Cozumel Incident 9/4/11

[Mike]

Wow, Im shocked. Please seriously consider your comments for the safety of others who may be influenced by them.

Do the math. There isnt a plan that is justifiable for 200 or 300 on air on single tanks. There is nothing routine about it. The 'plan' was flawed from the start. Being on guard and focused is not possible at sub 200 on air!

This is similar to suggesting that someone with thousands of dives and no cave training can do a few 'routine' dives in Eagles Nest and the only reason they died was because they lost focus.

Chris - reading comprehension issues? Must we play these games? Seriously now I'm endagering others? Perhaps you failed to read:

This was a routine dive in their minds

WTF do you think the reality actually was? They were on tri-mix, had planned this dive for a year, had deco bottles strung, had rescue divers on the dive with them and it's all been covered up? It's pretty clear that 3 people went deep on air with single tanks, no sh*t the plan was flawed. Speculating on what they might have been thinking is dangerous? Please refrain from dumbing down the thread anymore than its already become by issuing warnings about the danger of influencing others with comments here.

All speculation and no basis.


Fact - Poorly thought out dive
Fact - Poor logistics for the dive
Fact - Poor planning for the dive
Fact - Poor execution of the poor plan
Fact - 2 people will never be the same again (don't know the third's current condition)
Fact - All of the above is a result of their own actions

No Sh*t???

You think that's why I said more than once -

... I'd speculate ...... I'd speculate ...

This entire thread of a million replies is all speculation.

I think the two of you would argue for months whether a picture is worth a thousand words or only nine hundred and ninety nine.

 

[Blitz]

I haven't posted here in years. Maybe that denies me the right to comment on this subject, and if it does, please have the mods delete my comments.

I have dived in a lot of places in my 25 years of this sport. I have done some pretty cowboyish stuff and come out ok. But for the life of me I can't figure out how two 'experienced divers' thought this was a good idea. Even if the original depth was shallower than they planned, this is poor judgement.

I really do hope for the best of health for these folks, but I hope some new diver learns from this. Do not dive deeper than recreational depth without the appropriate training and equipment.

Marc

 

[Mossman]

To consider 200' air dives on a single tank without redundancy as 'routine' as some have suggested is completely insane!

Not insane at all, but sheer fact. Lots of people do it. Some guy named Wes, an instructor in your neck of the woods, was bragging at the bar about doing it in Bonaire with a lesser-experienced diver my last trip there. Bob Ling, who passed away recently, would routinely do 200' bounces off Cozumel dive boats as a customer, even when he was in his 70s. Maybe not smart, but routine enough.

 

[Bombay High]

The awesome part of deep diving on air is equal to free dive for 3 or 4 minutes....

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha !!!!! Got to remember that one !!!

 

[Mike]

Not insane at all, but sheer fact. Lots of people do it. Some guy named Wes, an instructor in your neck of the woods, was bragging at the bar about doing it in Bonaire with a lesser-experienced diver my last trip there. Bob Ling, who passed away recently, would routinely do 200' bounces off Cozumel dive boats as a customer, even when he was in his 70s. Maybe not smart, but routine enough.

Thank you.

I think there are just a ton of people here who are just un-aware of the history of this sport.

It wasn't that long ago when dives like this were considered very normal and what you did. Where do they think underwater recompression originated from and why? Opal jumping back in to do it pretty much tells you she's got a lot of this type of diving in her history and she is a student of old school scuba.

I'm baffled how anybody who's been around diving very long hasn't ran into more than a few old divers telling you stories from their good ole days that violate everything being taught today. The history of scuba is filled with deep dives on air. It's not shocking to me to hear about this stuff anymore. The last time I was in Bonaire two of the dive masters with Toucan divers were talking about how many times they have gone to 300 feet on the anchors dive site on air on single tanks, and this after having knocked back a case of beer or a bottle of rum the night before. Just strike up some conversations with enough people who have been diving long enough and you're going to hear about diving this way with little regard to their own safety. This stuff is going on all the time. There is nothing baffeling about it, the only thing baffeling is so many people hearing about it for the first time due to this accident.

(and no Chris, before you reply, I'm not saying it's right or wrong to dive this way, read what I've written two or three times so you understand it before you post saying I'm condoning it and am contributing to killing somebody)

 

[Bombay High]

I don't think that's probably an accurate description of the divers. Two of these are very experienced divers with thousands of dives under their belts. It's logical to believe this dive was just one more in a long series of deep dives on air that they have made over the years. They had plenty of experience, and they weren't putting off any training to be had, because they didn't want it in the first place, this was simply a normal thing for them that they've done many times before. Luck just ran out. Opal lost the game of chicken with narcosis and that's all it took to turn something that they've gotten away with before into a dive accident.

I'm sure you are right, however, given the nature of what they were undertaking, I would guess that hanging a couple of emergency bottles (something I am not a fan of) would not have hurt ...
As divers of some experience, they could easily have taken that precaution. If they don't need it they dont use it ... they still get to brag at the local bar afterwards, but if something goes wrong, as it did, they dont have to scramble on the surface to grab bottles after surfacing and try and recompress in water.

I guess people try this and get away with it, but its just a matter of when ....

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I knew a very experienced diver who told me that many times he would smoke a joint, and then grab a single tank of air and drop down to about 300 for a few minutes to chill out...solo on a deep wall. I believed him.

I had another friend who learned to dive pretty fast (in a few years) and was dropping down solo on a steel tank (and a pony) to around 340 feet on a pretty frequent basis. He was even beginning to convince himself he might try to break the world record on deep air. He was convinced he could just carry a heavy weight and if he got too narced he would drop it and float safely to the surface. Thank god I eventually talked him out of this stupid stuff.

I myself did one deep solo dive on air to 289 (with a pony), just to see what it was like.

I know it may sound unrealistic to many people, when someone claims that a few people thought they could casually drop down to 300 or so on air and then come up quick. Possibly they had done something like this many times? It sounds like one person, just lost it from narcosis and screwed the whole plan. Obviously, 300 feet is stupid but 400 is hardly doable.

I helped out as a divemaster years ago on an ocean dive where an instructor was teaching deep air and he took a 50 yr old guy who was EXTREMELY obese to a depth of 300 feet on a weighted line hanging from a float ball while drifting in the gulf stream in like 350 feet of water.

We also need to remember that people are dropping to over 300 feet now with NO AIR.. (freedivers), so an 80 does have enough air if "everything" goes perfectly.

 

[Simon-]

I think the two of you would argue for months whether a picture is worth a thousand words or only nine hundred and ninety nine.

Or whether why you even bothered to post all your speculation, which could be read as a pathetic attempt at justification for this excuse of a dive.

Please don't try to state what you think I would do - Do you know me?

 

[Bombay High]

We also need to remember that people are dropping to over 300 feet now with NO AIR.. (freedivers), so an 80 does have enough air if "everything" goes perfectly.

It is doable, but .....

If you see the freedivers who go that deep (Umberto Pelizzari, Guillaume Nery, William Trubridge etc.) , you will notice that apart from the fact that they are extraordinary athletes who train religiously for what is an athletic feat, they are also meticulous with their preparation.
There are huge safety measures in place with divers stationed at various points of the dive, including a diver at the 15 -10 metre mark to assist in possible shallow water blackouts. The safety divers at the deepest points sometimes have a couple of hours deco obligations long after the freediver is home and dry.
It does not compare with an attempted bounce dive to 300 or 400 feet on an Al80 with no contingencies in place.

 

[Bombay High]

Thank you.

I think there are just a ton of people here who are just un-aware of the history of this sport. . . . . .

Where do they think underwater recompression originated from and why? Opal jumping back in to do it pretty much tells you she's got a lot of this type of diving in her history and she is a student of old school scuba.

Maybe there are people who are unaware of the history ... but there is also a reason why some of these practices are (or should be) relegated to history.
There are many people who dive deep on air ... some make it, and some dont. This is a fact, and the choice obviously belongs to each individual.
According to you Opal is a student of this old school, and that because she has a history of this kind of diving she believes in underwater recompression .... well, how did it work out for her ?
This is the sad fact. Underwater recompression is of no use on a disastrous dive such as this. All it does it exacerbate the condition or at best delay treatment.