Bahamas: Missing Female Diver

[ItsBruce]

... Challenging him is futile as he has already professed to being an expert and stated his expert opinion so what ever you raise regardless of how plausible will be dissmissed if not inline with his expert opinion. Have you ever heard a expert admit they are wrong. About as likely as being able to prove a victim caused the death of their rescuer.
... John

Thal is clearly an expert. I've talked to him. If I ever need an expert on a case, I would not hesitate to contact him.

And, yes, I have seen experts admit they are wrong.

 

[Thalassamania]

OR you miss another which is the victim and the person that attempted rescue are both dead and cannot tell you what happened and hence leave the expert accident analysts like Thal to guess what happened. Or maybe he can talk to the dead so that he does not have to draw logical conclussions from less than first hand facts like the rest of us.

Your logic can be extended to show, with the same level of probability, that the same accidents were caused by aliens with ray guns. When nothing is known then anything may be assumed.

Challenging him is futile as he has already professed to being an expert and stated his expert opinion so what ever you raise regardless of how plausible will be dissmissed if not inline with his expert opinion. Have you ever heard a expert admit they are wrong. About as likely as being able to prove a victim caused the death of their rescuer.

Yes I am an expert, since John died I likely know more about diving fatalities than just about anyone else. If that's what you consider "professed," I'll just chalk that up what seems to be your use of English as a second language. Any expert will change his or her opinion when presented with new data that requires a change, you have presented no relevant data, all you done is get huffy when no one but your two claque comrades takes seriously your amateur analysis.

Just go back and read his replies to my presentation of the Thailand student and Instructor death about a month ago. We can never know the first hand facts because they are both dead but I think logic says that if the student had not panicked then the highly experienced instructor would not be a missing person.

OR how about this one I just came across...CDNN :: Young Dive Doctor Dies Scuba Diving in Red Sea


John

As I said, amateur analysis combined with wishful thinking. Neither case fits the demands of the conversation, as John and PF point out in the Rousse case:

The deaths of Chris and Chrissy Rousse has been raised several times as an example of the rescue of a panicked diver killing the rescuer. That is not really a fair description of what happened, and those extraordinary circumstances do not fit the topic of this conversation.

To begin with, both Chris (father) and Chrissy (son) made the bad decision to do an extremely difficult dive at about 230 feet on air. They were both certainly very much narced, and I would argue that narcosis was the primary trigger in their deaths.

With not much room to move in that wrecked uboat, Chrissy went in alone to search, using a cave line to find his way out (hopefully) when done. His father held the end of the line outside the sub. Something collapsed on Chrissy while he was in there. (When he was back on the boat, he said a sea monster had grabbed him--obviously some narcosis involved.) His father sensed something was wrong, went in, and he got him free. Unfortunately, he apparently lost control of the cave line. They had trouble finding their way out of the silted-out wreck and lost the path back to the entry point.

When the finally got out, they came out of a different hole that they entered. The conjecture is that they were confused (narcosis) about this and did not understand why the extra tanks they had brought for decompression were not there. (They were still at the original hole where they had left them.) Very low on air, they apparently both decided to do a direct ascent to the surface and hope for successful recompression therapy. (Their friend Bernie Chowdury had done the same thing not long before that.) In doing so, they ignored the fact that they did have one extra tank that could have bought them some time and the opportunity to get help without surfacing. (There was another diver decompressing at the time.)

Chris died almost immediately on the surface; Chrissy died in the hospital.

My memory of the story is they came out of the sub confused as to where their extra tanks were, they were about 8 ft in the other directon. Very low on air Chrissy bolted for the surface from 240 ft and his dad bolted right after him. Chris was dead at the surface and Chrissy died soon afterwards on the boat waiting fr rescue helio.

Hello Don we have not quit you ,we are now talking with Investigators on this case belive me I have not quit each day I look back with toughts of what may have taken place,I have talk with only 1 other diver thats was on this dive by email only ,the people that are investigating and doing deepwater scerches for Mrs.Wood are Dive & Marine Consultants International Inc., I talk with this investigator for nearly two hours
one day this week ,as I learn the facks I will let you all know .I will say this, sometimes even the rescuer may need to be rescued.

Meg, thanks for the information and the photos.

 

[DandyDon]

.I will say this, sometimes even the rescuer may need to be rescued.

An interesting tease...

 

[shoredivr]

Have you ever heard a expert admit they are wrong.

Yes.

c d n n

That site is not considered to be accurate or trustworthy.

 

[bsee65]

Here is a quote from Dan the Engineer. Not sure how useful it is to bring in MEG DIVER quotes.

No offense to Dantheengineer, but I think you have the situation backwards. MEG DIVER is an uninterested party who was present on the dive. Dantheengineer is receiving his third party information from employees of the dive shop. Dan's information is suspect in accuracy as the parties providing it are very interested in the perception and outcome of any investigation. In short, if there are conflicting statements, I'm leaning toward those of MEG DIVER to be the more accurate.

For example, MEG tells us that the rent-a-buddy DM realized the victim was 20' below her when one of the other divers signaled her to that effect. Dan's story would have us believe that the DM spontaneously and on her own realized the fact. That certainly sounds like a minor manipulation of the facts by omission in an attempt to make the DM seem a little more with it. The truth? Either could be true. I believe someone accused Dan of "padding" his narrative as well, so I'm not the only one who questions the completeness and filtering behind his information, again through no fault of his own.

With regard to the hiring of the DM, I am willing to believe that the DM was hired by the victim and her husband. He probably put up the credit card, so yeah, they both hired her. Now, I am also leaning toward believing that she was hired specifically to buddy with and watch the victim. Even Dan's story says that they held the boat:

The procurement for a private DM, is also said to be at the very last minute. To the extent that the boat was unable to leave until Mrs Wood returned from the dive shop having procured 3.

(By "3", he meant DM #3, there were two other DM/Instructors on the boat)

The above, combined with the undisputed fact the the husband, Mr. Wood, was diving with another friend as his buddy, really suggest that the DM in question was hired to act as a personal buddy to Mrs. Wood, not as a DM in the more traditional sense.


The post I made, upon which you commented, was specifically to call out some of the important facts that were disputed between the two accounts and to get clarity on them from either or both parties if they wanted to give more thought to those particular issues. I don't claim to have authoritative knowledge of any of the events, I'm just evaluating the various statements and trying to see where they intersect and where they contradict in order to get the clearest possible picture of the events. A week and 500 posts later, we still aren't quite there.

Also, we have four information sources here, not just two. We have MEG DIVER who was on the dive, but not a direct eye witness to the event. We have Dantheengineer who is a local and has been getting data from people at the dive shop, probably including those who were on this dive. We have danclem, the OP, who seems like he may have also been on the dive, but never really specified that. We haven't heard from danclem since the first few dozen posts. Finally, we have onlyhalcyon who claims to have been an eye witness to the event, but hasn't come back to tell us anything further after the initial post. There is definitely more information to be had.

 

[bsee65]

Meg, thanks for the information and the photos.

Just to confirm, all MEG's photos are dated 5/5/09. Since this incident occurred on May 3rd, I'm assuming that none of these photos are from that dive. Is that correct? The last photo does seem to show three divers in close proximity with at least one diver out of frame below (interpretation based upon the bubble trail), which could line up with the facts of the incident if the camera's date was incorrectly set.

 

[MEG DIVER]

Just to confirm, all MEG's photos are dated 5/5/09. Since this incident occurred on May 3rd, I'm assuming that none of these photos are from that dive. Is that correct? The last photo does seem to show three divers in close proximity with at least one diver out of frame below (interpretation based upon the bubble trail), which could line up with the facts of the incident if the camera's date was incorrectly set.

all of the photos are from that dive ,two of the three divers in the photo are who i belive to be Mrs Wood an d the DM who looks to be checking Mrs woods weights or adding or takeing away some weight this was the last time I saw them on the dve.

 

[MEG DIVER]

all of the photos are from that dive ,two of the three divers in the photo are who i belive to be Mrs Wood an d the DM who looks to be checking Mrs woods weights or adding or takeing away some weight this was the last time I saw them on the dve.

I never set the dates on the camera I got it from a friend to use on my trip an never check the dates

 

[bsee65]

all of the photos are from that dive ,two of the three divers in the photo are who i belive to be Mrs Wood an d the DM who looks to be checking Mrs woods weights or adding or takeing away some weight this was the last time I saw them on the dve.

Thanks for that update. Based upon the story, I thought that might have been the DM and the couple that informed the DM that Mrs. Wood had descended well below her, with Mrs. Wood's bubbles rising past them. Though, that did seem unlikely as you indicated that you weren't present in viewing range when that occurred.

What was the range at which that photo was taken? It certainly doesn't look crystal clear with 100' of visibility, but maybe that's the angle relative to the sun? I know that my pics come out very differently depending upon the sun's position.

 

[BluWatDvr]

Bsee65,

I just read your last two post and would like to say you have described ALL of the most important points about this whole accident very well.Just the way I understand it.I have read this story from first post to present.Good job on the summary.The date was 6/03/09 on the day of the incident.

Meg did have his camera date set wrong.I loaned him the camera.I checked.Sure enough.Its set 5/09 NOT 6/09 as it should have been.