Deaths in Tioman

[jh_MacLeod]

Being overweighted can help lead to panic in the if anything goes wrong but did your contact say how the two drowned? Did they just sit on the bottom until their air ran out? That doesn't sound likely. Did it happen when the student ran out of air and had a death grip on the instructor, pulling the reg out of his mouth? Possible but just being over weighted in itself won't drown them. Great point though that panic kills.

I confirmed that they were both found unresponsive on the surface, so my assumption that they were overweighted was unwarranted. I was also told that they had not refilled their tanks from the previous dives and that they all started the dive with around 50 bar. The student's bcd hose was separated from the bladder, so perhaps that caused the buoyancy failure. The student's tank was empty also, but I haven't heard definitively which failure came first. So, it appears that the drownings occurred very near the surface.

 

[Zippsy]

I confirmed that they were both found unresponsive on the surface, so my assumption that they were overweighted was unwarranted.

errr..... I was just referencing from your post. Also, normally people drown with their head underwater. If they were at the surface, would not they just breathe air? "Overweighted" in tropical waters means that they were not able to swim to the surface despite any BCD failure. If the student was out of air, obviously still stuggling for survival, even a bad swimmer with a weightbelt on can get to the surface if he is not overweighted. Remember that his tank is pretty buoyant at that stage.

The student was possibly doing the regulator removal drill, but for some reason suddenly lost buoyancy and started to sink.

Finally, I am sure you are correct that the dive started with tanks that were used in the previous day's confined water session. Although they should not have, it looks like they were finishing up the confined water skills on the balance of the air but they were not keeping track of what was left. Also, I had heard that it was the instructor's Air2 that was pulled off. Was that in addition to the student's BCD damage or were the earlier reports wrong?

 

[Brian42]

Any more details come out about this? Is this confirmed information that they went diving with only 50 bar in everyone's tank and then somehow managed to drown in 3-4 meter deep water? This is either a Darwin award worthy display of stupidity or some details are missing here... I was diving off a boat the weekend this happened, we heard about it upon arrival back in Singapore at the port. As previously noted there is no useful info in the local news, just "two divers drowned".

 

[Zippsy]

That's pretty much the story, Brian. An instructor tried to save a few bucks by doing the confined water in the ocean and then using one tank over two days to complete the confined water skills. Obviously they were also either not checking their gauges or the gauges were off some (which is often the case when trying to figure out if you have 10 or 1 bar left). Also, the student, and possibly the instructor, was obviously overweighted. Panic had to have played a major role in the accident. Again, this is not surprising when a student is not a strong swimmer, has no air to inflate his BCD and is having significant difficulty staying on the surface.

 

[Violet Lee]

The info from the Dive shop they rent the tank from. The owner even get another 4 new air tank ready for the divers at the beach but the instructor insist not to use the new tanks and refuse the floater provided by the dive shop as well.