Bahamas: Missing Female Diver

[Thalassamania]

Thal, do you honestly believe "there appears to be about as much evidence to support this possibility"? I understand your point, that it is all speculation , but to say that ALL possibilities are within the same realm does not seem intellectually honest.

Yes, I'm being sarcastic ... but the point remains that suicide or lack of an aluminum foil hat are both speculation with no actual evidence to support either theory.

I feel we can learn from this tragic incident as FACTS are known...my take is that many divers feel they need not assume liability for their dive. A DM does not mitigate all the inherent dangers involved with SCUBA. As a LEO, many years on SWAT taught me one thing I carry over as an Instructor/DM..."I can save you from the Boogie Man and all the evils of the world, but I CANNOT protect you from your own damn stupidity!" I have had more 'divers' run out of air, roll hard deco, or just plain hit the 'Oh **** Switch', and everytime I intervened and they lived to I'm sure do it to another unsuspecting DM. I would hope that a sobering, "Hey guys, as divers we need to respect this sport and learn from this incident" would be in order. Instead, let's point fingers and blame someone so we all go back to being lazy and make our safety someone elses responsibility.

I've always felt that the need to engage in any sort of diving leadership heroics is virtually an admission of failure to be an effective diving leader who is intuitive enough and effective enough to deal with problems before they become a crisis. Just tossing off the idea that a hired pro should not have those capabilities is just more Ann Rand claptrap. We all hire people to protect us from our own stupidity everyday and in many ways.

 

[InTheDrink]

I don't have PADI's training standards, but I'm pretty sure their DM cert requires the skills needed to bring a diver to the surface.


That's nice, but we're not talking about you, we're talking about a 68 year old woman who apparently had a recent stroke.

Terry

I'll leave it after this. Terry, I have enormous respect for pretty much all your posts and I really mean that - you seem consistently sane in addition to knowing your stuff.

But I don't think you can compare bringing a distressed or unconscious diver to the surface to a diver that is willfully defying such. Happy to be educated on why I'm wrong.

If I was trying to descend in defiance of someone else, and compus mentus, I think it would be rather difficult to do so. I tuck my inflator hose inside my chest strap so you'd struggle to grab it. You'd also struggle to get behind me. In the same way one keeps orientation towards facing a shark, you would simply do the same with a diver trying to get behind you.

In any event, faced with such circumstances I simply think it is beyond a reasonable ask to look for a DM as currently trained to go too far beyond their training. I am not condoning this - much the opposite, I rue the current training standards but if someone is working within those standards and training then I think it's harsh to fault them. As far as I am aware there are no courses that deal with a wilful diver trying not to be rescued. Yes, panicing divers doing their best to not be rescued but there is a subtle but important difference - one is not in control, the other is.

Again, as I mentioned earlier, my biggest quibble was the DM letting the diver get so far separated below her. This, IMO, was the problem or failing.

Anyhow, am done, sorry for harping on.

Tho Thal. I'll take that couple of quid off you next time I'm FL

J

 

[mikerault]

Most BCs and wings have dump valves that are reachable and have a greater capacity than the fill (usually) Besides the the fill just screw off... Disable their ability to fill or deflate and take them up with your bouyancy.

 

[InTheDrink]

Best of luck with that. That wouldn't be hindered by kicking fins or active resistance would it?

And remind me, what course is that in?

 

[InTheDrink]

Most BCs and wings have dump valves that are reachable and have a greater capacity than the fill (usually) Besides the the fill just screw off... Disable their ability to fill or deflate and take them up with your bouyancy.

Point I'm trying to make, and clearly failing, is that this isn't an event to draw too many lessons from. I truly believe this woman was intent on a dangerous course of action that she knew to be so.

Existing training, as far as I'm aware (and this is limited), doesn't cover this scenario. So one can't go too hard on the individual. Yes, you can rail against the training, but that is something different entirely than laying the blame on the DM. Either I'm missing something or some of you more experienced guys should be a little more understanding and considerate for the DM involved. You will know from my posts on the Cayman Islands that I don't have ANY sympathy for DMs that knowingly take their charges outside of their abilities and I have a personal feeling for new divers and the care that needs to be afforded to them. This incident doesn't fall inside any of these categories in my view.

J

 

[BonaireDan]

I follow this thread with great interest. With 35 years of dental, medical, forensic and CSI practice behind me I can say with certainty this one thing:

If someone wants to pursue an action (like descending or other harmful activities), NO ONE, not even the best trained, most well intentioned person, may be able to stop that harmful action.

I would not point fingers at others involved in this unfortunate situation. I am sure all was done that was possible from what I have read.

If someone's poor judgement led up to this event that is another issue entirely. But from what I can gather that may well have not been the final straw.

 

[LeadTurn_SD]

I follow this thread with great interest. With 35 years of dental, medical, forensic and CSI practice behind me I can say with certainty this one thing:

If someone wants to pursue an action (like descending or other harmful activities), NO ONE, not even the best trained, most well intentioned person, may be able to stop that harmful action.

I would not point fingers at others involved in this unfortunate situation. I am sure all was done that was possible from what I have read.

If someone's poor judgement led up to this event that is another issue entirely. But from what I can gather that may well have not been the final straw.

This assumes that the victim was intent on harming herself. That has been speculated, but I'm not 100% convinced this was anything other than an accident.

I'm sorry, but what I keep coming back to is this: If I was the younger, stronger, healthier DM assigned as a buddy to "the oldest woman on the boat", and who was apparently recovering from a stroke... How would she have been able to get away from me short of a full-on physical assault, not just once, but twice? I think I understand what happened, but strongly disagree that the DM acted correctly.

I'm sure the DM is agonizing over this and I do feel for her, but based on everything described, the DM goofed badly on this dive.

Best wishes.

 

[ItsBruce]

My issue here is with the DM letting her buddy get too far away, not with anything after that. And, I'm not to sure about the too far away bit. (This is all discounting the theory that the DM was expressly hired as a babysitter.)

As I see it, from the posts here, the DM ran out of time / depth to have grabbed the victim's valve and surfaced. Perhaps with another 15 or 20 seconds of time to address the problem, she could have. But, perhaps by the time she realized what she needed to do, they were too deep for her to safely continue with a rescue.

Now, as far as those who say that if their buddy deviates from the dive plan, they grab the tank and surface, I ask: "Really?"

And, as far as buddy contact. If I am buddied up with some stranger, but not as a paid babysitter, am I expected to follow that person around so that I am in close contact should that person decide to swim away from where I am swimming?

(This is not as well framed as I'd like, but I'm short on time.)

 

[Web Monkey]

I'll leave it after this. Terry, I have enormous respect for pretty much all your posts and I really mean that - you seem consistently sane in addition to knowing your stuff.

But I don't think you can compare bringing a distressed or unconscious diver to the surface to a diver that is willfully defying such. Happy to be educated on why I'm wrong.

The most negative a properly weighted diver can be is whatever the gas in the tank weighs + buoyancy lost due to wetsuit compression. Even assuming the victim was overweighted and dumped all the air from her BC, I don't see much of a chance of her becoming more than 20 pounds negative.

On the other hand, my jacket BC is rated for about 70 pounds of lift.

All that is required is that I have one hand that is strong enough to carry a bag of groceries, another hand to work my inflator, and can get behind the victim and grab the tank valve.

Assuming that I can do this and the victim is unarmed, we're both going up, and I don't really care what the victim does at this point with hoses or inflators or dump valves. The victim really has no way to interfere with this in any significant manner.

Yes, if the victim was intent on committing suicide and had ninja-like skills, she probably could have prevented her own rescue. However none of this has been shown. All we have is a 68 year old lady who may have had a recent stroke and may have either pushed the DM away or given a hand signal. Neither comes anywhere near the level of threat that would be required to abandon a rescue.

I'm not Rambo and this isn't some sort of Macho BS. It's just a minimally competent level of rescue skills. Of course, even what's better than rescue skills are buddy skills. Had the DM been a proper buddy, the rescue could have been handled at a reasonable depth with even less risk to both parties, or avoided completely.

Terry

 

[Only halcyon]

FYI this inccident happend fairly close to the begining of the dive, the DM was most surely not out out of air or time when she decided to stop persuing Ms Wood We were around 17 mins into our dive, and after all was said and done I surfaced with a total dive time of around 34 mins. From what I saw I dont think that the DM could have done anything had she went deeper- since she had failed to take charge of the situation leading to that point, my guess is that she was is in disbeleif at what was happening. When the DM swam upto me having just parted with Ms Wood she looked very shocked and stressed.