Death of a recreational diver after a fall on board MV Elaine

[chillyinCanada]

My apologies to the team for not reading and/or absorbing the attached.

I agree with Kurtis in principle about the wisdom? of letting him go so quickly after getting him back to his feet. But we weren't there. I've seen similar accidents onboard tho' not with tech divers . . .short of tying the diver down, no one could have stopped them.

 

[Tigerman]

IMHO, the choices aren't "recreational" and "commercial". The choices are "recreational" and "technical" (or "advanced" or "extended range" or whatever label you put on it). The reference isn't to whether or no the diver got paid, the reference is to the demands of the dive.

I understand what you're saying but I don't think that's the context in which this is being discussed (at least not by me). If you drop a set of keys in 30 feet of water and a friend jumps over to get them for you, that's a recreational dive. If you pay someone to do it, by your definition (and I wouldn't disagree) it became a commercial enterprise. But it's still a recreational dive based on the demands of the dive.



It's not so much that the defintions or perspectives are different. You're just mixing apples and oranges.

- Ken

Well, the ones who wrote the report seems to think that either its a recreational activity or its a commercial activity, and thats what they define the dive by (and I never said I agree).

 

[Hickdive]

If you're there for fun it is recreational regardless of how many cylinders you may have or what might be in them.

If you're there for pay it is commercial.

 

[doctormike]

If you're there for fun it is recreational regardless of how many cylinders you may have or what might be in them.

If you're there for pay it is commercial.

Exactly.

---------- Post added December 13th, 2013 at 09:08 AM ----------

I think it's too easy to get hung up on labels. Regardless of which "kind" of a diver he was, this was an advanced, technical (and some would say extreme) dive. There was nothing even remotely recreational about the dive regardless of the label we stick on the diver.

- Ken

Ken, you are obviously far beyond me in terms of diving and experience, and maybe this is a minor semantic point in light of the fact that someone has lost their lives. But I think that if you are going to try to analyze data in a scientific fashion, then terminology is important because what a dive is labeled has implications for how aggregate data is sorted (as was pointed out above).

I'm pretty sure that everyone reading this thread understands that a 300 foot dive with a rebreather is different from cruising along a Caribbean reef at 40 feet. But the fact that in the vernacular, the term "recreational" is used to refer to a dive without a staged deco obligation doesn't change the fact that that usage is incorrect, and that using it in reporting contaminates a database. So I stand by my pet peeve against using the term "recreational dive" to mean a shallow, basic OW dive with no required deco stop (of course, every dive is a deco dive, but that's for another thread!).

Yes, if you pay someone to get your car keys from the bottom of a lake, I consider that a commercial dive. And if you push thousands of feet into a cave using a rebreather and scooters for fun, that's a recreational dive...

 

[Wookie]

What I find shocking is that he does a faceplant on the boat, has to be helped back to his feet, and - despite him saying he wanted to do the dive - no one else on board thought "Maybe this isn't such a good idea" and at least have him sit for a little while to double-check the gear and double-check himself to absolutely be certain that both he and the gear were still able to do the dive.

- Ken

It's very difficult to make someone stay on the boat when their team is descending, there doesn't appear to be anything physically wrong with them, and they sustained a boo boo by falling down. Usually the operator says something like "I TOLD you to put your fins on at the jump gate. I TOLD you it was dangerous to walk around in fins.

Report stated the loop was out of his mouth. If the rebreather was totally flooded he would have been very negative.
Sending him up with a bag was probably the only thing they could do from that depth. Having an unconscious diver and a huge deco obligation is a lose/lose situation I hope to never encounter.

Worse when you have 8 other divers with a deco obligation, you can't move the boat off the shot line, and the distressed diver surfaces away from the boat, in the current, with 2 buddies who blew deco to get him to the surface. It happens.

IMHO, the choices aren't "recreational" and "commercial". The choices are "recreational" and "technical" (or "advanced" or "extended range" or whatever label you put on it). The reference isn't to whether or no the diver got paid, the reference is to the demands of the dive.

I understand what you're saying but I don't think that's the context in which this is being discussed (at least not by me). If you drop a set of keys in 30 feet of water and a friend jumps over to get them for you, that's a recreational dive. If you pay someone to do it, by your definition (and I wouldn't disagree) it became a commercial enterprise. But it's still a recreational dive based on the demands of the dive.
- Ken

Don't just take my word for it, the Coast Guard defines it in the United States. There are 3 types of divers, recreational, commercial, and scientific. If they are scientific, they are diving under the auspices of a scientific diving manual and with a plan approved by a Diving Control Board and under the supervision of a Diving Safety Officer. That wasn't the case here. If they are commercial, they have a chamber within 10 minutes of the dive site, they are getting paid, and diving with coms under the supervision of a Dive Supervisor. Again, clearly not the case. All other diving falls under recreational diving. In the USA. Obviously, this wasn't in the USA.

 

[Hickdive]

It's very difficult to make someone stay on the boat when their team is descending, there doesn't appear to be anything physically wrong with them, and they sustained a boo boo by falling down. Usually the operator says something like "I TOLD you to put your fins on at the jump gate. I TOLD you it was dangerous to walk around in fins.

Standard practice in the UK is to put your fins on at the bench and shuffle (not walk) to the gate. That is certainly the standard practice on the Jean Elaine (a boat I've stayed on and dived from); so much so that Andy Cuthbertson (the skipper) or anyone else on board would not consider it a matter for discussion. You would certainly be considered very odd to walk across the deck and don fins at the gate, in fact with the amount of gear on for this dive and the difficulty of bending down on one leg you would probably get some correctional instruction not do that.

Worse when you have 8 other divers with a deco obligation, you can't move the boat off the shot line, and the distressed diver surfaces away from the boat, in the current, with 2 buddies who blew deco to get him to the surface. It happens.

Standard UK practice employs a live boat at all times. The boat would not have been moored into the wreck and was free to move and pick up divers. In this case the divers were employing a decompression station which would most likely have had name tags on it so the last diver up can set it free to drift during decompression.

 

[doctormike]

Standard practice in the UK is to put your fins on at the bench and shuffle (not walk) to the gate. That is certainly the standard practice on the Jean Elaine (a boat I've stayed on and dived from); so much so that Andy Cuthbertson (the skipper) or anyone else on board would not consider it a matter for discussion. You would certainly be considered very odd to walk across the deck and don fins at the gate, in fact with the amount of gear on for this dive and the difficulty of bending down on one leg you would probably get some correctional instruction not do that..

Some boat configurations have bench space near the jump gate, so that each diver can put on fins after walking to the jump gate without them, then sitting down. Shuffling is more likely to lead to a fall than walking without fins (easy to catch on any deck irregularity), although of course shuffling is better than walking with fins.If there is no bench near the gate, another option is to gear up, walk to the jump gate, and have the crew don your fins for you there while you are standing.

 

[Wookie]

Standard practice in the UK is to put your fins on at the bench and shuffle (not walk) to the gate. That is certainly the standard practice on the Jean Elaine (a boat I've stayed on and dived from); so much so that Andy Cuthbertson (the skipper) or anyone else on board would not consider it a matter for discussion. You would certainly be considered very odd to walk across the deck and don fins at the gate, in fact with the amount of gear on for this dive and the difficulty of bending down on one leg you would probably get some correctional instruction not do that.

We leave a bench open at the gate so a diver can sit down, put fins on, and (with 2 deckhands support) stand and be helped out the gate. At the gate they are handed their scooter, and whatever other accoutrements they need for the dive.

Standard UK practice employs a live boat at all times. The boat would not have been moored into the wreck and was free to move and pick up divers. In this case the divers were employing a decompression station which would most likely have had name tags on it so the last diver up can set it free to drift during decompression.

I saw the sketch in the report. I'm quite taken with that. The only drawback to me is that the skipper is driving the live boat and not helping on deck, but then, I don't always help after the first couple of dives. How hard is this to set up, can it be set up in 15-20 minutes? If diving 2 sites in a day, that could be a lot of work. I need to get over there and see it in person.

 

[mdax]

Falling hard with a RB on his back...seems like it's be more logical to look into something getting broken or jarred on the unit than an abdominal injury. Maybe there is other data we don't have?...

 

[Hickdive]

We leave a bench open at the gate so a diver can sit down, put fins on, and (with 2 deckhands support) stand and be helped out the gate. At the gate they are handed their scooter, and whatever other accoutrements they need for the dive.

Simply doesn't happen in the UK. I've been diving for 28 years and I've never done it that way from a UK boat. You might be right but all I can say is that it doesn't happen here in my experience. I've also never seen a fall as heavy as that described in the report and the couple of falls I have seen haven't been people tripping over their fins but being overbalanced in a swell.

I saw the sketch in the report. I'm quite taken with that. The only drawback to me is that the skipper is driving the live boat and not helping on deck, but then, I don't always help after the first couple of dives. How hard is this to set up, can it be set up in 15-20 minutes? If diving 2 sites in a day, that could be a lot of work. I need to get over there and see it in person.

Deck hand is on deck to assist divers whilst the skipper drives.

I would say though that having a deck hand who is also an experienced diver is much more useful than someone whose experience is being a deck-hand on a trawler. Jean Elaine tends to have the latter. Last time I was on it the skipper went through two deckies in a season. First one was an ex-trawlerman with no diving experience. Very first trip out, very first dive, a diver, got killed and it was one that the deckie had got pally with in the pub the night before. He walked when they docked. He employed another ex-trawlerman who was told not to worry - that diver deaths were very, very rare. He went through the season and was there on our trip. The week after us another diver died and this new deceased had been sleeping in the "bunk of death" that the first casualty of the season had also slept in. That deckie walked too. Absolute sheer coincidence with nothing to do with the boat or skipper.

A decent deco trapeze can be set up in minutes. Have everything assembled neatly on deck with the shotline in the wreck. Skipper motors the boat over to the buoy and the first pair jump holding the end the transfer line that reaches to 21m and has a carabiner on the end. The swim over to the buoy, clip the carabiner from the transfer line to the shotline and their name tags to the carabiner and descend for their dive. Meanwhile the skipper and/or deckie and/or a diver not yet kitted lower the 9m deco bar over the side of the boat. When that's in the water they lower the 6m bar over the side along with the lines and buoys to the surface and let the whole lot go. Once they let go the carabiner slides down the shotline to 21m taking the transfer line with it. Second pair in check its all deployed with no snags, clear any and descend the transfer line to 21m, clip off their name tags on the carabiner and descend. Subsequent pairs descend and clip off their tags on the 21m carabiner as they pass. On ascent each diver recovers their name tags. Last diver up takes their tag and unclips the transfer line from the shot so the whole lot drifts free and you have a nice comfy deco with no current blowing you about like a flag. Skipper motors the boat over to the deco station buoys, puts the boat in neutral and, if there's no wind, drifts along at the same rate as the deco station. When the divers come up they only have to fin a few meters to the lift on the side of the boat.

To be honest though, if your divers are doing less than an hour of decompression stops then a deco trapeze isn't really worth deploying. If they are doing more than an hour of stops then they're probably only doing the one dive a day.