Diver dies at Lake Travis, TX

[Bructer]

All I can say is there are worst ways to die. A few years back my buddy had a heart attack having a crap on the toilet. His mother found him.


Cheers,

 

[*Floater*]

read the link above to other Windy Point thread. A diver in that guys class posted and then retracted all of her posts. Some of them remain in the form of quotes.


Here is the jist of it from the other thread with the link provided above:

AOW class goes to Windy Point
Dead guy is booted from the class, but for some reason is still diving with the class.
Two students go off to survey a wreck.
Dead guy and instructor are diving together
Instructor or dead guy give up sign
They start to go up
Line is crowded supposedly
Instructor looks up for a few seconds
Dead guy is missing
Instructor surfaces
Dead guy still down
Other students surface
Instructor sends them back down
Students don't find him
After some passage of time students go shore and look for guy--even check the picnic tables and potties--this according to student Debbie who deleted her posts
At some point the instructor calls for help from several rescue classes
Guy is found shortly after rescue classes swing into action
First responders swing into action and effort is reported to be impressive;
Detective interviews students and instructor
Students and instructor according to students deleted post decide they did everything prefect and student want to continue her training to teach others the correct way, proclaims that life is great and her instructor is the best ever--some note after that post that it is a really odd post since a guy just died from their class.
Student says that they think it was a heart attack and should know autopsy results by Tuesday
Within hours of his death, student posts that her instructor has told her that he died from a heart attack. Several people question that information and student gets defensive and cite HIPPA laws.
She keeps saying the instructor did nothing wrong
Some cite the length of time before he called for help and letting someone booted from the class to dive along with the class.
Some people tell her to stop posting that she is probably not helping out her instructor buddy who she keeps praising.
She retracts posts.

That is the basics of the other thread as I remember them. Others can correct me where I am wrong.

Thanks for the excellent summary.

I don't really see anything wrong with letting an non-AOW qualified diver rec dive with AOW students unless it was an "advanced" dive in the sense of something only AOW certified divers (or AOW students) would normally be allowed to do. For example, if it was just navigation practice dive with 60 feet max depth then any OW qualified diver should be allowed to tag along imo if s/he is not considered a distraction to the class. It's his choice, and imo it's not the instructor's place to deny him. Refusing to teach or certify him on the other hand is fine and even respectable if the student is not capable doing AOW dives. Of course if it was a real advanced dive then that's different.

Now losing a buddy doesn't look very good. Was it because the instructor just wasn't doing his buddy duty of keeping an eye on the guy? Or was it just because you cannot monitor your buddy 100% of the time and this just happened to be one of those times that while the instructor was checking his gauges or something the buddy suffered a heart attack and disappeared. Hard to say.

As for the late search and rescue that's another hard one. If they thought he just popped to the surface and drove off without saying goodbye then it's understandable they didn't initiate the rescue right off the pat, but again it's hard to say without having been there.

 

[lamont]

actually when i read that he was separated, found unconscious and foaming at the mouth, with 1000 psi in his tanks, my first thought was CAGE, not heart attack... an autopsy should be able to determine that as the cause of death though as distinct from heart attack/drowning...

 

[RS]

Re med cert for diving, I'd think that commercial dive operations would require a physical and something like a fitness test. But just supposition.

I know that at some point in my dives, usually when I haul my lard butt out of the water, I think about my own fitness.