Diver Death in Cayman

[Web Monkey]

Riger, We did not advise him of his cert level. That is only the advise of PADI. That is not written in stone. Any shop will take you beyond your 60ft. without question. And they knew he was a new diver. The DM knew this was his 7th dive as a matter of fact.

Unfortunately, a diver significantly exceeding his/her recommended depth limit is a common occurrence. Although a lot of people seem to think that the 60' OW limit is arbitrary and that a deeper limit is some sort of commodity that can be paid-for and then dispensed by the cert agency, in reality, it's a nice safe depth for new divers, with little chance for narcosis, a nice safety margin to handle poor buoyancy control and shallow enough that a tank lasts for a while.

Nobody can "authorize" deeper diving. Deeper diving requires skills, additional training and experience and at significantly deeper depths, additional equipment. The card is (or should be) an indication that the diver is qualified, not just a rubber-stamp that "allows" the diver go deeper.

This is all very sad because it's easily avoidable. New divers are trained (in the OW text and video) to not exceed their limits but at the same time are conditioned to obey the instructor. This leads to problems when the dive leader is doing something that violates training standards. And although this technically wasn't a training dive, no responsible dive leader would take a brand new diver to almost twice his recommended (and previous maximum) depth.

Sadly this is a common occurrence on guided dives in tropical locations, not just on Grand Cayman, however in many (most?) non-tropical parts of the world, the DM does not get into the water and in many places is not even on the boat. Divers are supposedly trained to plan and execute their own dives with nothing more than a similarly trained buddy. Without getting too much into training procedures, a few years ago, a standard OW class was 7 or 8 weeks and would produce a diver that could independently and confidently plan and execute a dive in conditions similar to training. New OW classes are typically a couple of days and do not produce nearly the level of skills and knowledge retention that the longer classes do.

This is tragic and pointless death and I feel terrible for you and the rest of his friends and family.

Terry

 

[Steve50]

He got Nitrogen Narcosis about 10 mins into the dive . .

How could you possibly know this?

 

[oly5050user]

I understand what all of you are saying about taking responsibility for yourself, however. we told this DM about 6 or 7 times that they were inexperienced and he ignored us that is why his fiance' and I buddied up ourselves. He has to have some responsibility in this as well being the EXPERIENCED DIVER. He easily could have said after we told him of the experience of the diver's on the boat that they shouldn't go that deep. These people were inexperienced that is the key. We were counting on him to keep us safe. If he doesn't then what is the point of having a DM? You might as well just rent tanks yourself and take your chances. They are there for your safety as well as a guide.

Sorry for your loss..this is something that should never happen,but does ..
It is time though for people to take on personal responsibility..The deceased was a newly certified diver and had been told repeatedly what the recommended limits are of the certification he earned during class presentations, while completing his knowledge reviews(homeworks) and during quizz'es and final exam.It was up to that individual(victim) to choose to participate or not..After 7 dives a 100' dive is no big deal for some individuals in the clear warm water of Cayman if it is within their comfort zone..Notice I said some individuals,not everyone is comfortable in water and have the skill performance to do this.
The Dm was in the correct location during the dive as as you say he was with the people at the deepest part of the dive. He is not there to hold your hand..Yes he can be considered to be there for your safety and should respond if needed,but he cannot be with everyone on the dive.If the victim needed 1 to 1 attention he should have requested it and accordingly have paid for it (operators in many locations have customers hire a DM/Instr to accompany only them on dives).Who was the victims buddy?Why didn't the buddy alert the DM that the victim was going deeper than planned? Why didn't the victim choose to stay shallow with you and his fiancee(ego drove him to go deep-to say "been there-did that?")Without being there I would also guess that the deceased may have been overweighed with too much lead and had alot of trouble with bouyancy issues,again no one to blame but himself,not the DM..

 

[pilot fish]

As Steve just asked, which was my next question as well, -how do you know he suffered from narcosis?

One observation, based on your statement, " he wanted to go to 100 ft just once to experience it " signifies, that almost exonerates the crappy DM, CONTRIBUTORY NEGLIGENCE. That means, while the dive op was negligent, the diver was equally negligent. The very first mistake, as I see it, is the choice of dive site by dive op, the second is the diver agreeing to do that site while he knew it was beyond his skill and cert level. Let me quickly add, we have all done things like this, but we were lucky.

One additional question that I can not figure out, if he went to 346 ft, how did he make it back to the surface so quickly? If had died at that depth, he would have stayed down at that depth. This indicates to me that he must have been alive at 346 ft and then shot the surface? Am I reading this correctly?

 

[fosterboxermom]

How could you possibly know this?

Steve,

I got the autopsy results from his fiance' yesterday.

 

[mikemill]

How can an autopsy show that someone got narc'd especially if the body was found in deeper water?

 

[Seanpaul]

First I am so sorry this tragedy happened. What a horrible situation to find yourself in. It has taken me a couple hours to get through this post and I have to say something is not sitting right with me in the OP latest remarks.

This was preventable. No strong current. No Buddy. The DM took eveyone except me and his fiance' as a group (5) not including himself. His fiance' and I buddied ourselves up because we choose not to go to 100ft. He got Nitrogen Narcosis about 10 mins into the dive no one saw him drop down. The DM asked me where my buddy was I pointed to his fiance' he pointed back to me that there were only 6 divers (by holding up 6 fingers) I turned around to my buddy and asked her if she was OK becauseshe was having some bouancy issues and I was keeping a close eye one her when I turned back the DM was continuing the dive. I thought someone must have told him that her finance' was OK and that he went up because the DM knew he was missing but continued on with the dive. When we got back to the boat he asked her "where is your husbanb" she said he is supposed to be with you" the DM started cussing and throwing our gear around and that's when we saw the fishing boat that had him. It's a very long story.

The DM clearly asked where was your buddy, this tells me he thought you were not with your buddy so either he thought you and the fiancee were a threesome with the victim or you were not clear that you were with the fiancee as was previously mentioned. Did you tell him who your buddy was? You never did answer the question on language - was the DM mother tongue English? Clearly there was miscommunication here, why? Sorry maybe you did explain in an earlier post but we are up to nearly 90 now.

I understand what all of you are saying about taking responsibility for yourself, however. we told this DM about 6 or 7 times that they were inexperienced and he ignored us that is why his fiance' and I buddied up ourselves. He has to have some responsibility in this as well being the EXPERIENCED DIVER. He easily could have said after we told him of the experience of the diver's on the boat that they shouldn't go that deep. These people were inexperienced that is the key. We were counting on him to keep us safe. If he doesn't then what is the point of having a DM? You might as well just rent tanks yourself and take your chances. They are there for your safety as well as a guide.

Secondly you have on your profile over 200 dives. You are an experienced diver.
I don't quite get how you are not kicking yourself here in the arse for not assuming more control over "your two inexperienced friends". I don't think I could deal with my own conscience that I didn't assume responsibility for them. You have the experience they didn't. I don't get it...

I don't mean to come down hard on anyone in this situation but something for me doesn't sit right in my gut.

 

[Andy077]

Steve,

I got the autopsy results from his fiance' yesterday.

First, I am truly sorry about the loss of your friend.

Do autopsy results conclusively show narcosis? I'm not contradicting you, I am curious though, my understanding of narcosis is it's caused by N2 saturation of tissues, and is a purely mental condition, ie, two people with identical levels of N2 saturation have completely different degrees of narc.
Can anyone confirm if (1) an autopsy can measure N2 saturation in tissues, and (2) the degree of intoxication can be determined postmortem?

 

[mikemill]

BTW anyone know the average number of divers that go through the Caymans per year? While 9 dies seem like a lot it I'm more concerned about the percentage.

 

[TCDiver1]

My condolences to the family, friends and others affected.

Just to clarify a side issue in this thread, the 60'/100'/130' depths for PADI OW/Advanced/Deep certification levels are recommendations only. It is entirely up to each individual diver to determine their own limitations and not dive beyond them. Again, those depths are only general recommendations.

Related to the DM discussion while i agree they're not suppose to be babysitters and that each diver should ultimately be responsible for their own safety, dive professionals do have a "reasonable duty of care" obligation to the people under their charge. "Reasonable" being the operant word in that quote. If the DM was screwing around, not giving a good basic dive/safety briefing, that is not reasonable. It's not that hard to do and is a very basic obligation of a paid DM is these situation.

I'm not saying that's what happened in this case but if it did, there should be some culpablity for the Dive op & DM. I too have seen the "wow man, look at me i'm cool" dive briefing that was completely worthless even if i'm taking responsibility for my own dive. Dm's like that give the profession a bad name and it's totally unacceptable in my view.