Diver drowns on Dive Boat Karen, Brooklyn, NY

[dumpsterDiver]

And I've never been on a boat with a rescue swimmer or a DM onboard. .."

That helps to put your opinion in perspective, for me at least. Also. I never said the capt. did anything wrong, or that the dive was particularly dangerous.....However, I tried to explain that if people thought the guy was in trouble by watching bubbles, or gonna be in trouble when he ascended, that there were actions that could have been initiated that MIGHT have made a difference.

 

[lamont]

The report we have to work with is third hand, brought over from a local board by the OP. In post #19 I think, he gives an exacty quote of the original post that includes this excerpt: "The Crew, his brother and other divers, myself included, were following his bubbles and became increasingly concerned as we all knew he must be running low on air and the relatively strong current was carrying him further away from the boat."

So I know that it is not the norm, there are claims of this being in action in this case.

Yeah, to be clear, I'm saying that the crew did the best that could be expected of them. Watching bubbles is something that boat captains should do and they should stay alert and it sounds like that happened.

 

[lamont]

That helps to put your opinion in perspective, for me at least. Also. I never said the capt. did anything wrong, or that the dive was particularly dangerous.....However, I tried to explain that if people thought the guy was in trouble by watching bubbles, or gonna be in trouble when he ascended, that there were actions that could have been initiated that MIGHT have made a difference.

Having actually been involved in rescue attempt that turned into a fatal accident, I have a lot more "perspective" on your opinion that there "MIGHT" have been things that could have been done to prevent it.

 

[Dayo Scuba]

Just a comment that was told to me by a very old and wise diver, " Never take anything on a dive that you are not willing to leave in the water on a moments notice"

 

[Charlie99]

and watched as his bubbles indicated he was behind an anchored boat in a current. They watched the progress of his bubbles instead of sending out a snorkeler behind the boat with a trail line to asist him when (or if) he ascended.

This is the only useful bit of Monday morning quarterbacking I've seen in this thread.

Not doing this isn't something that rises anywhere near the level of negligence on the part of the boat crew, but in the perfect 20-20 vision of hindsight, sending a snorkler out downcurrent with a long tagline to meet to ascending diver might have made a difference.

Unfortunately, we will never know why the victim made the choices he did and stayed on the bottom for so long.

 

[DandyDon]

This is the only useful bit of Monday morning quarterbacking I've seen in this thread.

Not doing this isn't something that rises anywhere near the level of negligence on the part of the boat crew, but in the perfect 20-20 vision of hindsight, sending a snorkler out downcurrent with a long tagline to meet to ascending diver might have made a difference.

Unfortunately, we will never know why the victim made the choices he did and stayed on the bottom for so long.

Yeah, we just don't know if the crew included divers qualified for this. It would have been a good action, if they did.

 

[lamont]

This is the only useful bit of Monday morning quarterbacking I've seen in this thread.

Not doing this isn't something that rises anywhere near the level of negligence on the part of the boat crew, but in the perfect 20-20 vision of hindsight, sending a snorkler out downcurrent with a long tagline to meet to ascending diver might have made a difference.

Unfortunately, we will never know why the victim made the choices he did and stayed on the bottom for so long.

I seriously doubt your hindsight is a perfect 20/20.

We don't know what happened, and if the diver suffered a heart attack and/or embolism/barotrauma (consistant with the diver surfacing in a panic, falling unconscious at the surface and not being able to kick to stay up) then there was little that a rescue swimmer could have done either. With a heart attack, getting the victim to CPR as fast as possible can help, but even with the ability to use a Star Trek transporter to beam the diver onto the boat a positive outcome is nowhere near guaranteed. With an embolism and pulmonary barotrauma its likely nothing could be done once the injury occured, even with the transporter beam.

 

[Charlie99]

I seriously doubt your hindsight is a perfect 20/20.

We don't know what happened, and if the diver suffered a heart attack and/or embolism/barotrauma (consistant with the diver surfacing in a panic, falling unconscious at the surface and not being able to kick to stay up) then there was little that a rescue swimmer could have done either. With a heart attack, getting the victim to CPR as fast as possible can help, but even with the ability to use a Star Trek transporter to beam the diver onto the boat a positive outcome is nowhere near guaranteed. With an embolism and pulmonary barotrauma its likely nothing could be done once the injury occured, even with the transporter beam.

Do you see any reason NOT to send a snorkler downcurrent with a tag line if you see a separated, and somewhat overdue, diver's bubbles go downcurrent of the moored boat?

 

[lamont]

Do you see any reason NOT to send a snorkler downcurrent with a tag line if you see a separated, and somewhat overdue, diver's bubbles go downcurrent of the moored boat?

If you have someone on board who is qualified to do that job and its SOP on the boat then there no reason not to. As a monday morning criticism of the rescue attempt, though, it is weak, it is not universally accepted practice and it is not fair to the rescuers because it is likely that it would not have changed the outcome at all.

 

[Charlie99]

If you have someone on board who is qualified to do that job and its SOP on the boat then there no reason not to. As a monday morning criticism of the rescue attempt, though, it is weak, it is not universally accepted practice and it is not fair to the rescuers because it is likely that it would not have changed the outcome at all.

You are reading criticism into my post that isn't there.

The victim is dead. Nothing can change that.

The only good that can come out of a discussion is for us to reflect upon our diving practices.

Running a tagline far downcurrent in such a situation is not a universally accepted practice, but it also isn't unheard of. Indeed, I was swimming crosscurrent on the Spiegel Grove a couple years ago after aborting a dive and coming up on a buoy other than where the boat was moored and was met midway by a DM in snorkel gear and a tagline in hand. Although he then took off downcurrent to get others and I wasn't able to use the line as an assist, that line was there downcurrent in case I wasn't able to crab over to the boat.