Diver Death in Cayman

[Cave Diver]

Thank you for your condolences.

It is very frustrating reading everyones posts when they just keep going back and forth on dead issues.

1. It was not a recreational dive at the bottom being 140ft.

130' is considered recreational limits and most recreational tables have 140' on them for contingency planning. The flight deck of the Oriskany is one example where recreational divers routinely go to 140', and the possiblity exists for them to drop over the side in more than 200' of water.

2. The DM took the rest of the divers as a group. No one knew anyone at that point we were all new to each other except the married couple from San Diego and I don't know if they did buddy checks or not. They were part of the DM's group. Key word GROUP.

So the DM had a GROUP and not a specific BUDDY?

3.My husband WAS monitoring his gauges and knows he hit 100ft, however you do not have your eyes fixed on your gauge AT ALL TIMES OF YOUR DIVE, so yes at the end of his dive as I do I look to see what my max depth was so I can log that. Do not presume that he didn't monitor his depth guages. He does but he could have gone to 104 ft or 101 who knows without that needle. Is that part clear?

Yes, that makes much more sense. The way I interpreted the original post was that he had no idea if he was at 100' or 140'. Thank you for clarifying that.

4. As stated previously, we were all strangers until we were on that boat. With the exception of I had a dive with the couple from San Diego on Friday before the fatal dive. So we all did not walk into the dive shop together sign papers together nothing like that.We did that all individually and did not run into each other as that was being done. We all met at the boat at different times. In fact we didn't even know how many people were going to be on our dive. The boat was docked on the beach and that is where we all met. We didn't know where our dive site was going to be we asked the DM and he said he didn't know yet. We all told him of our experience and then he decided on that particular dive site.

Sorry, I was under the impression all of you knew each other, not just two couples.

5. My husband had problems at the depths of 100ft breathing and ascended to 80ft, yes, he got control of his breathing within a couple of minutes and then rejoined the group. He was not a third group. And that is when the DM had stopped and turned to me and signaled "where's your buddy"? So he had a couple of mins to get control of himself and was in clear view of the DM.

At the point where he ascended to 80', IMO, he's now his own "group," however briefly. If he's in clear view of the DM that would indicate to me that the DM may not have his attention on HIS group during this time.

6. No one was ever at 20 to 40 ft I don't know where you got that info. I never stated that. Pam and I were always at 60ft.

I said 20-40' ABOVE the group. If the group is at 100' and you were at 60, thats a difference of 40'. If someone ascends to 80' there is 20' difference between you and them and them and the other group.

7. And no one knows that that Brendan had to "work" to get to the depth he ended up at. The sloping bottom as I described slopes off very fast so he could have descended very quickly without any of us noticing. No one knows and I have said this over and over except Brendan and God.

If you weren't on a wall, the depth doesn't increase to 300' that quickly.

I hope that was clear enough. I can't keep going over this again. And I won't be on the boards for a few hours. I appreciate everyone wanting my input. That means a lot. I know you all are interested in this accident, but please understand that somethings you won't ever know so debating it or even speculating it is really getting to be redundant. I am over the blame issue. I have my own personal feeling and your knowledge is appreciated to give other divers perspective of what to do or not to do on a dive but rehashing this accident is not healthy for anyone. Thank you,

Thank you for the clarifications and your participation. Hopefully all the information gleaned from the anlaysis and discussion of this will help someone else and prevent another tradgedy.

 

[mrlipis]

I too look out for new divers and other divers as well - if I see an issue developing then I try to assist where I can.

That said - you said that the buddy system is symbiotic relationship - that means it is equal parts. So if the DM was the deceased buddy then the deceased was the DM's buddy. End of story. If the deceased wanted an u/w babysitter then that is what he should have hired and requested at the dive op.

I have no issue agreeing with blame being assigned to the DM or dive op but the diver is also responsible.

Originally posted by Scuba Moose
And to Pilot Fish - the chain of events started before this individual arrived in Cayman. You keep claiming that it was only in Cayman where things started and I suspect it is so that it can fit your assertion that the vast majority of the fault was the DM and Dive Op. I say the majority of the fault is on the diver - the question is why did he do what he do? Was there something lacking in his training - not saying from the instructor side, perhaps the agencies have to step up and require more emphasis to be put on this.

I agree that the diver has responsibility but a DM has to put his/her foot down if they think something is dangerous. What if this guy wanted to dive solo? Would the DM be responsible if something went wrong? Bottom line, he should have never been allowed to make the dive. Period.

Yes IMO, our agencies are severally lacking when it comes to diver certification. Certification has become a lick and stick process. I have seen divers get their C card and it scared the crap out of me because I just didn't think they were ready. There are plenty of students that can go through the instruction and have a pretty good handle on things, it is the other 20% that I worry about.

 

[rmc77]

Someone has commented that this particular diver had to do some sort of big effort to go that deeper. I strongly disagree with that.
I've never dived in the Caymans, but if this is indeed a site that slopes off very fast and this diver was some how away from the wall, depending on his level of training he could easily get disoriented... He might have dropped below the 100' line without even noticing as he didn’t have the wall as reference and didn’t check his depth for a minute or so. Well, once he went bellow 150' his buoyancy was way more negative than at 60'... maybe he noticed it maybe not, but he would have to have responded very fast as that only gets worst as you go deeper. As he crossed the 200' line he is dropping like a rock... But them the CO2 buildup and narcosis have already hit him and now he’s not able to respond to this situation anymore, so he goes even deeper... and O2 toxicity kicks in. He’s now below the limit for air dives and most likely unconscious. He could easily have reached that depth in less than 5 minutes, and even if he’s gas consumption was of a marathon champion we would arrive there with no air if diving a S80... Not to mention that he would have to do tremendous amount of work to breath at that depth with normal regulators.

 

[Thalassamania]

Far less effort to get deep than is being assumed. I think some clarification about the dive site is in order. I believe that when the OP says it was not a "wall" she means that it was not the classic sheer vertical cliff face that we see in many pictures. My understanding of the dives site is that it is a fairly steep face of 30 to 45 degrees and that when the OP describes there being a "hard bottom" at 140, she is not describing a flat, level area, but rather the depth below the divers at which the steeply sloping bottom would have been intersected by a vertical line from the diver to that bottom.

 

[Dtaine]

Well the computer log which would tell us whether he dropped like a rock, or gradually descended to depth, is not available to us. So we can't really know how much "effort" he put into getting that deep.

I have the computer log from Brendan's computer but again Pam doesn't want that info given out. I am sorry.

 

[letterboy]

wonder if fosterboxermom was even there. . . seems to be giving out tid bits of information but never really giving us anything to help figure this out. . .

maybe she is a lawyer. . .

 

[ScubaSteve]

To me, the most feasible BUT still speculative way that the diver ended up at 346' on a sloped bottom is one of the following:

1. he swam out into the blue, lost site of the bottom and the wall and the group and got disoriented, had something happen which caused him to sink.

2. there was a downward current (which I am sure is possible) which pulled the diver off the floor but down the slope none the less and released him at 346'

This is only put out there as possible ways that he ended up at 346' "accidentally" because if neither of these is what actually happened, then my mind automatically moves to diver error (not that the above are or are not diver error) and/or intentional swin down. We all (or most) will agree that at some point narcosis is likely to have kicked in and that likely played a huge impact in the possible poor judgment by the diver.

 

[Thalassamania]

How the victim got back to the surface is a real question. I can't buy the coroner's mumbo-jumbo concerning increased buoyancy due to draining the tank, that only accounts for about 4 lbs ... far less than the suit compression at depth. I can see no alternative but that the victim inflated his BC at the last moment or somehow ditched some weight.

 

[Riger]

wonder if fosterboxermom was even there. . . seems to be giving out tid bits of information but never really giving us anything to help figure this out. . .

maybe she is a lawyer. . .

That's not a very nice thing to say....

Regards
Richard

 

[letterboy]

That's not a very nice thing to say....

Regards
Richard

you are right, I should never have called her a lawyer. . . sorry for that. . .