Catalina Diver died today w/ Instructor

[ItsBruce]

Several comments that apply to this thread:

1. I just did a “thank you” to Ken relative to his post about hyperventilation. In hindsight, the “thank you” was redundant. There is an implied "thank you" to all of Ken's posts.

2. LeeAnne asks people to read the whole thread before asking a question. I agree. However, I recognize that as one reads the thread one sometimes sees something one feels compelled to address immediately for fear of losing the thought while reading other posts.

3. Dr. Bill … thanks for being so on top of local matters.

4. LeeAnne, I know that the training is to drop your weightbelt, but if you are above divers doing a safety stop and you are OOA, you should be so positively buoyant that you don’t need to drop your weights. (Actually, my recollection is that the training is to remove you weightbelt and then decide whether to drop it.)

5. LeeAnne, please change your avatar photo: I have an anxiety attack every time I see you without a regulator in your mouth.

 

[promocop]

Sorry, but when did Ken Kurtis become the guru of dive accident debriefings?

 

[DandyDon]

Sorry, but when did Ken Kurtis become the guru of dive accident debriefings?

Well, he is certainly entitled to his opinions - agree or not. I don't guess anyone is required to abide by them. Beyond that, he certainly does offer a lot.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Sorry, but when did Ken Kurtis become the guru of dive accident debriefings?

For many years, Ken has worked with the County Coroner's office regarding diving deaths. He also runs the dive safety seminars with the local boat captains, fire departments, etc and had chaired the Chamber Day committee each year. I think his opinion might matter a bit.

 

[promocop]

Well said, and if you can detail his positives attributes then I can detail the negative ones without being censored by the mods!!

 

[Leejnd]

2. LeeAnne asks people to read the whole thread before asking a question. I agree. However, I recognize that as one reads the thread one sometimes sees something one feels compelled to address immediately for fear of losing the thought while reading other posts.

Bruce, you'd have to have read about the incident to understand the situation. (If you'd like to, go visit my thread in the Near Miss forum about my near miss in the Galapagos.) The situation was that I was in wild washing machine conditions, with a malfunctioning rental BCD that wouldn't hold air...and I ran out of air trying to fill it, and then finning like crazy to keep my head above the violently turbulent surface, with 4-ft waves slapping me in the face. I don't want to get into any more about it here, tho...if you're interested in commenting, please visit the thread. Thanks!

 

[ShakaZulu]

Looks like this thread has run out of useful information....go ahead and close it.

 

[merxlin]

Looks like this thread has run out of useful information....go ahead and close it.

I personally would like to see it left open (apparent mandatory side discussion about speculation vs. facts not withstanding) to see if we do get further details.

And I also still feel that even speculation has a purpose here. We cannot change what happened to the victims in these discussions, nor can we get first hand knowledge from them. But we can discuss the circumstances, possible causes, and hopefully ways to avoid or deal with those situations. Maybe that keeps one of us from becoming the next victim.

Ideally all we would have would be facts, and we could clinically discuss the casues and effects. But until then.........

 

[Cave Diver]

---

---

A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

Most of the off topic discussion about whether to allow speculation or not has been moved here: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ba...culation-split-catalina-diver-died-today.html

Other off topic posts/comments have been removed

---

 

[scorpiofish]

The instructor contacted me to clarify the issue of the OOA signal and the timing of the student bolting. The student did not signal she was OOA until she had risen from depth to 25 ft. During this period of the ascent, the instructor was trying to prevent her from ascending too fast. At the shallower level, the student gave the OOA signal and immediately bolted. My understanding based on what the instructor told me is that she bolted too quickly to accept another air source. The instructor believes she may have already suffered trauma during the initial part of the ascent due to holding her breath and that may have been what caused the student to bolt from 25 ft to the surface.

Thanks for the several posts with great information with regard to the incident.

While it is clear that now that the instructor wasn't in a situation where she could donate her alternate, I would still like to address those who wonder why she didn't donate her reg/alternate at the time of the OOA signal. Even if the student had given the OOA and spit out her reg AND the instructor had tried to donate does not mean the student would not have bolted. I had an incident where I was practically shoving my alternate into a students mouth, but he chose to bolt rather than take my alternate.

I have great empathy for this instructor.