Diver dies on French Reef (Keys)

[Designated Diver]

Taken as reported, this makes the dive operation look negligent. Don't they use drift lines down there? If conditions are such that you don't make headway after even 10 minutes much less 30(!), a line or boat should be out. There's no excuse for the dive crew to not have seen two divers in the water 100 yds behind the boat, if they were paying any attention (to the divers that is). Maybe there's more to the story, but I've been in rough conditions plenty of times in the Channel Islands, and there are always at least two crew scanning the water for divers in trouble. This was late in the second dive and the crew should have been on alert if conditions were at all as reported.

There is always more to the story. I found a first-hand account on the Miami Herald comments section. Read it and see what you think:

"i was on the boat when this happened, and this story is not 100% true. The conditions were NOT that bad, 2-3 ft. seas and the customers are informed of this at the shop and have the choice to reschedule the trip. There was only a slight current, which was nothing out of the ordinary either. The captain gave a very detailed breifing, informing the divers of the conditions and the appropriate way to direct their dive. And the current was NOT going north, it was going southwest, which just so happened to be right in a bad glare from the sun. Secondly, the diver informed me and others on the boat that the pair surfaced atleast 200 yds sw the boat (in the sun's glare) , so it would have been very difficult to spot them. Also, safety sausages, whistles, or any other emergency equipment were not used - We were all looking very closely and watching for 2 divers at the surface all around before they called the coast guard. The crew handled this horrible situation the best way they possibly could. It is an accident, So go ahead and have your opinions, but if you're looking for somewhere to put the blame, don't put it on the dive shop - they did nothing wrong and im sure are having a hard enough time with this situation. My heart goes out to the man and all others affected by this tragedy."

 

[DandyDon]

Why would they anchor at all ? I still can't see any need at all for it, drop your divers at the point and retreat to a sensible location where you can see where they'll be and are able to respond.

And despite "the site not being known for currents" there obviously was one.

Even if there are no currents, no waves and no wind if a diver surfaces in trouble 100m or so from the boat it CANNOT react immediately to deal if its moored.

I don't guess you've dived the newbie reefs off of Key Largo? I know you have your ideas of how the world should dive, but if there weren't mooring lines there, there would be anchors. It gets rather crowded with dive boats on these and the last thing I'd want is to be dodging life boats in the water there.

No, no current that day. The news article reported one (did it also mention oxygen tanks and shark infested waters as usual?) but the local captain above reported that there was none - just waves.

Why did the boat crew not see the divers? We can speculate that the divers did not listen to or follow the briefing as they certainly should not have been 100 yards from the boat. I don't know the dive boat in this case; some have but one crew member onboard while all others including boat mates are in the water - expecting the divers to stay in the close proximity of the boat, so it'd be easy to miss any who surfaced well outside of the assigned dive area in waves, perhaps without signaling devices. Should boats keep rescue divers at the ready and watching on decks? I guess these divers were certified so not required, and many traveling divers shop by costs first. I've been on boats there that did keep a rescue diver onboard watching, others that did not - allowing the volunteer DM to dive, and some with only the captain for crew for six divers.

OMG AND WOW!!!!
As a diver, instructor, and most importantly a Sheriff's Office diver that has done recoveries here in the Keys this is dangerous and irresponsible thinking. To those newer divers reading SB and trying to learn don't follow this advice.

Yes, work on your navigation skills, please stay forward of the boat. Cary your signaling devices and know how to use them. Listen to the many post about making an honest attempt to get back to the boat, but don't panic and wear yourself out. Get as positively bouyant as posible, signal, relax and wait. If they can see you, they will come and get you.

As far as the above poster, I have no issues with solo diving, but I have big issues with leaving the boat unattended.

Safe Dives
trtldvr
Florida Keys Safe Diving Initiative

Thank you very much! You've had plenty of incidents with empty boat divers there, I know. I wish you could have better rules on tourists renting boats, but it's all about business in the Keys for most of the decision makers.

What the heck are you talking about? Does that mean that every diver that perishes in the sea does not know they must return? This just sounds like gibberish to me.....but then that is just my opinion.

Shared by most I think.

Taken as reported, this makes the dive operation look negligent. Don't they use drift lines down there? If conditions are such that you don't make headway after even 10 minutes much less 30(!), a line or boat should be out. There's no excuse for the dive crew to not have seen two divers in the water 100 yds behind the boat, if they were paying any attention (to the divers that is). Maybe there's more to the story, but I've been in rough conditions plenty of times in the Channel Islands, and there are always at least two crew scanning the water for divers in trouble. This was late in the second dive and the crew should have been on alert if conditions were at all as reported.

Nah, no need for a drift line when there's no current. It's generally much easier diving on that reef than in the Channel Islands to my experience and I've done both a few times. I'm sure there is much more to the story, but I read a dozen other news reports on this one and they're all about the same. I don't know if the Key Largo "Sea Star" is a six pack with a one man crew or what?

:depressed:Sad news and even sadder when people misunderstand the well intentioned reviews and speculation. Tragic to hear of a death and honestly we have no idea of any facts other than they were diving and one didn't survive. We use these sad events to trigger a review of our safety procedures and learn from each other.

:blinking:I'm glad that all the places I have done boat dives in Australia so far have insisted on SMB's or SS and had spares for anyone who didn't bring their own.

I would like to stress that a BCD is not complete without a whistle! So easy to carry and use. After a shore dive, we were getting changed and a couple divers surfaced and started blowing a whistle. They got instant attention in an area no one would have expected them to surface. Help was deployed and everything ended very well. They may have been spotted without that cheap plastic whistle but it would have certainly very delayed!

I don't know about over there, but here - BCs are often sold with a joke of a whistle. I carry the best whistle available for blowing when out of tank air...

Prices start at $5 US around google
​

And a tank air powered Dive Alert that can be heard even further...

Prices start at $40​

Many vacation divers won't spend $40 on a whistle I don't guess. I don't imagine that these two had.

I don't know if they had a Storm Whistle or the cheap whistel that came with the BC, I don't know if they had a Sausage, and we don't know what the briefing included - but the common briefings there are to float and wait if you can't get back to the boat easily. They didn't. A medical incident that happened on the surface perhaps? All too many scuba deaths happen after surfacing for a variety of reasons.

Edit: Thanks Designated Diver! You were posting while I was. But I have nothing more to add that that.

 

[Rick Murchison]

... I wish you could have better rules on tourists renting boats...

In the context of diving, we don't need any more bureaucratic meddling in our freedoms. As much as you'd like government to protect stupid people from themselves, you can't do it without infringing everyone else's freedom, and I'm firmly against that. Now if you were to propose some basic "rules-of-the-road" testing for boat rentals, there's a valid public safety reason for that, but empty boat diving does not hazard anyone other than those doing it and the rest of us have no business imposing our will on those who want to do it.
Rick

 

[Doubles]

Taken as reported, this makes the dive operation look negligent.

No it doesn't

Don't they use drift lines down there? If conditions are such that you don't make headway after even 10 minutes much less 30(!), a line or boat should be out.

Short drift lines are great for those who are near the boat. Boats should not and will not drop hundreds of yards of drift line into the water. Skiff's would be nice - but if no one see's you they are of no value.

There's no excuse for the dive crew to not have seen two divers in the water 100 yds behind the boat, if they were paying any attention (to the divers that is). Maybe there's more to the story, but I've been in rough conditions plenty of times in the Channel Islands, and there are always at least two crew scanning the water for divers in trouble.

The next time you are out in the channel islands - skip the dive, stay on the surface and just look around. You might discover how far off you are with the above thought.

I am always amazed at how easy people think it is to see something on the surface of the water. It can be difficult to impossible to locate small objects on the surface of the water. The direction of the sun, the sea conditions, and the wind all play a factor in this. It doesn't make any difference if you are on a dive deck, on the flying bridge, or sitting in a helo at 500 feet.

This was late in the second dive and the crew should have been on alert if conditions were at all as reported.

This seems to imply that if it were the first dive and the seas calm that the crew would not have needed to be diligent in their observation of the surrounding waters for problems?

****

I spent half my Coast Guard career in the Pacific, with a few years in the channel islands, the other half in the Atlantic. The ocean or sea that your diving in make no difference - even with smb's, safety sausages, sound alerts and trash bags - we can be virtually invisible on the surface of the water. EDIT - as divers we really need to be aware of this. Knowing that we may not be visible should help us in deciding what action should be taken - both before a dive and when we hit the surface - end of edit.

IMHO the lessons to be learned have already been wisely posted -

Dive to your training and experience
Carry reasonable signaling devices
Awareness - to your location and to your situation
Start the dive into the current (really part of diving to your training)
When something goes wrong - stop - breath - think - act

The "act" part might just be floating comfortably on the surface waiting for help

Cheers

Steve

 

[mkutyna]

Why would they anchor at all ? I still can't see any need at all for it, drop your divers at the point and retreat to a sensible location where you can see where they'll be and are able to respond.

Yeah, 30 boats dropping 6-20 divers per boat all on the same stretch of reef and then each boat trying to keep track of their divers while trying to avoid the other 29 boats. No thanks.

 

[widget]

This reef is not known for current, and one local captain posted above that there was none that day - only some waves. Drifting doesn't apply there, and a live boat would tend to blow away from the divers there. If there were not moorings, there would be anchors dropped and dragging. It's not one size fits all...

Fair enough, I agree with you, however I do think theres a certain amount of "its always been done like this, so we will just carry on doing it like this" perhaps there needs to be a rethink of some boating operation for divers.?

I am familiar with the reef in question, as well as most of the reefs down the Keys popular with tourists, having dived most of them more than a few times, and my impression was always that the operators were very professional and concerned about safety, but as much as we divers can learn from the situation, so can the boat charters, diving is no longer a select sport for healthy fit young men and women, it has progressed to the mass market where we have a broad range of age, fitness levels, diving ability, equipment capability / availability and mental awareness, sticking to a rigid plan of "its ALWAYS been done like this" is not going to move us forward, I am not advocating dropping anchors all over a pristine coral reef, but if you have to moor the boat, maybe consider deploying one or two or even three small Kayaks as they do in some parts of the Red Sea to assist divers popping up 100 metres from the boat, theres always another way and just knowing there are roving kayaks to help if you do surface from the boat could have possibly prevented anxiety and / or resulting panic setting in and possibly even prevented a surface health issue as you rightly state.

Personally, I am still not in favour of moored boats, I understand its necessary in certain situations, but "theres always more than one way to skin a cat".!

 

[cdiver2]

Safety equipment

My wife/buddy of nine years each carry whistle, Air Alert, SMB, signal mirror, some form of light (4 camera strobes or two flash lights).
I also carry a *PLB and a buddy line.

I am amazed at amount of SUPPOSEDLY experienced divers that say, swim for the boat/shore giving the impression that this is always a feasible option, it is not.
You should know after a few minutes swimming if you are making enough headway to get to your goal or not. If you don’t think you can make it then it is time to start making plans for rescue and then conserving energy until you are rescued.


Why a buddy line? If you are going to spend some time in the water waiting to be rescued (read hours if not days) a number of things are going to happen. Being lost after a dive you will start out being somewhat tired, then the initial shock of finding yourself lost, then add wind, wave, cold, heat, dehydration, motion sickness, you will very probably find yourself at some time dozing off if not sleeping. This is where the buddy line comes in, we stay together. What has brought me to carrying this amount of safety equipment? Experience over the years.

Whilst diving in Cyprus with the military on a deserted rocky shore line, after our third dive that day our boat broke down a ¼- ½ mile from shore with no radio and not another boat for as far as the eye could see. The waves 1-2, very hot, little current (or so we thought). It was decided the two best swimmers would swim ashore in Speedos, mask, snorkel and fins to get help. After a short time of swimming we found we were being pushed along the shore away from our designated exit point and had to compensate for the cross track current. After about 30-40 minutes of hard swimming, then the climb up the boulders on the shore my legs were like jelly. And that was when I was in my prime. Start each day with a four man team on a utility pole for a five mile run, then carry a man on your back for a 100 yards, straight onto the obstacle course and if you were the last to finish you did the obstacle course again, all before breakfast. Now take your average rec diver and ask them to do this, I don’t think I would be volunteering to do it now.

On another occasion diving 20 miles off shore in the Gulf of Mexico from a 39’ Sea Ray with a hard top fly bridge. We were the first in the water and went along a ledge, we turned our dive at the ½ way point making our way back along the ledge and soon realized we should have seen the anchor by now but it was no where in sight. As we neared our decompression limit we started a slow ascent still following the ledge until we could no longer see it. Imagine my surprise on surfacing that the only boat we could see was a dot on the horizon, my first thought was Oh ***** how long are we going to be drifting out here before we are found. Lucky for us the DM was stood on top of the bridge and saw us giving the distress signal, how I will never know. We could not tell if it was our dive boat or not and could only see the DM’s black shorts moving around on top of the bridge.

What happened, the anchor broke loose and was only noticed when the next pair of divers a Instructor and student went down at least five minutes after us. So who was to blame no one, sometimes ***** happens and I know I could not swim to the boat let alone the shore.

*PLB While a PLB will work very well in US waters (you should be rescued fairly quickly) for those that dive in the more exotic/remote locations of the world be aware it doe’s not work as well. In the US when the distress signal is received the first thing that happens is, the two contacts given WHEN YOU REGESTER the PLB are contacted then the USCG station nearest your location are contacted and the search starts.
However when you are in a remote part of the world (Yap Palau PNG etc) there are no USCG stations there. Then two things happen, a general alert to shipping is put out via radio and the authorities in that country are notified of the distress call, then its up to them, you can help this situation.

When diving in waters outside of the US we always give a full written Itinerary to the two contacts for the PLB this includes Flight dates, times and numbers and airline, also Name, address, phone numbers, e mail address of resort/hotel and dive op’s that you will be using along with the dates. Make sure you stipulate in the Itinerary the time zone you are using, I do it all in Eastern that way it saves confusion at this end as to where you are right now. We also give one to a few family members in case of a family emergency.

I also make the dive op aware that I have a PLB and stress DO NOT TOUCH IT.

As a foot note. I was asked at a dive resort in Asia what the can was on the tank band, when I told them it was a PLB I was told “you don’t need that, take it off we have never lost anyone”. That is sad coming from a DM.

 

[deepstops]

Fair enough, I agree with you, however I do think theres a certain amount of "its always been done like this, so we will just carry on doing it like this" perhaps there needs to be a rethink of some boating operation for divers.?

Personally, I am still not in favour of moored boats, I understand its necessary in certain situations, but "theres always more than one way to skin a cat".!

Please keep in mind the boat on which this happened holds ~30 divers maxed out (a 46' Corinthian) and telling 30 divers "we'll live boat and pick you up where ever you pop-up" is going to be like herding cats.

The use of moored dive sites works quite on these sites although I completely agree it does NOT work everywhere. The deceased seems to have not followed a major tenent (never get downstream from the boat) and has paid the ultimate price :depressed:

 

[bowlofpetunias]

:blinking:I've dived a number of sites here off mooring lines. They give you the dive brief and you may be directed to return to that mooring line, the boat my go to a mooring line down current to wait and boat crew watch for surfacing divers.

In any case there are mooring lines spaced at reasonable intervals. If you get low on air you can go up any mooring line and hang out for a pick up and play music with your whistle. If you surface away from your boat the nearest mooring line is a safe spot to hang. Coming up to find a boat you weren't expecting is always good for a few introductions and good natured banter til you can be returned to your own "flock". Works well here. Popular sites may have a few boats moored which can get confusing but means there are more willing bodies to help.

The mooring lines reduce damage to the site. Easier to hook on line and be found:wavey:I've seen moored boats unhook and be under way VERY quickly when needed. I guess it depends on what you are used to.

Personally I feel safer exiting and entering a moored boat than one with anchor dragging, drifting or worst still running motors!

 

[String]

I don't guess you've dived the newbie reefs off of Key Largo? I know you have your ideas of how the world should dive, but if there weren't mooring lines there, there would be anchors. It gets rather crowded with dive boats on these and the last thing I'd want is to be dodging life boats in the water there.

I have dived there actually and other than boring me to death after 2 days nothing changes. Mooring or anchoring a dive boat is in my view stupid and dangerous - its bad dive boat practice no matter where in the world.

Taking into account the last post mentioning sun glare its even more ludicrous that a boat would moor and therefore have glare preventing its view. Any sane cox would position the boat at a better angle so as to see the likely place the divers would be. With calm conditions like described there is no excuse for "having no idea" where they are.

We can speculate that the divers did not listen to or follow the briefing as they certainly should not have been 100 yards from the boat.

"should not" is a lovely theory. In the real world things go wrong, different direction currents, navigation error or any problem at all that prevents them safely returning to the boat.

Should boats keep rescue divers at the ready and watching on decks?

Rescue divers is overkill but its part of the cox (and crew if any) responsibility to be able to recognise and respond immediately to any problem AND to keep track of their divers. Again, mooring prevents this.

To me it sounds (i) the divers were not carrying signalling aids and (ii) the boat captain obviously bought his license and has no idea how to safely crew and handle a dive boat in a way that best protects his divers.

We aren't talking difficult skills here - best positioning is something common sense should teach without anything else being needed.