Canadian woman lost - Puerto Vallarta. Mexico

[KeithG]

I'd still like to hear from the instructor, the boat captain, and the other divers. How can we avoid the situation if we don't know what really happened?

Lots of us would. But we need to step back and realize that we the great unwashed are not entitled to detailed information.

But it is possible that we can still learn something from this situation.

Things we know (maybe I could be wrong?):
- a diver was lost with no rescue or recovery
- the diver was participating in a DM led group dive
- according to online articles the diver was "recently" certified in interior British Columbia (I assume this means last summer / fall sometime..)

So we have a new diver in unfamiliar conditions. I claim as a novice she was doing a "trust me" dive.

What could she have done differently to change the outcome?

 

[Centrals]

History keeps repeating itself!!!!
Divers were lost when being left alone eg. on the surface, on safety stop or at the bottom.
What happen to the buddy system that we had learnt right from the beginning? If you are NOT prepared to thumb the dive if your buddy has an issue. Made it clear before the dive.
I once volunteered to accompany an low on air diver up because his buddy refused to do so and the DM couldn't leave the group behind or called the dive. We do have some very selfish divers around.

 

[KeithG]

History keeps repeating itself!!!!
Divers were lost when being left alone eg. on the surface, on safety stop or at the bottom.
What happen to the buddy system that we had learnt right from the beginning? If you are NOT prepared to thumb the dive if your buddy has an issue. Made it clear before the dive.
I once volunteered to accompany an low on air diver up because his buddy refused to do so and the DM couldn't leave the group behind or called the dive. We do have some very selfish divers around.

I will chime in about my prior post regarding forgetting or ignoring training with 2 different stories (a good and a bad one on me).

1) Years ago a few dives into a LOB trip with a crew who knew us well, we were asked by the crew if we would buddy pair with a father noob whose daughter wanted to sit out the current dive. We clearly communicated to the father in our predive discussion what was expected of everyone. He was very open with his abilities & desires. This shaped our plan. We came up with a simple plan. Our plan was to closely monitor his gas consumption, make sure he was back under the boat with lots of air remaining, escort him to the boat ladder and watch him board the boat (we also did make him see Razorfish diving into the sand and quietly observe a Sailfin blenny, but that was not part of the plan). Once he was onboard we then did another 20 minutes or so under the boat. We planned this and followed it. No worries. Everyone's expectations were considered and met.

2) (Not so good...well maybe really bad or at least very poor!) On our last LOB trip my dive buddy was not doing as many dives as I did. For the first time EVER I was forced to dive with "someone else". As the third wheel I deferred to the couple that I got "stuck with" when it came time to dive planning. They seemed to speak a functional simplistic plan that made sense. No quarrels. I was happy to follow their plan. OOPS. Once under water it quickly became apparent that their "plan" was total fiction. They were both squirrels. She was generally at 90ft or below darting ahead of the cluster, he was around 75ft depth and way behind the cluster screwing with his mask. I stuck to our preplanned 60ft depth anmd tried to stay mid-cluster and doing my best to watch both of them. I was not a happy camper. We all failed.

This was not a buddy dive. Not even close. This was a same ocean cluster dive loosely following the DM.

I was very frustrated during the dive. I was silent afterwards (I own that mistake!). After that dive I got complacent. As the more experienced diver I did not attempt to "school" them in any fashion. I gave up on buddy dive protocol for the rest of the trip when diving without my regular buddy. It was 100ft viz with no current so I just took the easy route? What could go wrong?

Note: Several dives later I did pair up with some different more experienced divers who later lamented that they also did not "supervise" their 2 junior friend divers enough: one of their noob friends went into deco and bent their computer and had to sit out a day. They identified that they failed their less experienced friend.

Anyone have good ideas on how to reign in in-experienced divers and make them better divers?

 

[Centrals]

Anyone have good ideas on how to reign in in-experienced divers and make them better divers?

I would love to hear as well.
From my own limited experience, some will take the advise/criticism/suggestion very well but other will react completely opposite. Nowadays unless I know the person well otherwise I would just keep quiet to avoid confrontation.

 

[wgw04024]

Personally, I haven't been doing any local dives (maine), and my last few trips have been with one of, or both of my sons. When I was a noob, I will admit to diving to fast, squirreling (love that term), and the like. On my first trip to Bonaire with one regular buddy, and one buddy of his, we were diving as a group of 3. The unknown buddy had done GUE, and was very much into the various protocols of that system. The buddy system, how we staggered ourselves, the distance we strayed away from eachother, and the like were much more rigid. I played by the rules, but didn't pay it alot of attention at the time. Now, fast forward to diving with my kids. All of a sudden, all those protocols made perfect sense. Go figure. We started following the things I had learned religiously as a family. It made the dives feel alot safer. It also allows me to not have to constantly look around for my buddy. I guess in closing, it really annoys me now when/if I dive with someone who isn't aware and following any kind of real buddy protocol.

B

 

[Schwob]

...How can we avoid the situation if we don't know what really happened?

Personal opinion:
The only way I know how to avoid any such a situation is to dive in self reliant mode and try to get those that dive with me to not consider me as the person UW that gives them license to just not care about anything because someone who surely will save them is there.
My wife e.g. baturally tends to rely (and put blame) on others for her safety... Discussions on that are ongoing...
...
I've sure seen great buddy pairs and I've sure seen accidents waiting to happen. And I've been on both sides of that equation and when carrying a camera, I learned I really suck as buddy. It seems to me that "led diving" brings out the worst in some peoples safety thinking. Including me ... and DMs...
Example: An LOB in the Red Sea. Second week. Did every dive so far. We are about to drop off from the dinghy at a site with only a very small amount of current (until you get to "the tip"... My mask is not on my head (not MOF, I but it backeards) Aparently I am not really awake yet. Buddy (son) did not notice either, but it's all on me. So I figure that was my five and ask the DM if willing to buddy up with my son. "Sure thing, and when you come back with the dinghy, find is at between 50' and 70' (or such) at the pinnacle. I wasn't complaining and took it and proceeded with my first solo decent in an ocean on a mission to basically find my son.
Now all was good, and vis was great and obviously the DM's judgemnt was this is going to safely work... but I am sure it was'nt a rule that was being followed here... It was freelancing and improvising and accomodating at it's best... and maybe at it's most dangerous. Anyway I am not complaining as I think I am in charge of the outcome of my diving ... and struggle, heavily struggle with other philosophies. I see a buddy pair as another aditional layer of safety inherently worse than the intrinsic "level of safety of each involved diver", but a redundancy nevertheless. Rely on it or on a DM? Not me... I trust what I have immediate control over... I am just more comfortable thinking of diving that way...

 

[LevyJ]

I dived with the DM several days after the incident, at the same site.

As he prepped the gear, he had me talk with someone who was there when she was lost. That person said the DM surfaced with her. Other accounts say the captain never saw her. I believe both people.

I do have to say that there is a huge number of boats, snorkelers,and divers there. I don’t know how, if she stayed at the surface, she could have gone missing. That’s also what the guy I spoke to expressed. And the captain had eagle eyes: he spotted two almost-completely submerged mantas on the ride back to the pier.

What I learn from this is that if you have a problem and the DM brings you up, don’t let the DM dive again until you make contact with the boat and either the boat is on the way to you or acknowledges you’re swimming to it.

That’s what happened on one of our dives, in fact: one guy sucked down his air very quickly. We all surfaced, the boat headed toward the guy, and we went back down. No problem.

 

[Dan]

I dived with the DM several days after the incident, at the same site.

As he prepped the gear, he had me talk with someone who was there when she was lost. That person said the DM surfaced with her. Other accounts say the captain never saw her. I believe both people.

I do have to say that there is a huge number of boats, snorkelers,and divers there. I don’t know how, if she stayed at the surface, she could have gone missing. That’s also what the guy I spoke to expressed. And the captain had eagle eyes: he spotted two almost-completely submerged mantas on the ride back to the pier.

What I learn from this is that if you have a problem and the DM brings you up, don’t let the DM dive again until you make contact with the boat and either the boat is on the way to you or acknowledges you’re swimming to it.

That’s what happened on one of our dives, in fact: one guy sucked down his air very quickly. We all surfaced, the boat headed toward the guy, and we went back down. No problem.

Was she launched SMB while floating alone or at least the DM gave one to her before descending back to the group below?

 

[Dan]

I agree that it should be helpful to know the facts however you seem to have fairly direct information which differs from the fairly direct information that I have. From what I have seen on SB in the past it does not serve any purpose to speculate about what might have happened. We were advised that a statement would be made and presumably that statement would be comprised of first-hand, accurate information. My girlfriend and I dive PV and are very interested in the facts, but only the facts. I have information that I have not posted because I don't know how accurate it is. I believe that a respectable amount of time has passed and I feel comfortable discussing the incident here at this point and I'm wondering just when is a statement going to be released? Judging from your user name you live in PV and are still getting different versions of what happened. The version I heard is from an instructor/dive op who heard what the authorities told the captains. It may be credible but it certainly is not direct and is different from what you said. I think that once we know the "truth" we can discuss the incident in a meaningful way. We may never know exactly what happened, especially if, as you said, the instructor's version is different from the captain's version. Also, there were other divers and we have not heard their version. Her son with with her and I can understand that he may not wish to talk about it.

Her son was in the dive group at the time?

 

[JamesBon92007]

Her son was in the dive group at the time?

Yes, according to this Canadian web site (and other sources) she was accompanied by her son:

Search called off for Vernon woman missing after dive in Mexico: family | Globalnews.ca