Australia: Missing diver made mistakes

[DandyDon]

From: Missing diver made mistakes | Sunshine Coast News | Local News in Sunshine Coast | Sunshine Coast Daily

Sounds like he needs a scuba guardian to me...

A SWISS diver who spent three hours lost at sea last week failed to activate his personal signalling alarm, a spokesman for Scubaworld said.

The 62-year-old was swept away from his group by strong currents near HMAS Brisbane last Wednesday.

The coastguard, police and the AGL Action Rescue Helicopter Service were called in to help locate the man.

Scubaworld managing director Ian McKinnon said the incident could have been avoided had the diver followed standard procedure.

“The gentleman was experienced, in fact he had 32 recorded dives,” he said.

“But he made several vital mistakes that day.

“The first was that he lost control of his buoyancy.

“This meant he did not come to the surface at the right place.”

Secondly, he did not launch his signalling alarm, Mr McKinnon said.

“Nor did he wave his arms or a fluoro flipper to get attention.

“If he did he would have been spotted by the crew before drifting and the search would not have happened.

“Either he was poorly trained or he was not diving often.”

Mr McKinnon said it was the first incident in 31 years of operation on the Sunshine Coast.

“I can honestly say we have the finest safety training record,” he said.

“The man admitted he made an error of judgement that day.

“After returning to Switzerland he has written a letter praising staff.”

 

[Ghanguss]

Some mothers do have em'.

 

[knowone]

Thanks for that. I used to live there, and now live an hour south.

The wind must be blowing in another direction.

I don't recall seeing the signal smoke.

But then, the State does not have a Police helicipter.
So perhaps matches come under the same department.

 

[Jan Kruger]

So , he was swept away from the group by strong currents-which can happen easily.

[/QUOTThe gentleman was experienced, in fact he had 32 recorded dives,” he said.

“But he made several vital mistakes that day.

“The first was that he lost control of his buoyancy.
E]

So if you get seperated from the group and you are unable to get back to them as in this case surely you have to surface sooner rather than later- still a controlled ascent. Unless this diver did a relatively deep dive and he popped to the surface uncontrolled, i don't see the mistake in surfacing.

It is also stated that because he had bouyancy problems he surfaced in the wrong location- surely that is because of the current that swept him away ?

I remember the first time i was seperated from the diving group- the swells were so high they couldn't see me even if i had waved my arms and raised my fins ....Maybe this senior citizen was just not used to this situation and maybe the topman on the boat should have kept a better lookout for divers surfacing...

 

[TSandM]

Well, the first ridiculous thing is the idea that a diver with 32 dives is experienced.

Strong current diving off an anchored boat is not for anyone with poor buoyancy control. If you are at the opposite end of the wreck from the dive boat and end up doing an unplanned and unsignaled ascent, you can be a long way from the boat by the time you hit the surface, and even if you DO signal with your arms and voice, that may not be perceptible to the crew. This is the time to utilize everything you are carrying (and you should be carrying things for this purpose) to attract the crew's attention. But no safety gear is effective if you forget to use it.

 

[DandyDon]

Yeah, the "32 dives is experienced" comment sticks out but I don't know the wreck? If it's like the Bentwood in Key Largo waters, not much needed. Ok, from HMAS Brisbane (D 41) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, I see that it's in 30 meter water but "The top of her funnels can be seen lying just three metres below the water at low tide." I think they have pretty strict dive regs in Queensland actually but I don't know what his requirements were.

As usual, I wonder where his buddy was when he ascended alone.

 

[Jan Kruger]

It is noticable that with a number of the incidents that i have read about in this forum ,the buddy wasn't assisting - or maybe didn't see there was a problem until it was way too late ? It makes me think that we are very sheltered as far as that part of the diving is concerned ,over here .

Buddies here stick together no matter what - and stay very close to each other at all times- it is when you dont that the cylindre gets thrown in your face.

I also think that you have to be able and have sufficient training to look after yourself whilst diving.

 

[Tortuga68]

I dived on the ex-HMAS Brisbane last month... I've done 8 dives on her over the last three years, with the same operator as the diver in question. There are always staff diving and they're pretty good all round. There's always a solid briefing in the shop before the trip out

Although there can be current on the site - it's well off the shore in OW - and viz can be poor outside the wreck (I dove her right after the recent floods and it was down to 1m in some places) IMO there's no reason to get swept off the site. Where the current is strongest you should be in the lee of the site

There are six moorings around the site, Scubaworld uses the starboard foredeck. The other moorings 'belong' to other dive ops but they are not in use all the time ie there may not have been other boats there at the time - last time I was there the SW boat was the only one on the site. The moorings are all anchored to the bottom on concrete blocks with a traverse line over to the site

1-2m swells are common, sometimes 3m. 30m bottom would involve high tide and a shovel

32 dives isn't a lot but it's a relatively straighforward OW dive if you stick with your buddy/guide/group - the main deck is at 15m

Site rules (govt) are that every diver should carry an SMB (and knife and computer) but there aren't any rules I'm aware of about being trained to use them

 

[H2O Gal]

Well, the first ridiculous thing is the idea that a diver with 32 dives is experienced.

Yeah, that's the first thing I thought when I read the post....

 

[DandyDon]

Yeah, the "32 dives is experienced" comment sticks out, but we also know how news reporting goes. Got to wonder what the Op actually said.