tpearce
New
Well, I see speculation still reigns supreme. Even those who were on the boat don't know the facts. I was on the dive & was Brett's dive buddy. Since the names are already posted, I won't try to protect anyone's anonymity. Don was taking two students for a deep dive cert. Brett & I were going along - Brett for recreational purposes, me just in case. As we've done before on the Monterey Express, we went out to the mile marker, jumped in, and the boat circled around while we did the dive.
We descended together, stayed together on the way down and stood on the bottom at 130 ft. Don checked everyone with the OK signal and 3 minutes into the dive, signaled the ascent. I started up, looked around and saw Brett unable to get off the bottom with Don trying to help. I swam over and grabbed Brett's BC and started swimming up with him & Don. Brett was struggling & breathing fast, but we got him off the botom & started up. Both Don and I tried to calm him but it didn't seem to do any good. The two students were ascending with us at this time. At about 80 ft. Brett waved his arm at me a couple of times. I assumed he was waving me off, so since Don was staying with him, they were going up and I could tell Brett was still breathing, I let go to look after Don's students.
I had forgotten I had my BC fully inflated to help drag Brett up, and the next thing I knew, I was zooming up. I flared & started dumping but couldn't stop the ascent. I was the one that popped out of the water (80 ft. in 20 seconds per my computer). I immediately started clawing my way back down and found the two students and did a deco stop with them. I think the only reasons I wasn't another casualty were that we hadn't been down long enough for much nitrogen buildup and I remembered to keep breathing during my runaway ascent. As we surfaced, we heard the people on the boat calling us in and we beat feet to the boat. I knew Brett had to be in trouble.
As I got on board, the boat took off for shore. I saw Brett on he deck with Don giving oxygen, another diver doing CPR and two others around Brett (one was crew). I have not heard any good words about the crew response, in fact just the opposite, but in all honesty, by the time I got there Brett was being administered to and I wasn't concerned about who was doing it. Unfortunately, Brett never responded.
What happened? We're not sure yet. The coroner's report won't be issued for 6-8 weeks. That should tell us how he died - drowning (of course), heart attack, some other physical cause, etc. Don told me that he thinks Brett quit breathing around 50 ft. When he got to the surface, he asked Brett if he was OK and Brett just rolled face down. Don rolled him over & saw foam in his mask and pulled his regulator ou of his mouth and more foam came out. He waved & yelled for the boat, yelling that Brett had inhaled water. He towed Brett to the boat, helped get him on, climbed out himself, shed his gear and started assisting with CPR.
How did Brett get into that situation? Again, no definitive answer, but we have some clues. Afterwards, I found out that he had been nervous and apprehensive about the dive all week. Brett was a trained Rescue diver (we did the course together) and a master scuba diver. He either forgot or ignored his training and did the dive anyway in spite of his misgivings. I know he had been that deep before, but that was in Hawaii - the conditions nowhere near as harsh as Monterey. He told another friend that he had 36 pounds of weight (he was wearing a dry suit). Combine that with the steel tanks used on the Express, and he was probably way overweight (he only weighed approx. 160 lbs.). I don't know for sure how much weight he was carrying because the Coroner sill has his gear. What I do know is that when I was trying to get him off the bottom he seemed extremely heavy (thus the reason for my fully inflated BC). Don told me he tried to dump Brett's weights but couldn't get them to release. And the worst thing that happened, is I think Brett panicked. Out of concern for his widow (also my friend), I won't specify here the details that lead me to that conclusion, but that is my opinion. We're taught to stop, think, then act. At 130 ft, in cold water with 5-6 feet of viz, when you can't get off the bottom, that training can easily take a back seat to primal urges. The sad thing here is that we had plenty of air and we couldn't go any deeper, so if he could have stayed calm, we would have figured a way to release his weights and do a normal ascent with him. Of couse, that's an easy thing to say in hindsight and with me not being the one with the problem.
The bottom line is that we need to wait on the Coroner's report for the critical information we need. Its possible that the stress of the dive caused a heart attack or stroke on the bottom and that's why he was struggling so hard to get up - he could have been in great pain. All I really know at this point is that I lost a friend that I looked on as a little brother.
I'm heading down to L.A. tomorrow for his funeral, so unless I can catch some wifi, I'll be out of touch with the internet until Monday.
Tom Pearce
We descended together, stayed together on the way down and stood on the bottom at 130 ft. Don checked everyone with the OK signal and 3 minutes into the dive, signaled the ascent. I started up, looked around and saw Brett unable to get off the bottom with Don trying to help. I swam over and grabbed Brett's BC and started swimming up with him & Don. Brett was struggling & breathing fast, but we got him off the botom & started up. Both Don and I tried to calm him but it didn't seem to do any good. The two students were ascending with us at this time. At about 80 ft. Brett waved his arm at me a couple of times. I assumed he was waving me off, so since Don was staying with him, they were going up and I could tell Brett was still breathing, I let go to look after Don's students.
I had forgotten I had my BC fully inflated to help drag Brett up, and the next thing I knew, I was zooming up. I flared & started dumping but couldn't stop the ascent. I was the one that popped out of the water (80 ft. in 20 seconds per my computer). I immediately started clawing my way back down and found the two students and did a deco stop with them. I think the only reasons I wasn't another casualty were that we hadn't been down long enough for much nitrogen buildup and I remembered to keep breathing during my runaway ascent. As we surfaced, we heard the people on the boat calling us in and we beat feet to the boat. I knew Brett had to be in trouble.
As I got on board, the boat took off for shore. I saw Brett on he deck with Don giving oxygen, another diver doing CPR and two others around Brett (one was crew). I have not heard any good words about the crew response, in fact just the opposite, but in all honesty, by the time I got there Brett was being administered to and I wasn't concerned about who was doing it. Unfortunately, Brett never responded.
What happened? We're not sure yet. The coroner's report won't be issued for 6-8 weeks. That should tell us how he died - drowning (of course), heart attack, some other physical cause, etc. Don told me that he thinks Brett quit breathing around 50 ft. When he got to the surface, he asked Brett if he was OK and Brett just rolled face down. Don rolled him over & saw foam in his mask and pulled his regulator ou of his mouth and more foam came out. He waved & yelled for the boat, yelling that Brett had inhaled water. He towed Brett to the boat, helped get him on, climbed out himself, shed his gear and started assisting with CPR.
How did Brett get into that situation? Again, no definitive answer, but we have some clues. Afterwards, I found out that he had been nervous and apprehensive about the dive all week. Brett was a trained Rescue diver (we did the course together) and a master scuba diver. He either forgot or ignored his training and did the dive anyway in spite of his misgivings. I know he had been that deep before, but that was in Hawaii - the conditions nowhere near as harsh as Monterey. He told another friend that he had 36 pounds of weight (he was wearing a dry suit). Combine that with the steel tanks used on the Express, and he was probably way overweight (he only weighed approx. 160 lbs.). I don't know for sure how much weight he was carrying because the Coroner sill has his gear. What I do know is that when I was trying to get him off the bottom he seemed extremely heavy (thus the reason for my fully inflated BC). Don told me he tried to dump Brett's weights but couldn't get them to release. And the worst thing that happened, is I think Brett panicked. Out of concern for his widow (also my friend), I won't specify here the details that lead me to that conclusion, but that is my opinion. We're taught to stop, think, then act. At 130 ft, in cold water with 5-6 feet of viz, when you can't get off the bottom, that training can easily take a back seat to primal urges. The sad thing here is that we had plenty of air and we couldn't go any deeper, so if he could have stayed calm, we would have figured a way to release his weights and do a normal ascent with him. Of couse, that's an easy thing to say in hindsight and with me not being the one with the problem.
The bottom line is that we need to wait on the Coroner's report for the critical information we need. Its possible that the stress of the dive caused a heart attack or stroke on the bottom and that's why he was struggling so hard to get up - he could have been in great pain. All I really know at this point is that I lost a friend that I looked on as a little brother.
I'm heading down to L.A. tomorrow for his funeral, so unless I can catch some wifi, I'll be out of touch with the internet until Monday.
Tom Pearce
] ) but I can't help thinking about it from time to time. 
