Death in SoCal last Thanksgiving

[rollerboi]

This is something I've been wondering about for some time. I've scanned this forum, as well as the farewell forum, but haven't found anything related to an incident that happened last Thanksgiving.

An old friend of mine died in a diving accident. I don't know where, exactly, but if anyone happens to have remembered this happening I'd love to hear from you. The story from the widow doesn't quite seem to jive, based on everything I've since learned about diving.

Basically, he was doing a night dive with a buddy. For some reason, they had to ascend to the surface; I am unsure if it was a LOA incident or not. It's said that his weight belt fell off, so he left his buddy at the surface and dove back down to get it.

They did a search for him and found his body tangled in seaweed on the bottom, with his fins off. It was a very sad thing; he left behind a wife and two young boys.

However, the circumstances have been bothering me. From the information given, does this sound like a realistic scenario?

 

[AbyssalPlains]

This is something I've been wondering about for some time. I've scanned this forum, as well as the farewell forum, but haven't found anything related to an incident that happened last Thanksgiving.

An old friend of mine died in a diving accident. I don't know where, exactly, but if anyone happens to have remembered this happening I'd love to hear from you. The story from the widow doesn't quite seem to jive, based on everything I've since learned about diving.

Basically, he was doing a night dive with a buddy. For some reason, they had to ascend to the surface; I am unsure if it was a LOA incident or not. It's said that his weight belt fell off, so he left his buddy at the surface and dove back down to get it.

They did a search for him and found his body tangled in seaweed on the bottom, with his fins off. It was a very sad thing; he left behind a wife and two young boys.

However, the circumstances have been bothering me. From the information given, does this sound like a realistic scenario?

Not knowing any specific details, I can of course only guess. However, under the assumption that the diver was properly weighted with his weightbelt, there is no way he could have made it down without his weights. Rather he would have bobbed on the surface like a cork. Now, there is a possibility that he borrowed weights from his buddy, went down and became entangled. But not knowing the details all of this is guesswork.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

Not knowing any specific details, I can of course only guess . . .

This is not meant to sound mean-sprited, but don't speculate about these types of things. Everything you assumed is incorrect in this case.

Rollerboi, please feel free to contact me directly at kenkurtis@aol.com and I'll see if I can answer some of your questions.

Just so everyone knows where I'm coming from, I do the fatality analysis for the Los Angeles Coroner's Office for scuba-related deaths that happen within the Coroner's jurisdiction (which this was). I did the report on this accident. We also presented this case during the "Why Divers Die" panel (Lt. John Kades from the Coroner, Lorraine Sadler from the Catalina Chamber, and myself) at the Scuba Show 2007, so I think I can relate some of the details that are public information.

This acccident occured at Catalina (Eagle Reef) during a night dive. The diver in question was making his first night dvie and his first set of California dives. He made three dives during the day but had run out of air on one of those dives. On his night dive, he and his buddy surfaced towards the end of the dive, in the middle of kelp, with about 500psi each in their tanks.

At some point about this time, he dropped his weight belt. He and the buddy went back down to try to find it. The buddy says they descended together and when they got the bottom, the buddy says he turned, and when he turned back, he couldn't find the victim and didn't see his light. At this point the buddy ascended and notified the boat. A search of the area was unsuccessful.

The victim was found the next morning at a depth of about 60 feet. His weightbelt was nearby and both of his fins were off of his feet and also nearby (no more than 10 feet away).

When we examined the gear (which all worked properly with one notable exception), we discovered some key factors that we think played into this tragic event:
1. There was no air in the tank.
2. The victim dove with 32 pounds of weight. Given his height/weight, we estimate he should have needed no more than 16 pounds.
3. He wore 8 pounds on a weight belt, 8 pounds in his left ditchable BC weight pocket, 8 pounds in his right ditchable BC weight pocket, and 8 pockets in two non-ditchable rear BC weight pockets.
4. Perhaps most significantly, he had taken his fins and cut them down the middle to mimic a split fin design. By doing so, he significantly reduced the amount of thrust he could get from the fins.
5. He had a dive light with him which worked, but it was turned off.

Given the weight he was wearing, it was easily possible for him to descend having dropped the 8-pound belt. We don't know why the light wasn't on. Given the air he started with, and the presumed workload, we think he descended to the bottom and then ran out of air. We know - from his computer readout - that he attempted to ascend and made it up to 32 feet before falling back down to 60 feet. We think that, in attempting to kick up and having no air in his BC and getting little thrust from his fins, he basically kicked so hard that he kicked both fins off his feet and then fell to the bottom.

Please accept our condolences on the loss of your friend. As I said earlier, if you have other questions, please feel free to contact me directly and privately.

- Ken

 

[rollerboi]

Ken,

Thank you so much for shedding some light on the incidents of this day. Sadly, much of what you said fits with his personality. This puts my wife and I more at ease, knowing that this was not just an "accident" that could happen to anyone.

Sadly, the more I read of this sub-forum, the more I notice that the incidents described can usually be traced back to mistakes made by the victims. :/