Coast Guard crews search for missing diver off of Key Biscayne

[chillyinCanada]

Seems a bit early to be speculating on alcohol usage.

 

[Bopper]

From the untrained eye, it seems that the posters have been very polite and restrained in what they have said. Yes they have said "I wonder why they did not do......" which does imply without fact that the operator did something wrong. But, they have done so in a manner which is conducive to polite conversation rather than the typical "jump all over the Operator and accuse them of everything" which one usually finds in these threads.

I think you are bitching in the wrong thread because there are many other threads that are way worse that could use those words. Some of the A&I threads contain epic rants placing blame......this thread is composed and minor. A more productive response from you might have started with "While we do not know for sure that the could follow the diver (perhaps they had divers on the anchor line), would it have been prudent for the boat to leave other divers in the water to retrieve.........." and go on from there. You point out that there is inaccuracy in their claim AND you spur on conversation. You guys are usually very good at doing this.......maybe today is a bad day.

+1 Well said.

Pretty sad behavior from a moderator.

 

[peterbj7]

I'm sorry, if someone jumps in without fins I would expect a member of the crew to notice. I would also expect the person concerned to holler pretty quickly, and for that to be noticed by a crew member. I've owned and operated dive boats for years (and dived from boats for many more years, all over the world), and even in pretty rough seas we've never come close to this situation arising. As I said, something doesn't sound right here.

---------- Post added April 8th, 2013 at 11:07 PM ----------

Of course, one scenario that could make sense would be that the diver was alone and had driven his own boat, anchored it and jumped overboard. But that seems not to be what happened here. I am assuming he stayed on the surface and drifted away - is that correct? It would be extraordinary if he chose to descend with no fins, and if he descended without choosing to that would raise a number of other questions.

It doesn't make sense.

 

[DandyDon]

I'm sorry, if someone jumps in without fins I would expect a member of the crew to notice. I would also expect the person concerned to holler pretty quickly, and for that to be noticed by a crew member. I've owned and operated dive boats for years (and dived from boats for many more years, all over the world), and even in pretty rough seas we've never come close to this situation arising. As I said, something doesn't sound right here.

I don't think there was a crew or any professionals. It sounded like a private boat with a group of friends.

 

[DennisS]

If we're going to speculate, I'd guess he took off his fins, climbed aboard, realized he had to pee and jumped back in to relieve himself, figuring he could just climb back aboard. There was a current he didn't take into consideration

 

[DiverAmy]

http://miami.cbslocal.com/2013/04/09/search-for-missing-diver-enters-day-3/

Search For Missing Diver Enters Day 3

April 9, 2013 9:04 AM

(Source: U.S. Coast Guard)




MIAMI (CBSMiami) – It’s Day 3 in the search for a California man who disappeared during a scuba dive trip off Key Biscayne over the weekend.
On Wednesday Coast Guard crews will move their search pattern farther North as they follow the current in the efforts to find.
Jeffrey Vincent was on a 27-foot boat with his friends Sunday getting ready to dive the Princess Britney wreck, about three miles off Key Biscayne. When he jumped in the water without his fins, he missed the safety line off the back of the boat and was swept away by the current.
“This has nothing to do with them being careless, it’s just the current was strong,” said Miami-Dade police Detective Alvaro Zabaleta. “Another person tried to jump in to assist him but the current pulled him away too far. That’s when they decided to anchor up and turn the boat around to be able to assist him and that is when they lost sight of him.”

Teams from the Coast Guard, Miami-Dade Fire Rescue and Marine Patrol and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on the water and in the air searched around the wreck site but found nothing.
The Coast Guard said Vincent was wearing his wetsuit and dive gear, which has an air tank and flotation device which will help his survival chances.
“He’s an experienced diver, so were hoping that, because of that, part of the whole training to become a diver is the survival,” said Zabaleta. “So were holding on to that and the water was pretty warm last night so there are a lot of factors that are in his favor.”
While search teams search for Vincent one mystery remains.
“What they’re trying to figure out is when they turned the boat around how was it that they lost sight of him so quickly,” said Zabaleta.
There were five people on the boat; three divers, the captain and a crew member. The coast guard investigation found they did everything by the book and were not negligent. Search teams will continue looking until they have exhausted all of their resources.

 

[boulderjohn]

I recently did a dive in Florida in extremely strong current in which we were very much at the mercy of the surface current and very much dependent upon the skilled crew to get us back on board after the dive, and that was with our fins on. We had a line coming up from a wreck, but the boat chose not to tie off on it because of the fear of what that would do to the line as people ascended. What we ended up doing was hanging on to the float while the boat positioned itself relative to the current. Then we let go while the current swept us toward the boat and the crew member through a line to us. We did this one at a time so the crew could concentrate on one person at a time. On another dive I was starting to climb the ladder on the back of the boat when a huge wave knocked me off. This time I did not have my fins on--they were on my wrist. The boat had to turn around and re-position itself to pick me up again, and that took a while. In the meantime I just floated helplessly while the boat crew worked to get me.

In this case, the boat was apparently anchored, and they ended up with two divers in the water floating away rapidly. They had to pull the anchor, start the engine, turn around, and find the two floaters, who would be separating the whole time.

On another dive a while ago not far from there, my buddy and I were doing a drift dive with a flag. We were given a target time to surface while the boat followed the dive groups and their flags. We surfaced at the target time to find that the wind had come up and the seas were very high. When we were pitched to the top of a wave, we could for an instant see for quite a distance. There was no boat in sight. We were on the surface for at least 15 minutes before we saw the boat. It turned out that the other groups had surfaced just before us, and in the time it took to pick them up, we had drifted out of sight. The experienced crew knew the direction of our drift, and they were able to see our dive flag when the waves pitched us to the top. When we were in a wave trough, we were invisible.

I suspect that the diver in question was not carrying a surface marker buoy, which would have helped a lot.

 

[Peter_C]

Some of the things written in the report just don't make sense to me, but I wasn't there.

Here in Cali, if the boat needs to leave the scene, they leave the anchor on a buoy. They also put out a current line with a buoy on the end, so divers can line up to get back onboard, or if they get blown back from the boat.

If I was floating away from the boat I also would have continued to swim in the boats direction to keep the distance from it cut in half or however much I could swim against the current.

Finally this is another prime example of why every diver should carry a modern safety device, be it a Nautilus Lifeline or a PLB aka Personal Locator Beacon. Of course a whistle, signal mirror, and SMB are also necessary.

 

[diverrex]

What I don't understand is why a line wasn't thrown to him right away or why the second diver going in to help wasn't able to swim a line to him. Maybe he already drifted too far away but usually a good rescue diver can swim with the current to meet up with a down current diver as long as they didn't get too far away. Hope it turns out well. Always seems so sad when a diver was right there and then is gone.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I recently did a dive in Florida in extremely strong current in which we were very much at the mercy of the surface current and very much dependent upon the skilled crew to get us back on board after the dive, and that was with our fins on. We had a line coming up from a wreck, but the boat chose not to tie off on it because of the fear of what that would do to the line as people ascended. What we ended up doing was hanging on to the float while the boat positioned itself relative to the current. Then we let go while the current swept us toward the boat and the crew member through a line to us. We did this one at a time so the crew could concentrate on one person at a time. On another dive I was starting to climb the ladder on the back of the boat when a huge wave knocked me off. This time I did not have my fins on--they were on my wrist. The boat had to turn around and re-position itself to pick me up again, and that took a while. In the meantime I just floated helplessly while the boat crew worked to get me.

In this case, the boat was apparently anchored, and they ended up with two divers in the water floating away rapidly. They had to pull the anchor, start the engine, turn around, and find the two floaters, who would be separating the whole time.

On another dive a while ago not far from there, my buddy and I were doing a drift dive with a flag. We were given a target time to surface while the boat followed the dive groups and their flags. We surfaced at the target time to find that the wind had come up and the seas were very high. When we were pitched to the top of a wave, we could for an instant see for quite a distance. There was no boat in sight. We were on the surface for at least 15 minutes before we saw the boat. It turned out that the other groups had surfaced just before us, and in the time it took to pick them up, we had drifted out of sight. The experienced crew knew the direction of our drift, and they were able to see our dive flag when the waves pitched us to the top. When we were in a wave trough, we were invisible.

I suspect that the diver in question was not carrying a surface marker buoy, which would have helped a lot.

No that is an important mistake to assume that the boat has to do all of that stuff... First of all, the boat should have a floatline off the stern stretching out a considerable distance from behind the anchored boat. A diver who forgets fins (and even forgets to turn his air on) would simply have to paddle over a few feet, grab the rope and his buddies could haul him in, laugh at him and dump him back in the water. Second, if you didn't put the floatline off the stern, and the diver is in distress, then a rescue swimmer could swim a rope and float to the diver. If that option is not available and there is a significant problem, you do NOT have to pull an anchor up...Just untie the anchor line and go get the diver.(should be able to be done in 60 seconds... running up on an anchor and pulling it, could take 5-8 minutes).... If the guy was simply unable to swim on the surface and could work his dive gear, he would have been located quickly by the boat (or the coast guard) if he really got away. MANY things would have to go wrong for this to happen and for a diver to be lost. Also, why would we assume that the two floaters would be separated. The rescue swimmer would stay with the immobilized diver on the surface. Who knows, but I suspect that the diver was not on the surface for long and probably sunk very soon after entering the water... No way the USCG is that incompetent that they can't locate a drifting diver from a known location and a known time in decent weather conditions....