Diver Death in Cayman

[stevejaz]

Hi there, This was discussed about 800 posts back. There were 3 options if I recall, the two that come to mind were (1) self inflation of BCD and (2) positive buoyancy of an empty tank after being breathed empty.

Best Regards
Richard

I apologize, I read the first 20 some pages and didn't see this really covered, now it's out of control and didn't notice it discussed that thoroughly. But....

(1) There are self inflating BCDs that trigger at 346'????

(2) Empty tank of a presumably unconscious diver suddenly becomes bouyant enough to get this diver to the surface that quickly? And if that's the case, would his descent have slowed drastically to get to that point, that seems like it would have been a fairly slow transition of events.

In order to continue to 346' wouldn't one of 2 things had to happen?

(1) He makes it there consciously, inflates and rockets to surface. If so, why would he make it that far, have enough presence of mind to inflate, but not enough to return much sooner?

(2) Looses consciousness prior to 346', presumably much earlier, continues to drop, somehow becomes bouyant and back to the surface in 22 minutes?

I can only guess, but to make it back up he would have had to hit the inflator button at some point to get positively bouyant. I would guess that at his max depth either narcosis or ox-tox would have rendered him unconscious... but perhaps not. I can't remember what the records are for deep air. Several of us commenting in this thread have been pretty deep on air, but not that deep.

But a brand new diver that deep... not sure what to think.

Anyway, he must have retained enough awareness to hit the inflator button at some point before blacking out, may have hit the inflator button then embolized on ascent.... all speculation on my part.

Best wishes.

I know I probably don't sound too bright but, same thing. You get too deep, dementa of some sort sets in, and you suddenly get clarity and hit the eject button?

There's gotta be more to this. I mean really 346' is unfathomable to me, especially for someone that's new, not efficient, and descends fast enough to to make it down that far and make it back up in 22 minutes one way or another all the while being disoriented and/or unconscious.

As for the empty tank, wouldn't he also have an empty BCD and lungs by that point? Don't divers that drowned typically sink or stay at the same depth?

I'm not trying to be negative, just trying to fill in the blanks and since I'm obviously not that well versed, I gotta ask:depressed:

 

[Cave Diver]

I apologize, I read the first 20 some pages and didn't see this really covered, now it's out of control and didn't notice it discussed that thoroughly. But....

(1) There are self inflating BCDs that trigger at 346'????

I think they meant that the diver inflated it themself, not that it was self inflating.

(2) Empty tank of a presumably unconscious diver suddenly becomes bouyant enough to get this diver to the surface that quickly? And if that's the case, would his descent have slowed drastically to get to that point, that seems like it would have been a fairly slow transition of events.

Without analyzing the computer date for profile and ascent rate this is a bit difficult to ascertain. The tank was found empty, but at 10+ atmospheres, it's being emptied ten times faster. This could have occured because he breathed it down, or because he had enough presence of mind left to hit the inflator, but not enough to let go. A few theories have been thrown around, but this part is pretty much pure speculation.

In order to continue to 346' wouldn't one of 2 things had to happen?

(1) He makes it there consciously, inflates and rockets to surface. If so, why would he make it that far, have enough presence of mind to inflate, but not enough to return much sooner?

(2) Looses consciousness prior to 346', presumably much earlier, continues to drop, somehow becomes bouyant and back to the surface in 22 minutes?

I know I probably don't sound too bright but, same thing. You get too deep, dementa of some sort sets in, and you suddenly get clarity and hit the eject button?

He could have made it there conciously, but he would be extremely impaired.

I have no reasonable explanation from the information given how he managed to hit 346' and then become bouyant enough to return to the surface.

There's gotta be more to this. I mean really 346' is unfathomable to me, especially for someone that's new, not efficient, and descends fast enough to to make it down that far and make it back up in 22 minutes one way or another all the while being disoriented and/or unconscious.

As for the empty tank, wouldn't he also have an empty BCD and lungs by that point? Don't divers that drowned typically sink or stay at the same depth?

I'm not trying to be negative, just trying to fill in the blanks and since I'm obviously not that well versed, I gotta ask:depressed:

The best we can do at this point is speculate unless new information comes out.

 

[pilot fish]

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not, but pretty much every boat I've been on has asked where we wanted to go.

Terry

The point that I was making for garylee was that this dive site was not planned at the dive shop, as he asserted, but done on the fly by DM, now euphemistically called DG. OP confirms that none of them knew where site was, including DM, till they were right over it.

 

[pilot fish]

Stevejaz, you have asked questions that I asked early on but did not get answers to. It puzzles me as well, for the exact reasons it puzzles you. Since I received no answers that seemed plausable I then assumed it was an incorrect reading of his depth due to puter malfunction. I could think of no other reasonable answer as to how he got to 346' and back to the surface in 22 minutes, let alone get there at all, even in a few days.

What has positive bouyancy at 30 ft of water, lets say, becomes negatively bouyant at 150 ft. His empty tank would not have been enough positive bouyancy to get him to the surface that fast. All the stuff I've read about divers sinking in the deep was that most were never recovered or were dragged up in fishing nets weeks or so later.As you correctly say, he had NO presence of mind to hit inflator button at 200 ft or so, but does while being that panicked and impaired at 346 ft makes no sense. Maybe his new puter was activated by accident on the plane, it happened to me, and was giving incorrect readings. That happened to me as well.

fosterboxermom, was he found with his weights still attached? Most new divers, I've read, do not get rid of weights during accidents.

I apologize, I read the first 20 some pages and didn't see this really covered, now it's out of control and didn't notice it discussed that thoroughly. But....

(1) There are self inflating BCDs that trigger at 346'????

(2) Empty tank of a presumably unconscious diver suddenly becomes bouyant enough to get this diver to the surface that quickly? And if that's the case, would his descent have slowed drastically to get to that point, that seems like it would have been a fairly slow transition of events.

In order to continue to 346' wouldn't one of 2 things had to happen?

(1) He makes it there consciously, inflates and rockets to surface. If so, why would he make it that far, have enough presence of mind to inflate, but not enough to return much sooner?

(2) Looses consciousness prior to 346', presumably much earlier, continues to drop, somehow becomes bouyant and back to the surface in 22 minutes?



I know I probably don't sound too bright but, same thing. You get too deep, dementa of some sort sets in, and you suddenly get clarity and hit the eject button?

There's gotta be more to this. I mean really 346' is unfathomable to me, especially for someone that's new, not efficient, and descends fast enough to to make it down that far and make it back up in 22 minutes one way or another all the while being disoriented and/or unconscious.

As for the empty tank, wouldn't he also have an empty BCD and lungs by that point? Don't divers that drowned typically sink or stay at the same depth?

I'm not trying to be negative, just trying to fill in the blanks and since I'm obviously not that well versed, I gotta ask:depressed:

 

[Riger]

FosterBoxerMom will have to correct me here, but I believe that the elapsed time from 346' (~105m) to the surface was approximately 2 minutes.

Question for FosterBoxerMom, do you know roughly the last time (minutes into the dive) that Brendan was positively observed to be part of the group? When was the last time that you and/or Pam saw him underwater?

There has not been much discussion yet about how he got to that depth. With any luck someone will get access to the dive profile if/when it becomes public domain and post it here. There are many that would like to see this information.

Best Regards
Richard

 

[fosterboxermom]

I am still convinced that there was a mis-interpretation underwater related to the location of divers and "buddy" groups.

Often times the person on one side of an underwater exchange is absolutely convinced of what the conversation was about and is absolutely wrong. I have personal experience in this matter and it is related to comms between my wife and I (under the water!! before anyone throws their penny into the pot).

We were a threesome buddy group inside the Thistlegorm wreck (Red Sea). About 20 minutes into the dive, my wife gets my attention, points to her computer, points to me and shows me the "shrugs with arms to the side" (***) signal. Because we both have AI computers and can see each others pressure I look at my pressure and show her the OK sign. She shakes her head and goes through the same routine with more aggression.. of course I still have no clue what she is talking about, I check her analogue pressure gauge, that looks good, so her air is ok.. I sign her that I am OK and challenge her if she is OK, she shows OK, and we will talk later.

Now I know I made some basic errors, I should have stopped looked at her computer taken the time to make sure that there was no other concerns etc....

At this point (to make my point) I could ask you all to guess what this was about, but that would reduce this discussion to a game-show.

What was the interaction about you ask? ... I am the geek and I set all her baseline settings on her computer for her (she does her own Nitrox % and MOD). She had an alarm going off, the cause of which, was not obvious to her and she was asking me what settings I had made to her computer! We have subsequently reset her computer and I guided her through all the settings and made her decide and set what she wanted.

The point I am making is ......

It seems that during the fatal dive, there were many opportunities for misunderstanding of communications between you and the DM/DG. Perhaps there was a genuine misunderstanding that caused him to think that there was no need for concern.

Once again, this is speculation, but sometimes the smallest of factors can have the worst result.

Best Regards
Richard

I can't stress it any more than I have but there was no miscommunication once we were in the water. Pam and I were at 60 ft together alone and the rest of the group including Brendan was at 100 ft. When we descended Pam and I were pretty much to out depth at that point. We used a line to go down and come up. The rest of the group continued to descend and we watched them continue to go further down Pam and I stopped at 60ft. Brendan had a camera and took one picture at the bottom that we saw and continued with the group. I can't say I saw him at any given point because I was so focused on Pam. I would look for the group mainly keeping my eye on the DM (for direction) and the turn to Pam, and back for a sec to the DM and back to Pam, and so forth. I did that for 10 min until we stopped. Then I could stop and count individual divers and see who was exactly missing. And so did the DM. But at no time was Brendan at the depth with Pam and I EVER except at the descent line.

 

[Riger]

FosterBoxerMom,

As a matter of interest, did they recover Brendan's camera?


Best Regards
Richard

 

[fosterboxermom]

I know I'm probably going to get crusafied for this...but..

Why is there no discussion that this guy made it to 346' and back to the surface in a period of 22 minutes? How do you get that deep accidently but still have the presence of mind to inflate your BC or somehow get back to the surface?

I'm certainly not blaming him for his own demise, but isn't the whole idea of this section of the board to understand what happened and to learn from it?

The DM has been crusified, maybe rightfully so (not for me to judge) but something went terribly wrong and this guy covered almost 700' verticle feet of water in one state or another and somehow initiated his return to the surface from 346'....HOW? I want to understand that! I'm a new diver, still working out bouyancy issues, but accidently making it to 346' and not knowing it? I know I'm beating this to death but I'm truely perplexed by this.

I know this is hard to take in. It is hard for all of us and we are all trying to figure it out. Actually we probably will never know how he got that deep. Only the deceased would be able to give the true facts so everything is speculation at this point. What I can tell you is he started the dive with 7 other divers all with different experiences. We were taken to a site and told our depth would be ft. Two of us (myself and his fiancé' didn't want to go to 100ft so we stayed at 60ft hovering over the rest of the group). Half way into the dive approx. 10 min. the DM did a check and noticed one diver was missing. This was when we were suppose to make a left turn, at that turn the slope of the bottom (hard bottom)starting sloping off deeper than we all realized. SPECULATION is the diver either didn't make the turn, or got narked, or something and started going deeper and we didn't notice him leaving the group. He was at 184ft at 14 mins into the dive 199 minutes into the dive and then eventually reached a depth of over 300ft. He then was discovered floating on the surface by a fishing boat.

We are discussing how he got separated from the group. One important issue is it was a group dive and there was no assigned buddies. What we have learned is:

ALWAYS BUDDY UP NO MATTER WHO IS IN CHARGE!!
NEVER DIVE PAST YOUR CERTIFIED LIMITS (unless you are certifying for a new level or you are with an instructor and that is your goal to go beyond your limits and it is agreed and you have a dive plan in place)
KNOW THE BOATING LAWS OF THE COUNTRY THAT YOU ARE IN
KNOW WHERE THE FIRST AID KIT IS AND KNOW HOW TO USE IT OR MAKE SURE YOU KNOW SOMEONE ON THE BOAT KNOWS HOW TO USE IT. MAKE SURE THEY HAVE o2, AMBU BAG, AND HOPEFULLY AND AED ON BOARD AND IT IS NOT "LOCKED UP"
KNOW THE BOATS RADIO CALL NUMBERS AND HOW TO USE IT
KNOW YOUR OWN GEAR AND GEAR UP YOUR OWN GEAR, DON'T TRUST ANYONE ELSE TO TOUCH YOUR GEAR
HAVE A DIVE PLAN
AND IF YOU FEEL THAT THE DIVE SITE IS NOT A GOOD SITE FOR YOUR EXPERIENCE ASK TO GO TO ANOTHER ONE OR SIT IT OUT. DON'T BE AFRAID TO SPEAK UP.
AND REMEMBER YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOURSELF AND ONLY YOURSELF. THE DM IS THERE TO "GUIDE YOU" NOTHING MORE.
IF YOU WANT A PERSONAL SAFETY PERSON OTHER THAN YOUR BUDDY, HIRE SOMEONE

These are just a few of the questions and things you should be prepared to do on all your dives.

 

[fosterboxermom]

Riger,

Yes they did.

 

[Riger]

Riger,

Yes they did.

Do you know if they looked at the time-stamps on the pictures he took to determine if he was "actively" taking pictures on the way down (below 100')?

Sorry for all the little queries, it builds up a bigger picture.

Best Regards
Richard