Canadian woman presumed dead - Roatan, Honduras

[Storker]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

A bunch of posts have been deleted as off topic. From the Special Rules for A&I:

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[peeweediver]

Reading this thread on a Sunday morning and it is interesting timing. First, our LDS dive group is going to Roatan (CoCo View) in 6 weeks. Second, my wife and I watched Sully last night. The NTSB certainly misconstrued the events and laid blame using all their computer simulations until the human aspects of real reactions to real events were plugged in. Reconstructing an incident can be very tricky if one isn't actual there. I read this thread to help me be a better instructor and learn from events. I can't thank Terry enough for his posts. What did I learn: keep your eye on your buddy during decent and be within grabbing distance until all seems OK after decent...and then close enough to respond. Guessing where the DM was in relation to the victim is unknown. I did once experience diving with a couple in their 70s. She begin plummeting down immediately. Husband wasn't near her nor did he see. DM...well...that's for another day. I went down to catch her. Bottom was only 110ft (Bonaire) so I caught her at about 95 ft. Had it been anywhere with a much deeper bottom and I didn't catch her....not a good ending. Basically, she had no idea where her inflator hose was and couldn't inflate.
Again, thanks, Terry, for giving all of us something to learn from. My next job, making sure the 16 of us at CoCo View know to stay close to their buddy on decent. Without freaking them out, I'll use Terry's story, unless our shop owner tells me to quit freaking out his customers. .

Rob

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Sounds to me like a medical issue. The part about the DM going really deep and looking for her over the wall, then coming to the surface, then going really deep again does not sound logical. 14-16 lbs of lead is very reasonable for a women with a 5 mm suit.

I would have chased her down deep if it was the start of the dive, regardless of whether I was a customer or DM. I would have abandoned my buddy on the wall and made the split second decision to give chase. I would have probably gone a good bit past 200, but it sounds like the situation had a near zero potential for a positive outcome.

 

[Coztick]

Had the group been dropped on the top of the reef instead of off the wall, the victim could have been returned to the surface in a timely fashion.
It might not have changed the outcome, but at least nobody else would have been at put at risk by attempting a deep water rescue. I can say that I would have gave chase but don't really have the experience to do so safely.

 

[redacted]

Had the group been dropped on the top of the reef instead of off the wall, the victim could have been returned to the surface in a timely fashion.
It might not have changed the outcome, but at least nobody else would have been at put at risk by attempting a deep water rescue. I can say that I would have gave chase but don't really have the experience to do so safely.

How do you figure that could be done once the boat has attached to the mooring and the winds and current are controlling its position?

 

[Dan]

...I learn: keep your eye on your buddy during decent and be within grabbing distance until all seems OK after decent...and then close enough to respond. Guessing where the DM was in relation to the victim is unknown. I did once experience diving with a couple in their 70s. She begin plummeting down immediately. Husband wasn't near her nor did he see. DM...well...that's for another day. I went down to catch her. Bottom was only 110ft (Bonaire) so I caught her at about 95 ft. Had it been anywhere with a much deeper bottom and I didn't catch her....not a good ending. Basically, she had no idea where her inflator hose was and couldn't inflate.
Again, thanks, Terry, for giving all of us something to learn from. My next job, making sure the 16 of us at CoCo View know to stay close to their buddy on decent. Without freaking them out, I'll use Terry's story, unless our shop owner tells me to quit freaking out his customers. .

Rob

Good point! I'm guilty of not keeping an eye on my buddy during descent. I was following the DM & assuming my buddy was right behind me after we signaled to each other to go down (thumb pointing down), until the DM looked up to me & asked me where was my buddy (2 index fingers together & pointing to me)? I then looked up. My buddy was still floating on the surface. Apparently the crew forgot to put his weights into his BCD, so he was floating like a cork. I went back up to the surface & back to the boat with him.

 

[Coztick]

Moor the boat after dropping the divers, it's not at all unusual.
I agree that you should decent as a buddy team... And hers was the DM?

 

[Dan]

& the DM (her buddy) was distracted by other divers with equalizing problem.

 

[Coztick]

OK so who is safer, someone who can't decend or someone who can't stop decending?
DM has too many tasks to be a good buddy option in my opinion. The one with equalization issues should have had a buddy to help, no?

 

[mmmbelows]

I agree that you should decent as a buddy team... And hers was the DM?

Diving with the dive master as your buddy is essentially solo diving. It's definitely a 'loop hole' in the safety protocol of our sport but goes on everyday all over the world. Lesson learned should be for non-diving family members is if your loved one is diving by 'buddying' with the dive master, there is a possibility they are increasing the risk level of their diving, essentially diving without any back ups and if something happens to them on the dive there is a greatly increased chance that it will end a mystery exactly what the cause of death was. The death of this canadian diver is basically the example of exactly this, she was buddying with the dive master which really means nothing as he is 'buddying' with the entire group so she would have had at best a portion of his attention at some points and none at others. One of those times when his attention was being divided with others in the group exactly coincided with when she was in need of it the most, but with a dive master buddy, that's the risks.