YOU ARE WRONG! and insensitive.
MAO your posts are either of great pain and loss or merely inappropriately provacative. If you are a loved one of the deceased I submit my deepest sympathies to you. I hope you will find peace.
If, on the other hand, you are an instigator and merely being provacative for entertainment you are the insensitive, callous, ugly individual. The poster to whom you wrote showed great sensativity and empathy. You could do the same. Though that poster may not have lost a loved one that day, being witness to loss of life is still a tragic, shocking, and hurtful event. Where is your sensitivity.
If you have medical evidence of what the cause of death was perhaps your definitive declarations of what the cause of death was not could be accepted as fact. Without such evidence your assertions are only painful, irresponsible accusations.
In the media and witness reports, as they have been described so far, there are several pieces of information that raise many questions about what actually took place. For example, some reports state that she was underwater only to 10 feet and others report that her dive was only 10 minutes long. It would seem that at least one of these details is probably mis-reported as it is almost unheard of for a diver to descend to only 10 feet and remain there for 10 minutes in a location such as the one the diver was diving. Even if a diver encountered difficulties equalizing they would either ascend before ten minutes passed or eventually equalize and descended.
It would be extremely unusual and pretty unexplainable why a diver would descend to 10 feet, remain there for 10 minutes and then ascend and die. The ten minute underwater time would, for all practical purposes, eliminate the possibility of the tank never having been turned on by the diver (as she would have expired much sooner) and a dive to a max of 10 feet would make the likelihood of air embolism or any other form of DCI extremely unlikely. Even contaminated air would be unlikely to result in such an immediate fatality with this dive profile.
In the media reports it also stated that CPR was performed and some comments made on this board seem to indicate that because the administration of oxygen was not mentioned some readers assume it did not take place. An ommision of facts does not necessarily equate an ommission of the action.
If the details that have been released are true, as sketchy as they are, they would seem to most likely point to one or both of two of the most likely (and common) causes of SCUBA related death: pre-existing medical condition contributing to the fatality and/or a panic response to a stressor leading to the inability to perform safe diving practices such as continuously breathing, ascending at a safe rate, accepting help from others, etc.
It is unfortunate that far too many divers and divers' families do not understand that physical fitness to participate in surface related physically challenging sports and exercise does not directly correlate to physical and mental fitness, preparedness and compatability with SCUBA. There are hidden physical conditions such as Patent Foramen Ovule which may not ever be known to a diver or his/her family until a diving accident occurs and there are stress reactions in the unnatural, underwater environment that a diver may never have previously exhibited even though highly trained to deal with stress on land. I was once witness to a seasoned military veteran and decorated police officer's meltdown underwater. Fortunately he survived but was so startled by the uncharacteristic panic reaction that overcame him in the underwater world (after 10 or so previous successful dives) that he decided diving wasn't for him.
We do not know what caused this tragedy and may never know. We could perhaps learn more about the incident if the buddy of this diver is sharing details with the authorites that are investigating the incident but even a buddy's observations (even when they are very attentive) cannot reveal any physical or psychological symptoms that the victim was experiencing which may have effected her actions.
Best wishes to all who hope to learn more from this tragedy and sincere condolenses to all parties involved.
