EXACTLY bsee65! Why didn't anyone make SURE she was on the boat when you indicated a problem and came up early OR at least find out what was wrong with her..... =( You are probably real close to what happened I would imagine. Thanks for your input it is really appreciated. Nothing will bring her back but I sure hope all you guys are safe and can learn from the mistakes of others to avoid any tragedies of your own.
I can offer one possible storyline, partly based on what little we have been given, the rest filled in with best guesses. Consider it if it helps, or not...
Getting into scuba and training, buying gear, planning trips, dive boat trips, more classes - early on many start shopping with
"how much do you charge for a boat trip, class, etc?" Some will ask for prices later after asking for quality and features, but many will start with prices and work up. Indeed, I like to start with a price menu on anything, then see what I get for X$, more$, even more$ in comparison, but often not adding on. Now this may or may not be how your friend found this boat and class, I'm just offering a commonly used scenario.
Reading over the large number of posts on this thread, there are many about how many hands should be onboard the boat while the rest are in the water, how a rescue should be done, and a lot more posts about how diving can be safer with some actions than in others, and those posts can be beneficial to many of us, in planning our own dives, shopping for boats with our preferences, what to plan on doing when we see our preferences not being met, but
in this case it sounds like there was only the Captain on board, the Instructor in the water with the other divers, and that's all. I've been on Keys boats with less, but from dozens of my Keys dives the captains briefing includes that
"if anyone gets swept away - the boat will stay on the anchor or mooring line until all other divers are aboard before chasing the wayward diver - so be prepared to float if you lose it", and hope you brought a signal boy, safety sausage, whatever - something no diver should go to sea without, but I've seen many who did.
Now other dive destinations often have other Standard Operating Procedures, sometimes with a Rescue Diver onboard with the captain ready to go in if needed - more commonly seen on dive sites further from shore and other boats, sometimes not anchoring ever but dropping and picking up dives on the float, and so forth - but those are those destinations. In the Keys, the above is generally the case - and any Open Water certified diver should be up to dealing with those. There are many other threads around Scubaboard about whether OW divers are trained well enough or not, but by certification definitions, an OW diver should be prepared to deal with the above briefing - or be prepared to say no to the dive before going in.
Now you brought some information to this thread that cleared up a lot of wondering and I would like to quote it here for the record...
She didnt have any major medical problems that caused this. She worked out regularly and was in great shape. Her cause of death was drowning. There was four divers altogether on this boat (including her). This was a certification class. The catain threw her a rope after he yelled at her a couple of times to put her respirator back in. There was only one divemaster that brought her up and a Captain on the boat and that was it. She didnt have her flippers on. She had taken them off. No one knows why she went up originally. No one asked her (this is the part that really bothers me). It took longer than 15 to 20 minutes for the boat to go find her (incorrect in news story). All the other divers had to come back up from the bottom and load up on the boat. There is questions to if she was properly weighted.
Okay so it was a class, presumably an Advance Open Water class or a Wreck dive class maybe? The Eagle is a fun dive to me, and even within AOW class limits it can be enjoyed without going below the course limits. I've seen many OW divers do it and other wrecks there without any additional training, right or wrong - done. No one has said they did violate those training limits, so I assume that they did not.
And it's quite common in the Keys for a boat to have only the Captain onboard with 4 or 5 divers in the water and the briefing I described above. I was on a similarly sized boat once, on the Eagle, with a larger number of divers, one Captain, one DM who worked for tips only and the free dives, DM still in the water when an injured diver of ours surfaced down current unconscious. We all understood that the Captain could not move the boat until everyone else was onboard as briefed and he wasn't about to abandon his post as operator of the boat as that would increased dangers; I was back on the boat but exhausted from my dive so I didn't offer to be a hero (aside from my lack of training for such then) and no one else did - but there were other boats around, and one just arriving grabbed him, rushed him to shore to meet the ambulance - and that one turned out with him arguing with nurses.
Back to this incident: Had it not been a class, some of us including me would suggest that the buddy should have escorted the diver back, but since it was a class - as I recall from my group classes, we may well have a buddy but we follow the Instructors directions. I have seen times when buddy teams, even spouses break up when one couldn't descend and the problem diver ascended alone, and because I am an air hog I have had buddies send me up alone at the end of my dive, but I won't dive with them anymore. Divers descend and ascend with their buddies, or in a class with the Instructor, for me.
Now in this case, we don't know why she called the dive at 10-15 feet do we? That's where my home bud has to stop to clear his ears, and it takes him a long time, but we stay together - altho it's easy to find posts around SB of buddies and even spouses who do not adhere to that, with one dropping ot the bottom to wait on the other. Once he couldn't, so I escorted him back, then went on without him. From what I have read tho, it sounds like the Inst did indeed escort her back, whether it was an ear issue or something else, and I have to believe she signaled she was okay at the surface or he wouldn't have left her, whether she really felt ok or not. This may not agree with Bsee's thoughts, but they are mine; no problem here.
Why did he leave the others below? That's standard, as they're qualified by their OW cards to be there and it's easier than trying to get them all up and back down again, maybe in current as common on the Eagle mooring line, risk having a diver mess up his ears on having to ascend and descend again, yeah - that was the best call to me. I have to believe that the Inst accepted that she was fine at the ladder or he wouldn't have left her there, and she was in good enough shape to remove her fins, so I see no problem until she lost hold of the rope or ladder.
Now if she lost hold and found herself too far from the drifting line to swim to it, at the worst she should have been one of those we hear about who has to inflate their BC, simply wait for the Captain to track them down in the current, and hope she had a signal bouy to help. At the worst, a 30 minute float if she had not spit the regulator out of her mouth. All the captain could do was yell at her to put it back in, and I have done the same with my buddies in the water, accidentally did it to an Inst I didn't know once assisting students, almost grabbed a guys weight belt to ditch once when it took three times of yelling, but he did - yet she didn't.
Some have suggested in this thread that it's best to keep fin straps on wrists until back onto the boat, and that's a great idea but not a common practice on tourist boats. It's a little tricky to hold onto a ladder or drift line with one hand, remove fins and slip one by one onto wrists without dropping while bobbing on the waves, so - especially with a small group like this, the briefing will suggest holding onto the ladder and passing the fins up. It's all too tempting to spit out the reg to breath earth air and talk while passing fins; I don't until I am seated to the chuckles of some but I don't; yet many do and it sounds like she did, then did not respond well to shouts to put it back in.
So my one possible scenario offered here outlines to these possible basics...
Captain, Instructor and 4 students go out for an easy dive that I've seen OW divers with no additional training do many times. OW guidelines suggest no deeper than 60 ft but it's very rare that I have seen such divers balk at going deeper than 100.
An additional crew member could have been arranged at an additional charge, but it's common for Keys boats to go out like that and I have never heard of anyone asking how much to arrange for more crew. Adding an additional rescue diver or DM is more commonly done on boats that go further from shore I think but not common in the Keys.
Getting in the water with current and lines for descent is tricky enough in buddy pairs, but doing it with a class of four would be trickier as they ascend single file down the same line, holding on from down current less any be swept away, and she stops - can't go on down, perhaps because of ears, or maybe fear, or whatever didn't feel right, she stops.
She signals to the Inst that she wants to go back up, so he escorts her back, gets her to the ladder, he asks if she is okay by hand signal or voice, she confirms that she is whether she felt like it or not - and this might have been when she spit the reg out? He may not have asked her why she was calling the dive, but just accepted that she wasn't up for it, and he needed to get back to the others below. Any other time the Inst would talk to her later about why, and how to deal with whatever the problem was next time.
He accepts that she is following her training that the OW card says she should have had and following the briefing, so he leaves her with the captain helping her on the ladder because he has students waiting and she said she was ok.
After the Inst leaves for his students waiting below, she loses her grip, flounders in the water, the Captain yells to put her reg back in her mouth and grab the drift line beside her, but she fails to do so.
Struggling in the water, no reg in mouth, fighting a fight she has never had before, chokes on water, doesn't think of dropping her weights, and drowns in a panic.
Well, that's one possible story, as I said - partly based on what little we have been given, the rest filled in with best guesses. Largely diver error with complications.
And we all make mistakes from time to time. Sometimes we're lucky, one time I woke up in hospital room, sometimes we save others, sometimes we get saved, but sometimes we can't. I've had to get a tractor out in the night to pull a pickup off of the front of a train, with a neighbor inside who grew up on that road like I did, and I've been to many funerals that shouldn't have happened but did.
Now, I have seen some captains remind divers in their briefings to be prepared to drop their weights if needed, but very rarely. Divers are supposed to know this and do this if needed. I read accident thread after another every month where a diver dies because he didn't, and we discuss this some here on SB, I always discuss it with buddies, but it's basic OW training that a diver is responsible for knowing and doing. I don't think she did, did she?
And some of us will agree here that it's important to keep the reg in your mouth until boarded (I get chuckles because I do it until fully seated), regardless of whether a captain is speaking audibly or even if an Inst is speaking on the surface, answer with nods and hand signals - keep the reg in your mouth, but this is seldom brought up on the various boats I've been on. To my memory, it's generally me who brings it up if at all, talking with a buddy before the dive, but other times. After the time that I accidentally told an Inst assisting his student to do that, I am a little hesitant - like who am I to tell someone else what to do, but sometimes I still do. I remember doing so once on the last trip to a lady struggling with fins on the ladder, along with some causal conversations where I tried to work in talk about dropping weights and keep teeth on regs - two of my pet peeves.
BTW, I dive with full dentures and also carry a tube of adhesive in my bag in case I feel they are not totally secure, along with a winged mouthpiece that hard to spit out. We do what we have to.
Well, I've gone quite a bit here, and again it's only one possible story, but I hope it helps some. As long as there is no evidence of irresponsibility with the captain or Inst, and I've seen none here, sometimes we just have to work on acceptance, each in our own way.
Talking things out can be the best tho, so don't let me discourage you from talking more about it here, but I hope this may help some.
