Deep bounce dive in Cozumel leads to missing diver

[dumpsterDiver]

Assuming that the info presented is close to correct, my view is that given the fact that they were going to go very deep for air, they did not lower the risks. An 80 cf tank is asinine. Unless the divers were extremely good at air consumption, they probably had marginal air. Add in a contingency like having to go deeper (ala the Scuba Mau event), they were at high risk for a very bad DCS event.

I don't know which is a higher risk at that depth....nitrogen narcosis or oxygen toxicity, but both can terminate the dive in a bad way.

Then there is the issue about the buddy not knowing where the missing/deceased diver was. If you are going to undertake a potentially deadly dive, you better have a buddy with whom you can trust your life.

This is not a primer on doing deep dives but it will happen again. Unless the people doing it want to die or end up paralyzed, they better improve their odds of surviving. Think about the people (family) left behind if things go wrong.

A buddy you are going to trust your life to? With a single 80 and no redundancy....

An 80 is more than enough air to bounce down to 250 and come right back up, but there is not enough to provide much help to a buddy.

What a shame..Probably got narced and drifted down..

 

[Ron Lee]

A buddy you are going to trust your life to? With a single 80 and no redundancy....

An 80 is more than enough air to bounce down to 250 and come right back up, but there is not enough to provide much help to a buddy.

What a shame..Probably got narced and drifted down..

Ever hear of 120 cf tanks? How does a good buddy allow the other to drift down? At some point both of them should have been right by each other and monitoring for problems. Come up together until out of the region where they are at significant risk. Doesn't that make sense?

 

[DandyDon]

How does a good buddy allow the other to drift down?

Have you ever seen one drop into the abyss? I was in a group of four once when the Instructor dropped, his wife and his DM just hovered watching, and I dropped down until I hit 1.6 PPO on my Nitrox and hovered. I was not going to chase him. I later learned that I was the only one of the four who not not in on his plan, probably because he knew I'd object. There have been stories of divers who went beyond safe limits to rescue another, and good for them, but that should never be expected.

 

[AfterDark]

Ever hear of 120 cf tanks? How does a good buddy allow the other to drift down? At some point both of them should have been right by each other and monitoring for problems. Come up together until out of the region where they are at significant risk. Doesn't that make sense?

That doesn't always happen when both divers are most likely narc'd out of their senses.

 

[Tigerman]

A buddy you are going to trust your life to? With a single 80 and no redundancy....

An 80 is more than enough air to bounce down to 250 and come right back up, but there is not enough to provide much help to a buddy.

What a shame..Probably got narced and drifted down..

Its more than enough to bounce down and come right back up, IF YOU DONT HAVE ANY ISSUES to be more specific.
Any idiot can dive down to 250-300 feet, its the coming back up again alive part thats tricky..

 

[tamas970]

Probably a bar story... 200+Ft on air for "several minutes" might not kill you, but if you don't take enough air for the deco stops, than DCS will. NDLs are set on statistical data and include some safety margins - meaning you have a fair chache (50/50?) of coming back from 5min @150' without DCS but if you violate the NDL soo much, you have no chanche to survive without properly observed deep stops.

My heart goes out not only to the diver’s family and friends for their loss, but also the DM and boat captain for the grief, panic, stress and ordeal they have gone and are probably continuing to suffer through, due to what sounds like the reckless actions of the divers.
I am still a novice diver and do not understand the lure of excessively deep diving on plain air. Several trips back I was talking with a resident in a bar on the East side who told me that she and her husband like to ‘dance with the Devil’ which she explained was dropping to around 225’ and holding for several minutes until they could experience ‘cool / vivid’ visual effects, and then ascend. As I understand it at that point you have 2 devils to deal with, Narcosis and O2 toxicity. If you lose the fight it should go pretty quick, except for the poor bastards on the surface, who have to deal with the aftermath.

As for the original story: I lost faith in the media when I was 6 and learnt to read...

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Ever hear of 120 cf tanks? How does a good buddy allow the other to drift down? At some point both of them should have been right by each other and monitoring for problems. Come up together until out of the region where they are at significant risk. Doesn't that make sense?

for some reason, I get the feeling you have not done a lot of air dives below 200 ft?

For most people, the situational awareness is very compromised. No it really makes no sense...IF you are stupid enough to go to 250 on a single 80 of air, you are probably better off solo rather than relying on the false sense of security that can be derived by the presence of another idiot who is similarly ill equipped to handle any problems...It just doubles the danger of the dive, I think.

In any regard, the other diver MAY serve more as a witness than a buddy. I think the primary danger is narcosis, not DCS, air supply or oxygen toxicity at 250 and beyond.

Freedivers are goin way PAST 250 ft, swimming up and down ... with no fins!

 

[tamas970]

Freedivers are goin way PAST 250 ft, swimming up and down ... with no fins!

Yeah, they don't have pressurized air in their lungs - no dcs, no oxtox, just blackout...

 

[redacted]

Probably a bar story... 200+Ft on air for "several minutes" might not kill you, but if you don't take enough air for the deco stops, than DCS will. NDLs are set on statistical data and include some safety margins - meaning you have a fair chache (50/50?) of coming back from 5min @150' without DCS but if you violate the NDL soo much, you have no chanche to survive without properly observed deep stops.

As for the original story: I lost faith in the media when I was 6 and learnt to read...

According to USN dive tables, deco requirement for 200 to 240 feet is only a minute or two for a bounce dive (less than 5 min BT) so the main problem should not be gas if all goes well. (The required stop is 10 ft.) The problem occurs when the fit hits the shan or narcosis take over.

 

[Dirty-Dog]

Ever hear of 120 cf tanks? How does a good buddy allow the other to drift down? At some point both of them should have been right by each other and monitoring for problems. Come up together until out of the region where they are at significant risk. Doesn't that make sense?

Taking more than one person to 250 feet on air without redundancy doesn't really do anything other than increase the number of casualties.