Cozumel Incident 9/4/11

[Jax]

I wonder why a message was not posted here in SB or any other appropriate forum advicing the public to withhold judgement and / or speculations until eyewitness information is available? It may take a couple of days, but I'm sure the public understands the sensitive nature in situation such as this. Until that happened, put the word out to dive safely. Why couldn't that be done but instead choose to stay silence, and resort to lying? The result, as I can see from the postings, did nothing but allowed heresays, speculations and other negatives to get ahead of the message.

This is not 'armchair quarter-backing' the event, but lying; casting the blame somewhere else, and / or willfully misleading someone, is never cool. That's what we're taught as kids, and that what we teaches our kids.

1 - because the world does not withhold speculations and judgement.

2 - because humans more often than not will try to shift blame.

And in these 450 posts, there was a lot of educational information, mentoring and thought processes shared.

Obviously, the majority of the SB members do not believe that speculation and downright WAG be withheld, in the interest of imparting knowledge and information.

 

[DiverG]

It's now up to posting #438 and 44 pages later... this dive accident is caused by bad
planning and execution, period.

The first positing was dated Spt 4, and it was 5 days later on Sept 9, that the true cause of this accident began to come into light. Between Spt 4 and 9, one of the divers involved mislead the public in thinking otherwise, assigning the blame unfairly to the danger of diving in Cozumel.

Since recanting this 'untruth', the reason why the need to lie was portrayed as closing
......

I've been seening the bold above in several posts today. Can someone provide a link to where said diver recanted his downwelling story?

 

[ligersandtions]

Is it "normal" (I get that there's nothing particularly normal about this dive...) in Cozumel for captains to allow two separate groups of divers with completely different dive plans dive simultaneously? Seems that it would be incredibly difficult (maybe even impossible) for a captain to keep track of the location of two groups....especially if run times and planned depths vary widely between the two.

It sounds like this was a total cluster of a dive....poor planning, crap hitting the fan, boat captain allowing divers to go back in even though they were showing symptoms of DCS (I have no good reason to not believe Gabi's story that the captain changed gear to full cylinders and didn't notice as Opal jumped back in, as he was open about the other mistakes that had been made....but it does sound a bit fishy that the captain would do that).

I sure hope others who are doing these types of dive or are thinking about it consider the consequences....and opt to get the proper training instead.

 

[Mike]

As more details of this incident come to light, it becomes increasingly apparent this was a perfect storm of bad planning, bad decisions, and bad luck.

From the details that are coming out, it just sounds like it was an inevitable outcome, not a matter of if, just a matter of when would luck run out.

I thought divers doing deep bounce dives on single tanks of air was just a thing from the 60s and 70s.

 

[ScubaSteve]

I've been seening the bold above in several posts today. Can someone provide a link to where said diver recanted his downwelling story?

The diver that went to 400' to recover his friend has come clean with the events of the day and it has been proven that heath was lying through his teeth. I can't imagine what he is going through but the facts are the facts.

 

[Jax]

From the details that are coming out, it just sounds like it was an inevitable outcome, not a matter of if, just a matter of when would luck run out.

I thought divers doing deep bounce dives on single tanks of air was just a thing from the 60s and 70s.

Thank you! I thought the practice was old school bravado, as well!

 

[DiverG]

The diver that went to 400' to recover his friend has come clean with the events of the day and it has been proven that heath was lying through his teeth. I can't imagine what he is going through but the facts are the facts.

I know all of that, but where has the Heath recanted? Has he done it on any of the message boards?

 

[Jax]

I know all of that, but where has the Heath recanted? Has he done it on any of the message boards?

Would you? It's pretty hard, even if the reason was he was trying to protect his friends.

 

[cicopo]

I do not think luck (running out) applies when a known outcome will eventually be the resulting outcome. If divers persue deeper & deeper dives on air or for that matter the correct gas but push it's use beyond it's limitations the outcome is both predictable & disasterous. Risk takers are a part of our population, and some will accept the final outcome but most won't, and they'll make excuses, expect our help & support, and wish they could try it again thinking they'll get it right next time.

 

[Insta-Gator]

a sad event made even sadder by the initial false information.

I have to agree, that if this were not the first bounce dive, it was just a matter of time.

All in all, these folks have suffered and continue to suffer for their misjudgments. I do not need to add to their misery. And I'm still glad to have donated to their medical bills and would encourage others to have a generous heart and do likewise.