Diver Dies of heart attack in Cabo Feb.18th 2013

[DandyDon]

CDM, we appreciate your input, but please do give us clear information. Thanks

 

[chillyinCanada]

Maybe if he spoke a little louder we could hear him clearly.

That said, thanks cdm1 for advising us of your beliefs and very strong opinion on the overall state of affairs.

Are you able to provide us with any support for your 'knowing'? I mean absolutely no offense, but in my travels, I've found that rumor and conjecture can occasionally become some peoples' absolute belief.

 

[Beanbag1]

There seems to be a prefence sometimes when discussing accidents and incidents here for assuming that the fault lies with the dive guide,the skipper or the dive operation. Whilst I am sure that it is true in some cases that divers who would otherwise have completed a dive without incident have been severely compromised by the actions of the guide or skipper (propeller accidents; guides leading divers into unsafe areas, bad air fills etc), my feeling as a recreational diver is that if you are qualified it is incumbent upon you to manage your own behaviour and to assess and mitigate apparant risks. It does not seem appropriate or fair to expect to hand over all responsibility for your own welfare to another person just because you paid to hire a boat and a guide. That is surely what they are? A resource you have commissioned in order to fulfil your intention to dive as a person who has been certified to manage their own dive plan.

Obviously none of the above applies to trainees who, willful disregard for the warnings or instructions they are given aside, are obviously owed a duty of care by the operation training them.

It is an unhealthy and dangerous habit recreational divers seem to be getting into where they abdicate responsibility for their own safety just because they paid someone to take them somewhere.

I would add that there is nothing to suggest this is what happened in this case but the tone of some of the comments (not particularly in this thread) seems to follow a general trend of thinking qualified divers are somehow not responsible for their own actions. It seems in this case the dive guide did their best to manage the situation by getting the casualty to the surface and the boat in getting them to medcial attention. Is that not where their responsibility starts and ends where a qualified diver gets into dificulties?

Diver training agencies should be producing certified divers who are capable of completing their own dive plans and executing them safely. To produce divers who are OK so long as nothing goes wrong and who are at best only capable of 'follow my leader' seems to disregard the potential risks of diving. Whilst we all know that diving is actually relatively safe as long as you follow the rules, those agencies really ought to question whether they share some of the responsibility for avoidable incidents. Neither do I think this is restricted to one or some of the recreational scuba training agencies. I think it is becoming more acceptable industry wide to turn out divers who are not necessarily capable of diving safely.

Thinking back to twenty years ago when I first started, the standard of newly qualified divers generally seems far less than it was. Maybe I am just getting old and grumpy. But it is not unusual for me these days to feel uneasy when I see certain divers buddied together, because they would be unable to help either themselves or their buddy if there was a problem. Once they are qualified you can't stop them diving (in a club set up such as ours). All you can do is express your concern to the dive manager, watch their buddy check and intervene if something is amiss and then discretely follow them in case they bugger it up. Something of an imposition when you are meant to be doing the dive recreationally rather than as a nominated instructor.

 

[cdm1]

you're missing the point cdm1. Nobody is callously ignoring the fact that a person died. However, because of the inconsistencies in the news reports (canada/alaska, woman/man, etc.), it has not been clear whether the victim was scuba diving or snorkeling. You have told us that it was a scuba diver. That helps because the objective of this forum isn't as a source of news, but rather as a resource for learning from incidents in the hope that we can become safer divers. Nor is the objective of this forum to lament the death through expressions of condolence (we have a separate forum for these kinds of messages). No, what is intended here is a place where we can discuss the factors contributing to the death of a scuba diver. When it's a straightforward medical issue like heart attack, our discussions focus on health and fitness to dive; when it's a failure of technique, we go in that direction. But we cannot know what way to take our discussion here without getting some basic information:
Was it scuba or snorkeling?
Was it a medical problem or something else?
What emergency measures were implemented?
... And so on.

Your post, cdm1 suggests that you believe that safety standards were not followed and that emergency procedures were lacking. Is that in fact what you're saying? If so, those are serious claims, and you should have solid evidence to back up these claims.
Was there something wrong with the dive equipment or the air?
Was this a student diver or a certified diver and was there a duty of care issue?
Was help not called for promptly?
Was cpr/first not administered appropriately?
Was emergency oxygen not administered?

If that's not what you mean cdm1, please clarify your comments.

I´LL BE CLEAR A DIVER DIED, THIRD ONE IN A ONE YEAR PERIOD,,,,,,,,,,AGAIN MY CONDOLENCES TO THE DIVERS FAMILY!

thank you for your COMMENTS!

---------- Post added February 21st, 2013 at 07:14 AM ----------

Just a little comment, maybe a governmenta agency to supervise & inspect dive shops and do the job correctly!

Very thoughtful comments!

 

[tech_diver]

CDM


You might stop and think before come on this board with 3 posts and lecture us about how serious a dive fatality is. There are people on this board who have lost friends diving. There are people on this board that recover the bodies and rescue survivors. You rail about the corruption in the Mexican government but in all your posts you have not presented a single, tangible, practical suggestion of any kind for making things better.

While you give us no real information on what happened, you have completely ruled out the possibility that a diver can have a heart attack regardless of who he is diving with, through no fault of the dive operation. I don’t know that’s what happened but we don’t have anything to rule it out at this point and pre-existing medical conditions do make up a significant portion of dive fatalities.


Again, if you have something besides capitalized rants, we want to know.


BTW – I have been to Mexico but not Cabo. I have no incentive to protect or indict any particular technique, dive leader or dive operation. Like everyone else here, I want to know more. So I’m not part of whatever conspiracy or cover-up you may be postulating.

 

[tajkd]

I hate to suggest this but there is a lot of dive shop competition in Cabo.

CDM1, which shop are you with anyway?

 

[cdm1]

BEANBAG1:
Diver training agencies should be producing certified divers who are capable of completing their own dive plans and executing them safely. To produce divers who are OK so long as nothing goes wrong and who are at best only capable of 'follow my leader' seems to disregard the potential risks of diving. Whilst we all know that diving is actually relatively safe as long as you follow the rules, those agencies really ought to question whether they share some of the responsibility for avoidable incidents. Neither do I think this is restricted to one or some of the recreational scuba training agencies. I think it is becoming more acceptable industry wide to turn out divers who are not necessarily capable of diving safely.

ALLOW ME TO CONGRATULATE YOU, I GUESS FINALLY SOMEONE IS GETTING THE POINT!

LIVE TO DIVE DIVE TO LIVE,,,,,STAY SAFE!

---------- Post added February 21st, 2013 at 11:42 AM ----------

TECH_DIVER: QUOTE" You might stop and think before come on this board with 3 posts and lecture us about how serious a dive fatality is. There are people on this board who have lost friends diving. There are people on this board that recover the bodies and rescue survivors. You rail about the corruption in the Mexican government but in all your posts you have not presented a single, tangible, practical suggestion of any kind for making things better.

WHENEVER YOU COME TO CABO SEND ME A MESSAGE AND I WILL SHOW YOU ALL THE WORK DONE TO MAKE THINGS BETTER HERE IN CABO AND I WILL SHOW YOU ALL THE INFORMATION REQUIRED TO PROVE TO YOU ALL IT´S BEEN SAID! NOT UNTIL THEN!

---------- Post added February 21st, 2013 at 11:43 AM ----------



---------- Post added February 21st, 2013 at 11:45 AM ----------



---------- Post added February 21st, 2013 at 11:46 AM ----------

I hate to suggest this but there is a lot of dive shop competition in Cabo.

CDM1, which shop are you with anyway?

15 dive shop´s yes a whole lot, wich one i work for doesn´t change the subject,,,good luck next time!

 

[tajkd]

BEANBAG1:
Diver training agencies should be producing certified divers who are capable of completing their own dive plans and executing them safely. To produce divers who are OK so long as nothing goes wrong and who are at best only capable of 'follow my leader' seems to disregard the potential risks of diving. Whilst we all know that diving is actually relatively safe as long as you follow the rules, those agencies really ought to question whether they share some of the responsibility for avoidable incidents. Neither do I think this is restricted to one or some of the recreational scuba training agencies. I think it is becoming more acceptable industry wide to turn out divers who are not necessarily capable of diving safely.

ALLOW ME TO CONGRATULATE YOU, I GUESS FINALLY SOMEONE IS GETTING THE POINT!

LIVE TO DIVE DIVE TO LIVE,,,,,STAY SAFE!

---------- Post added February 21st, 2013 at 11:42 AM ----------

TECH_DIVER: QUOTE" You might stop and think before come on this board with 3 posts and lecture us about how serious a dive fatality is. There are people on this board who have lost friends diving. There are people on this board that recover the bodies and rescue survivors. You rail about the corruption in the Mexican government but in all your posts you have not presented a single, tangible, practical suggestion of any kind for making things better.

WHENEVER YOU COME TO CABO SEND ME A MESSAGE AND I WILL SHOW YOU ALL THE WORK DONE TO MAKE THINGS BETTER HERE IN CABO AND I WILL SHOW YOU ALL THE INFORMATION REQUIRED TO PROVE TO YOU ALL IT´S BEEN SAID! NOT UNTIL THEN!

---------- Post added February 21st, 2013 at 11:43 AM ----------



---------- Post added February 21st, 2013 at 11:45 AM ----------



---------- Post added February 21st, 2013 at 11:46 AM ----------




15 dive shop´s yes a whole lot, wich one i work for doesn´t change the subject,,,good luck next time!

hmmm... sounds like I did hit something after all

 

[peterbj7]

CDM - I have no idea what you're trying to say. You stated, and seemed to assign importance to, that the divemaster had been diving for less than a year. By saying that you are assigning it significance, and you are by implication saying that he was less than capable. But then you are agreeing and supporting the statement that newly qualified divers now don't have all the necessary skills. The only reason to say that IN CAPITALS is to say that it was the diver's own incompetence that caused the accident. Those two statements are incompatible with each other.

It's clear that English isn't your first language, and we are making allowance for that. However, logic is common across all languages and you haven't demonstrated much. Will you please state clearly what you think were the main causes of this accident, and if you think lack of ability either by the divers or by the dive leader were factors please state that clearly.

 

[cdm1]

Signing out of this forum i find it useless!

Please don´t reply to this post, you won´t get an answer!!!!!!