Diver dies at Molokai on Maui dive boat

[Dan]

I was just reading Nick Estrada's response to unhappy, which was posted by unhappy, below. He seems to contradict her statement of the O2 bottle being broken, in fact it was full & he administered it to the victim while she was still in the water.

 

[whysocold]

I notice that Nick states that he started CPR, but from my understanding, it was another person that started CPR after the passenger turned blue. I wonder if Nick is conflating administering O2 with starting CPR.

 

[doctormike]

It's not my job to come up with an emergency recall system. That's the company's job.

Maybe not, but when you post in a public forum, especially one explicitly created for accident analysis to improve diver safety, you should be prepared to get follow up questions. The whole reason this forum exists is so that we can discuss all of the various aspects of an accident and try to figure out what could have been done better.

I don't think that you understood my point about the emergency recall system. Perhaps I wasn't clear. I wasn't asking you what type the boat should have, I was making the point that the expectation that all divers will surface immediately on the order of the captain is incompatible with technical diving. The answer to my rhetorical question is that there IS no appropriate recall system.

So if you want to say that technical diving shouldn't be allowed at this particular site because the crew may need to recall all of the divers immediately, that's OK - I don't know the dive. But it doesn't sound like that's the case.

The reason I'm being transparent is because the crew is lying their asses off. I don't expect much medical care, but I expect at least an attempt. From the crew, only the divemaster Michelle gave an earnest attempt.

OK, but none of us here have any way of judging which story is accurate, now that we have both accounts.

 

[doctormike]

I think the best way is not to mix the CCR & OC divers in one remote diving trip like this.

Maybe this is a minor point, but it's not CCR vs. OC that was the issue, it's tech vs. rec. The problem was that the divers in the water had a deco obligation, not that they were on CCR. It would have been the same issue if they were diving doubles.

Assuming that they were far enough away from the boat that they couldn't hear the usual weight banging on the ladder recall system, an OC tech diver's bubbles wouldn't have been very helpful. It's fine if the operator says no planned deco stops because of operational issues like this, but as a CCR diver, I would resent being kept off of a dive boat if I was going to stick to NDLs.

 

[gcarter]

Maybe this is a minor point, but it's not CCR vs. OC that was the issue, it's tech vs. rec. The problem was that the divers in the water had a deco obligation, not that they were on CCR. It would have been the same issue if they were diving doubles.

Assuming that they were far enough away from the boat that they couldn't hear the usual weight banging on the ladder recall system, an OC tech diver's bubbles wouldn't have been very helpful. It's fine if the operator says no planned deco stops because of operational issues like this, but as a CCR diver, I would resent being kept off of a dive boat if I was going to stick to NDLs.

I have been on many a boat dive with CCR divers doing no deco dives. Agree that CCR is not the issue for recall.

 

[whysocold]

I don't think that you understood my point about the emergency recall system. Perhaps I wasn't clear. I wasn't asking you what type the boat should have, I was making the point that the expectation that all divers will surface immediately on the order of the captain is incompatible with technical diving. The answer to my rhetorical question is that there IS no appropriate recall system.

Part of what surprises me is that there wasn't a way to get the diver to medical staff sooner. While I understand that this site is further from Maui than other dive sites, couldn't the diver have been brought to a facility on Molokai? Megan said that there was a fishing boat present. If we assume that the dive boat had to stay on the scene due to the CCR divers being down, would it have been improper to have the fishing boat transport the diver and the people administering CPR to either Molokai or Maui for faster care? Sitting at the dive site for 2 hours seems to be a death sentence for the diver.

Can someone with more knowledge than I comment on this?

 

[whysocold]

I have been on many a boat dive with CCR divers doing no deco dives. Agree that CCR is not the issue for recall.

I agree that CCR is not the issue for the recall, but I feel like we are splitting hairs. Whether OC or CCR, if there is a diver in cardiac arrest on the boat, what should be done when there are divers down that have deco obligations?

 

[gcarter]

I agree that CCR is not the issue for the recall, but I feel like we are splitting hairs. Whether OC or CCR, if there is a diver in cardiac arrest on the boat, what should be done when there are divers down that have deco obligations?

It is important for clarity. The previous discussion focused on CCR divers (although deco was probably what was intended, CCR was what was stated). Discussion of a solution requires as clear and unambiguous a problem definition as possible if it is not to go down rat holes. That definition is an important first step.

 

[skwirl]

Your posts are all over the place.

In what way were her posts all over the place? They seem pretty clear, concise, and consistent to me, and she answered the questions that were asked of her.

 

[mmmbelows]

Every other diver has a camera, many divers have cell phones onboard the boat, I implore divers to video emergency situations, it only makes things better for the victim's family and the dive operator afterwards.