You should then, speak to Pam and read your previous posts, as you state very clearly that Brendon had two check out dives prior to the fatefull boat dive. what was the difference between you and him?
Diver Death in Cayman
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You should then, speak to Pam and read your previous posts, as you state very clearly that Brendon had two check out dives prior to the fatefull boat dive. what was the difference between you and him?
tiggrr
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I agree 100%
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It no mystery, take 100 new students to Cayman and put them in the same situation, I'd bet that more than 90 out of that 100 would just follow the authority figure and make the dive, but chances are that they'd all survive. This situtation happens all the time, day after day ... and then one day something goes wrong, maybe the unusualy easy narc, who knows, and someone dies, and all of a sudden it'sd time for the, "why didn't he follow his training?" show.
Re: the autopsy, I agree with the OP that in this case it would be meaningless, but it is a public document and should be available for public examination.
OP
fosterboxermom
Contributor
He was with a DM that took him and a group to a site that was not OK he thought he would be fine. The DM was there and picked the site for EVERYONE. He just wanted to dive and have a good time like everyone. I am sure he never thought he was going to die. Think about it. Do you think for one minute Brendan sat there and thought to himself I am going to die on this dive but I am a chicken S***t and don't want to speak up and embarrass myself in front of everyone and say, hey I can't dive to 100ft I'll die. No, he thought he was safe and was going to do a great dive and be back on the boat with his fiancé' in 22 minutes.
Fosterboxermom,
I believe you are telling us that the DM stopped at about the midway point of the dive, and that this was just before everyone was supposed to turn left to stay with the reef instead of following it over the edge. At this point, he tried to locate all the divers and Brendan was missing. 3-4 minutes later, if the computers were synched up and operating properly, Brendan's computer had him dropping toward 200'. That would mean one of three things.
First, Brendan had drifted off to the side of the original path the rest of the group was taking by a distance on the order of, or in excess of, the visibility avaliable. When the group stopped, he was out of sight and continued as he had been going.
Second, he somehow got ahead of the group and followed the reef over the edge before anyone realized he was gone.
Third, he was lagging way behind everyone while you were trying to locate him. After the dive continued and everyone else turned, he was moving ahead trying to locate the group and missed that you all had turned.
Two pieces of information might help determine which of these it was. One is what Brendan's computer had to say about his depth between minutes ten and twelve while you all were stopped. If he was already below 100' by then, he was probably ahead of the group, or maybe off to either side. If he started descending during the time you were stopped, he must have been off to the left or right. If he didn't start dropping until minute twelve or thirteen, maybe he was lagging behind or off to the right. The other is where he was found on the surface, if that suggests anything about the path he had taken. I'm not sure how accurate a picture you have of the GPS path the dive followed or the location where Brendan surfaced.
Additionally, I suppose questions of his swimming ability and personality might factor in. Was he the type to stop and look at every piece of anything he saw along the path that might have put him behind the group? Would he have chased an interesting fish as it went left or right away from the group and lost touch? Would he have tried to race ahead of the group and had the speed to do so? I don't necessarily expect you to have the answers here, though you may have some recollection if the group was spreading out below you over time.
When you said the group made a left turn at the start of the dropoff, I was initially thinking that you might have stopped to regroup right after the turn and that Brendan had missed it. Stopping at, or just ahead of the turn, seems the more sensible approach to ensure no one gets lost, but I made the assumption that the DM screwed that up as well because it provided an easy explanation for how Brendan became separated.
Also, I am now assuming that the dive profile was a triangle. You went down from the boat to the bottom, headed out perpendicular to the wall until it started to drop off, then turned left along the edge before turning left again to head back to the boat. Is that correct?
Also, I have read that the moorings for the dive you went on are in just under 60'. Does that match your recollection? If so, did you all drop to the bottom together and then separate into two groups as the rest followed the bottom deeper while you and Pam maintained 60'? I don't know the site personally other than what I have read in trying to solve this puzzle.
-bob
I believe you are telling us that the DM stopped at about the midway point of the dive, and that this was just before everyone was supposed to turn left to stay with the reef instead of following it over the edge. At this point, he tried to locate all the divers and Brendan was missing. 3-4 minutes later, if the computers were synched up and operating properly, Brendan's computer had him dropping toward 200'. That would mean one of three things.
First, Brendan had drifted off to the side of the original path the rest of the group was taking by a distance on the order of, or in excess of, the visibility avaliable. When the group stopped, he was out of sight and continued as he had been going.
Second, he somehow got ahead of the group and followed the reef over the edge before anyone realized he was gone.
Third, he was lagging way behind everyone while you were trying to locate him. After the dive continued and everyone else turned, he was moving ahead trying to locate the group and missed that you all had turned.
Two pieces of information might help determine which of these it was. One is what Brendan's computer had to say about his depth between minutes ten and twelve while you all were stopped. If he was already below 100' by then, he was probably ahead of the group, or maybe off to either side. If he started descending during the time you were stopped, he must have been off to the left or right. If he didn't start dropping until minute twelve or thirteen, maybe he was lagging behind or off to the right. The other is where he was found on the surface, if that suggests anything about the path he had taken. I'm not sure how accurate a picture you have of the GPS path the dive followed or the location where Brendan surfaced.
Additionally, I suppose questions of his swimming ability and personality might factor in. Was he the type to stop and look at every piece of anything he saw along the path that might have put him behind the group? Would he have chased an interesting fish as it went left or right away from the group and lost touch? Would he have tried to race ahead of the group and had the speed to do so? I don't necessarily expect you to have the answers here, though you may have some recollection if the group was spreading out below you over time.
When you said the group made a left turn at the start of the dropoff, I was initially thinking that you might have stopped to regroup right after the turn and that Brendan had missed it. Stopping at, or just ahead of the turn, seems the more sensible approach to ensure no one gets lost, but I made the assumption that the DM screwed that up as well because it provided an easy explanation for how Brendan became separated.
Also, I am now assuming that the dive profile was a triangle. You went down from the boat to the bottom, headed out perpendicular to the wall until it started to drop off, then turned left along the edge before turning left again to head back to the boat. Is that correct?
Also, I have read that the moorings for the dive you went on are in just under 60'. Does that match your recollection? If so, did you all drop to the bottom together and then separate into two groups as the rest followed the bottom deeper while you and Pam maintained 60'? I don't know the site personally other than what I have read in trying to solve this puzzle.
-bob
OP
fosterboxermom
Contributor
Thalassamania like everyone else on here will argue their point.
It's an important part of UK democracy ( I don't agree with it
on a majority vote thingy). which is why I am trying to be as transparent as I can. We each miss out important points until the right question is asked. If that wasn't the case then the OP herself would have been castigated long ago. so lets stop giving each other a hard time and see what we ca do to make sure this doesn't happen again.
I l
It's an important part of UK democracy ( I don't agree with it
on a majority vote thingy). which is why I am trying to be as transparent as I can. We each miss out important points until the right question is asked. If that wasn't the case then the OP herself would have been castigated long ago. so lets stop giving each other a hard time and see what we ca do to make sure this doesn't happen again.I l
No
Brendon,
as you have stated:
decided he wanted to dive deeper than his training allowed so he could say he'd done it.
New divers tend to follow the instructions of the boat crew and the Divemaster. Heck, the title "Divemaster" sounds pretty authoritative doesn't it? And once a Dive Professional assumes that role of authority, he has, in my view, moral obligations. Why? Because less experienced (and perhaps poorly trained) new divers are looking to the Divemaster for guidance.
OP
fosterboxermom
Contributor
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