Cozumel Incident 9/4/11

[Jax]

For the record, all diving in Cozumel is drift diving and it would be a practical impossibility to drag a tank under a boat that had to stay near the wall.


Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by "drag a tank under a boat . . ."

 

[DandyDon]

For the record, all diving in Cozumel is drift diving and it would be a practical impossibility to drag a tank under a boat that had to stay near the wall.


Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers

Yep, if you want a spare tank & reg, sling it and carry it.

 

[Brules]

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by "drag a tank under a boat . . ."

He means drop a spare tank/reg set over the side to a set depth (say 100') where divers can find it and ride out an extended deco stop. You can do it on static lines/anchorage lines, but its almost impossible in Cozumel due to the constant and varied currents.

It is somewhat similar to what cave divers do when they stage tanks in caves that they will be deeply penetrating. But it takes pre-planning and assuming worst case scenarios.....

 

[Jax]

Ah! I've read about those staged dives . . . the "drag" part threw me off.

I think boulderjohn said it the best - no matter how well trained recreationally you are, you are not ready for anything outside recreational limits without proper equipment and training.

 

[WSOPFAN]

Well here is the actual story as told by Gabi to Nauticab

Post #94
http://www.cozumelmycozumel.com/dc/index.php?showtopic=2269&st=80&gopid=13916&#entry13916

mark, there are others who feel the same as you. in fact, when the "truth" came out on scubaboard, your point was touched on (in a much more gentle way) from the beginning. i also believe in speaking your mind. and although all of us can UNDERSTAND your point of view, there is no need, IMHO, to be so harsh about it.
we can all learn from this mistake. and while it was a dive performed in poor judgement and lack of preparation, her getting narced was not on purpose which is what got her to 400ft. they had done (as friends, together, with thousands of dives each-NOT with clients) very deep dives before without narcosis. heath is a deep water stuntman for movies. going without any redundancy was bad. there is no argument for the huge mistakes made here.

DAN doctors, knowing about the dive and the situation, have come to visit gabi here in cozumel, absolutely AMAZED at how he is doing, much less that he even survived the event. they are using this case as a major learning case for DAN. they are very very interested in his medical treatment.

he knows it was wrong. they are all completely aware of the mistakes. and they are all alive still for the efforts of gabi. i spoke to him today and he gave me more info as to what happened. quite interesting actually. in a nutshell:
when they were at 330, opal kept going down to 400ft. he risked his life to get her, around 400ft. gave the ok sign, and with calmness in her eyes, she was "ok". (i.e. very narced). her gauge read 900psi, he grabbed her and took her up to heath at 320 or so. together they ascended to 200 when gabi and opal ran out of air. shared the tank with heath to the surface, never breath holding, 2 breaths each. at the surface, they removed their gear and the capt saw the pain and he lifted it all up and helped them on board. they all has signed of DCS. opal laid down in pain, as did the others. capt hooked up O2 on opal (since she was the worst). then, as captains do, he changed tanks, out of habit.
next, was crazy. there were other divers with a separate DM using the same boat at a much shallower depth. villa blanca wall is near the new transportador. the other divers were still in the water when these 3 surfaced. the captain, who wanted to leave and get them to the ambulance, had to wait for these other divers to come up as there were no other boats nearby to get them and wait for them to surface. he, as captain, could not abandon his other people either, and opal, was on O2.
then, out of nowhere, opal, in pain, grabbed her gear with the new tank and jumped off the boat. it happened so fast the capt didn't even see it know until she was in water. they grabbed a mask, saw her hanging at 30ft and gabi, again, to make sure she was ok, did the same, and heath followed. when the other divers arrived, they resurfaced, took off to the pier and got on the ambulance.
it was a story of one bad thing after another.
tragic, sad, and those who want to help with the drastic med expenses, will. those who chose not to, that is fine too. but these are people with families and they are loved by so many people. we only ask that you respect the sensitivity to the issue.

 

[DandyDon]

WSOPFAN would you edit a source into your post, please. Thanks

 

[Ron Lee]

Amazing story WSOPFAN,

If all is true, the 330' depth is scarily deep from my perspective. It also makes you wonder if all divers were in the same health condition as in previous dives. Was fatigue or some other issue a factor that could have resulted in narcosis this time?

If they had been at a site with a sloping bottom and their planned stop was just above the floor, would Opal had continued swimming deeper or settled on the bottom. Maybe Gabi can shed light on that aspect someday.

I am still amazed that Gabi functioned so well at that depth.

 

[WSOPFAN]

Amazing story WSOPFAN,

If all is true, the 330' depth is scarily deep from my perspective. It also makes you wonder if all divers were in the same health condition as in previous dives. Was fatigue or some other issue a factor that could have resulted in narcosis this time?

If they had been at a site with a sloping bottom and their planned stop was just above the floor, would Opal had continued swimming deeper or settled on the bottom. Maybe Gabi can shed light on that aspect someday.

I am still amazed that Gabi functioned so well at that depth.

Yes there were other factors and hopefully that can be updated soon. I still have not heard or read yet if villa blanca at that depth slopes or not. His functionality at depth is mind boggling. I would tend to agree with a previous poster that every single dive is different and you can be bent at anytime but how did he manage so many deep dives and be just fine? Maybe some sort of tolerance......

 

[Blue Sparkle]

There is a point in that telling that has me thinking. It's how the captain/boat had to stay on site with the injured divers because there were other divers in the water.

I had never thought about this specifically. It seems to be a dilemma. Let's say that a similar instance occurred and the injured diver(s) were not "staff" and had been doing a "normal" dive. Clearly it's not right for a boat to "abandon" other (healthy) divers in the water, and yet it seems so awful to have to delay in getting help for severely injured divers. How is this usually handled?

 

[Ron Lee]

WSOPFAN, this discussion has made me realize that I have forgotten a lot about DCS. Right or wrong (as a poster asserted a page or two back) I am still working under the assumption that a given person will respond "about" the same given otherwise identical starting conditions.

That could be way wrong.

I am curious if anyone has developed a graph that gives relative risks of narcosis and O2 toxicity as a function of depth. Graphs are good for my feeble mind.