cdiver2
Contributor
jbd:
I think you need to rethink what you have just said. swim 10m back to land, in your dreams also all survival instruction tells you not to swim if you don't think you can make it as this lowers body heat very quickly.
Diver in California Sues for Being Left
- Thread starter darylm74
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
I think you need to rethink what you have just said. swim 10m back to land, in your dreams also all survival instruction tells you not to swim if you don't think you can make it as this lowers body heat very quickly.
I didn't say I would swim 10 miles back to land. Neither was I recommending Mr. Carlock swim for land. For me the swim to land would only have been a couple of miles, maybe three and I would have had the benefit of waves pushing me in the desired direction.cdiver2:
My point is, again, it seems very strange that a peson would choose not to attempt self rescue, especially when they can see "safety" in the form of a boat which brought them to the site to begin with. The decision to just drift with the assumption,"... they will come find me" is not natural. Just as I don't think its natural to take pictures of oneself and ones watch in such situations.
A 100 yard to 150 yard swim towards the boat would have left Mr. Carlock less hypothermic than drifting for hours hoing someone would come pick him up.
Mr. Carlock's poor decisions started this entire unfortunate chain of events, for which he apparently does not accept any responsibility for.
cdiver2
Contributor
jbd:
Judge another man until you have walked in his shoes.
For you it would have only been a couple or three miles, your still dreaming. With the waves behind me, NEAT how do you get the waves to go in the direction you want?. Kinda like that king that sat on the sea shore and tried to make the tide go out with his authority....he drowned.
150 yard swimm. Yes he would have been less hypothermic. IF HE HAD MADE IT, had he not made it hypothermia would have set in sooner....we don't know what kind of current he was fighting
Actually, we do. There were about thirty divers onboard the Sundiver. All but one made it back to the boat. They then made a second open ocean dive. I guarantee no divers would have been allowed in the water ten miles from shore if there had been a strong current. It took Dan five hours to drift the three miles to where he was found. Current played only a small fraction in his disappearance. The main problem was fog. When he surfaced he could still see the boat but made no effort to swim to it. After a few minutes he was no longer in sight of it.cdiver2:
wolf eel
Contributor
How do you know this are you the Operator ?
To you it may not seem like much but to him it may have been enough for him to want to conserve energy.
Then with out a doubt it was the DMs fault he should have been twice as tentive to the divers on the boat and in the water.
cdiver2
Contributor
MaxBottomtime:
My understanding of this is the divers ascend up the nominated leg of the rig then the boat moves in to do a pick up, how far off the rig doe's the boat stand off the rig whilst the dive is in progress and when the boat moves in how far do the divers have to swim to get to it? I thought it had been stated somewhere the swim was a hundred yards, next did I read correct in reading Dan was on the opposite side of the rig? this would have put him some distance from the boat.
You state in five hours he only drifted three miles but in a few minutes he drifted out of sight of the boat, lets see 5hrs-3ml thats about 20yds drift in one minute = about 1 yard in a 3 sec drift !.
"How do you know this are you the Operator ?"
No, but I know him. I have also worked in SoCal as a DM and have taken passengers to offshore sites on my own boat. These are not shallow reefs where a drift dive is possible. The bottom at the rigs is 350-1200 feet. There is no chance any operator would allow a diver in the water if a strong current was present.
"To you it may not seem like much but to him it may have been enough for him to want to conserve energy."
Then he probably shouldn't have signed up to make advanced dives with only 24 dives under his belt.
"Then with out a doubt it was the DMs fault he should have been twice as tentive to the divers on the boat and in the water."
At this specific site the rig operators require all divers to stay within the perimeter of the legs. It's probable that even a competant divemaster would not have seen a diver surface 400 feet away from the rigs at the edge of visibility.
No, but I know him. I have also worked in SoCal as a DM and have taken passengers to offshore sites on my own boat. These are not shallow reefs where a drift dive is possible. The bottom at the rigs is 350-1200 feet. There is no chance any operator would allow a diver in the water if a strong current was present.
"To you it may not seem like much but to him it may have been enough for him to want to conserve energy."
Then he probably shouldn't have signed up to make advanced dives with only 24 dives under his belt.
"Then with out a doubt it was the DMs fault he should have been twice as tentive to the divers on the boat and in the water."
At this specific site the rig operators require all divers to stay within the perimeter of the legs. It's probable that even a competant divemaster would not have seen a diver surface 400 feet away from the rigs at the edge of visibility.
Since 9/11 the rules have changed for diving the rigs. Divers are required to surface within the perimeter of the rig legs. The boat remains a couple hundred feet upcurrent until a few divers have gathered at the surface. The boat then moves in to around 50 feet of the rig and the divers swim to the boat. The reason Dan drifted out of sight of the boat quickly is because he surfaced 400 feet down current at the edge of the fog. Rather than swimming toward the boat, he figured they would come to him, so he drifted away. Any small effort on his part would have brought him closer to the boat where he would have been seen. At the very least, he could have held his position and got the attention of the workers on the rigs. Since there were still divers in the water (remember, Dan was only underwater for 15-20 minutes) the boat was still there for up to an hour before all other divers were onboard and the ill-fated roll call was taken. Dan had more than ample time to correct his mistakes, but instead decided it was the crew's responsibility to come and get him. Even if the DM hadn't screwed up the roll call, Dan was still somewhere out in the fog and would have been extremely difficult to find. Being left at sea was the Divemaster's fault. Being lost at sea was Dan's.cdiver2:
100 yards is 3/5ths of **** all. If he couldnt swim 100-200 yards, he shouldnt have been in the water.wolf eel:
Also the law suit, taking photo's of himself and watch, sounds planned to me. Also skin cancer after only 5 hours in the sun?!?!?!?What a petal. He should never of left mommy and daddy's place.
If you are told not to go outside of the perimeter of the rig, then you dont. Full stop. The crew should have sued him for ignoring instructions.
I agree proper procedures should have been in place by the boat crew to prevent this but we all have a duty of care to others and ourselves and it sounds like this chump did nothing to help himself.
Not to mention the fact that it was very foggy and he was wearing a full wetsuit and hood. He had a better chance at getting barnacles than cancer.Azza:
Similar threads
