Death in Cocos from shark attack

[HalcyonDaze]

Sharks and the world are divided into 3 camps

1) Non-divers (general public) with zero actual interactions with sharks who get their opinions of sharks from movies and the news, so they typically over-estimate the danger of sharks

2) Divers with very little experience with sharks, they likely have 50 or less encounters, they get much of their opinions formed by the small amount of encounters they have which have all been unexceptionable and the typical scuba world over reaction of "shark attacks are very rare, sharks are more scared of you then them...." which are the typical diver reaction to counter act the non-divers opinions of how dangerous sharks are.

3) Divers with a lot of experience with sharks, hundreds and hundreds of shark encounters, these divers have enough encounters to have had personal experiences with aggressive sharks, sharks with bad attitudes, close encounters with sharks requiring them to get out of the water or defend themselves.

As you increase your interactions with sharks, you'll eventually have your first bad experience, with more and more experiences with them you'll eventually change from #2 to become a #3 sooner or later, that doesn't make you someone who hates sharks or thinks they should be culled or has never had good interactions, it just makes you somebody who has seen what most divers have not and you become much more realistic about how good sharks can be to dive with and how bad they can be to dive with.

The diver that died in Cocos went from a #2 to a #3, however she unfortunately didn't survive the experience.

Obviously I'm a #3, I had hundreds upon hundreds of shark encounters over 30 years and I've seen the good and the bad in sharks, I've done just about every commercial shark feeding dive there is in the world, the last one was the Beqa bullshark and tiger shark feeding dive in Fiji. I don't hate sharks, I just respect them and I understand better than the #2 divers how unpredictable they really are.

I do agree with this; on another forum I was arguing with a former poster here who was insistent that this had to be a baited or spearfishing situation - he was adamant that tiger sharks would not attack a scuba diver without the added influence of bait or speared fish. That's pure BS; sharks are predators and they got where they are by figuring out what they can eat - and the "figuring out if it's edible" bit is a bit rougher on humans than we like, even if they decide "no thanks." The first time I encountered a full-size adult tiger - one of the 14-15 foot "Bahama Mamas" at Tiger Beach - my first thought after the initial thrill was "This thing could destroy me and not even notice it." I don't fear them and I haven't had an instance yet where they've run me out of the water; but I've definitely had cases where I either had to push back or got lucky they were aiming for a fish and not me.

I do think that in the grand scheme of threats divers face, sharks are not a common one. The closest calls I've had while diving have been stupid mistakes involving staying down longer than I should and not watching my gas; when I go up to Jupiter for baited shark dives I'm more worried about falling asleep at the wheel on the way home. Getting bowled over by a half-ton tiger shark or getting in what I can only describe as an underwater dogfight with one half that size don't make the list.

I still think that the best defense against shark attack is situational awareness. What's possibly kept me out of trouble is scanning my surroundings and seeing a potential problem coming 50+ feet away; the times I've almost gotten smoked (and thankfully only relieved of a lionfish) have been when one got close that I didn't notice. The other part of it is having enough experience to assess the situation and prioritize which sharks to keep track of - for instance, noticing which shark is the most obnoxious and making it the first priority.

As an example, I went back and found this clip from April of last year; the general setup may be similar to the attack we're discussing (tiger shark coming up from below at a diver ascending to the safety stop). The differences are that this was a baited dive (although the photographer was not holding bait) and the shark broke off - either because she was spotted or she just wanted a closer look at those bright white ankles


Afterwards, the other guy was more exasperated at me for breaking up his closeup session at the end there. Photographers ...

 

[mmmbelows]

I want to known in the opinion of an expert, if it was the kind of accident that we all are expose when we dive with sharks, (and I´m ok with that risk ) or if it was something out of the normal situation with that particular shark , but nobody know all the facts and its only speculations.

There is no such thing as an expert.

 

[mmmbelows]

True, but it's hard to see how anything would be uncovered that would be contributory to a random tiger shark attack

You'll never be a screen writer...

 

[HalcyonDaze]

The only way to guarantee that this would not happen would be to not dive. It's the inconvenient truth. Many of us decide the risk is worth the opportunity to dive with them.



My sentiments exactly.


The fee may cover the cost of manning a station and helicopter available to those in need in Cocos Island while also being gov't subsidized but probably doesn't cover the actual cost if you needed it.

I sat in on a DAN seminar and they touched upon one of the worst places to have a medical emergency. Top 2 are Cocos Island and Galapagos due to their remoteness. Cocos is so far away that even a medical evacuation helicopter sent out there doesn't have the range to make the round trip. Depending on weather and surface conditions, the trip by boat alone can take 30-36 hours. Best case scenario, the liveaboard could haul towards Costa Rica mainland and the medevac helicopter could reach them once they liveaboard is within range of the helicopter making the return trip to mainland. Even in the best case scenario, and a helicopter had the ability to travel round trip to Cocos Island, I'm guessing that her wounds were so serious and dire it did not take long for her to bleed out. Unfortunately, it would have still been significant time to transport her to any medical facility.

We do not know enough about the DM other than the fact that he was in stable condition by the time they were departing Cocos. We know that they traveled towards mainland Costa Rica but don't know details whether a medical helicopter came and retrieved him or whether they traveled all the way to mainland on their own.

The one instance where I was unfortunate enough to experience the death of a fellow diver, it was on a liveaboard on the Great Barrier Reef - I believe it was almost exactly 13 years ago, come to think of it. It was an older gentleman who went up to the top deck of the liveaboard after the first dive and then keeled over. We were 40 miles out to sea and it was about 40-45 minutes later that the helo was roping paramedics down to the boat. By that point, there wasn't anything they could do for him. At a location like Cocos, your best hope is really good first aid, then a prompt evacuation.

 

[drrich2]

You'll never be a screen writer...

True, but I've seen no report they baited, fed or spear fished on this dive (I'm not saying those things are wrong, but some would consider them risk factors), and I've seen no 'standard of care' practice description for any live-aboard indicating routine provision of staff divers holding bang sticks standing guard over the divers or other ridiculous measures. Tiger shark sightings are something some customers would wish & regard as photo op.s, not reason to immediately exit the water. A crew member intervened to rescue the diver.

I imagine a lawyer can concoct some allegations to put on a lawsuit & file it, I'm not questioning that...

Richard.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

The lemon didn’t appear to deliberately come at me so much as I happened to be in its path and while it might well have angled off, I didn’t choose to wait and see. There was no discernible urgency on the shark’s part, nor did I have to react suddenly or with substantial force. In other words, I thought it might bump into me, but I didn’t get the sense it was trying to bump me to see what I was.

Richard.

Agreed. "Bumping," especially in a situation where a bunch of divers and a bunch of sharks are all occupying the same chunk of water, is sometimes just that. A big fish with no reverse gear is sometimes klutzy; at that point you just have to make sure the sharp bits don't get close enough for a misunderstanding to happen.

The most memorable instance I've had of that was when one of the big girls at Tiger Beach (I think it was Hook, who's reportedly about 14 ft) swam right into me and I had the option of going under or over. I picked the side that was farther away from the mouth.

 

[mmmbelows]

True, but I've seen no report they baited, fed or spear fished on this dive (I'm not saying those things are wrong, but some would consider them risk factors)
Richard.

Exactly. My point about what a lawsuit might uncover are exactly things like you just outlined. Did they happen, did they not happen, none of us know as of today so far all there has been is a couple of articles spreading around the internet, mostly just derivative of each one before it. Is there anything else to report on what happened? Maybe, maybe not. Incidents that happen in foreign waters all share some typical similarities one being that information is slow to get out if it even ever does get out and information that does get out gets skewered by whatever the media reporting it wants to skew it, newspapers sensationalize shark attacks to the extreme, scuba oriented media de-sensationalizes it to the extreme. The truth lies in the eye witness reports of everyone on that boat or on the dive, much of which will never come to light, nobody is getting depositions from them all... except if there is a lawsuit. Will there be a lawsuit? Is there any negligence? I don't know, nobody knows because all there is right now is a tiny sliver of information that has been released and all it paints is a divemaster and a diver getting bit by a shark at the surface, but a lawsuit will bring out every facet and detail, that's not to say there is anything to bring out, my only point was that a lawsuit will guarantee a light gets shined on every detail of what happened.

 

[Johnoly]

About 15 feet. On multiple occasions I've had sharks attempt to come at me on the surface from below... they hit the field, abruptly turn tail and go back down....

I agree with CuzzA. I always dive solo and used the Shark shield #4 for several years and it was very effective even while holding dead wiggling fish on my stringer. Sharks would circle at 20 feet but not come in with it on. Once in a while a shark would brave the pain and receive a punch, but the unit did it's job very well. I stopped wearing it because I stopped diving the popular reefs and now concentrate on the ugly bottom where they don't show up in packs. I still get aggressive visitors on my dives, but it's usually just a single one like last sunday in Jupiter.

 

[Steve_C]

What could an investigation uncover? Here is one. Suppose that they find there have been other incidents of aggressive tiger sharks in that area in recent years. There was at least one. Maybe others. They determine that the operator created the impression that the dives were perfectly safe. I am not saying they did this, but ad departments are ad departments. They get some data that shows that tiger sharks can be aggressive.

The case is not taken to divers, marine biologists, or scientists. If it goes to trial it goes to a jury and the case depends as much on how the jury likes the lawyer and the victim as they do the facts.

 

[Snoweman]

With regards to lawsuits, is anyone on this board familiar with Costa Rican law? I'm pretty sure this is what courts this would be heard. Do they treat tourists with the same consideration as locals? I'm not trying to disparage Costa Rica. I just know that all countries don't work like the USA.