crew. To an experienced diver, a site may seem easy and suitable for all skill levels … but that might not be the case for someone with little to no experience. Small issues that may seem simple and easily resolved for the experienced diver may seem stressful or insurmountable to the new diver.

The takeaway from this accident may have more to do with questions than with answers. How much do reassurances … however well intentioned … play a pivotal role in accidents involving new divers? How often do those of us who have done these dives many times tell the new diver who is showing signs of anxiety that “it will be okay”? And how often are we making a mistake by doing so?

Authors
Bob Bailey is a NAUI instructor in the Puget Sound area.
Julie Simonds is the mother of Jennifer Coyne.
 
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