Diver Indicted in 2003 GBR mishap

[MikeFerrara]

So according to the transcripts his story is that she turned the dive, he tried to grag her back to the mooring line. She apparently got neg. She knocked his mask off and his reg out at some point. He let go of her to get himself back together and she started sinking. He cleared his mask and put his alternate inflator in his mouth. He said he upended and tried to dwim down to her but couldn't catch her and decided to go for help. Is that about it?

I wonder if he dumped air or if he was trying to swim down against a bc full of air? I've seen that about a thousand times. Anyway, in my experience, it all seems so absolutely typical.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I have read most of the transcripts as well, I'm not here to judge him. If he is truely innocent, how in the world did he pass any sort of rescue class.

Have you take a rescue class, or better yet, have you read the standards or taught any rescue classes?

It brings up a more important question, medical examinations and questionaires sure have gotten enough run around here but if this guy is innocent i'm not certain he could resue himself from a wet paper bag.

Does this surprise you?

We are quick to be critical of unfit overweight divers however I'm not certain that this guy, provided he is innocent was capable of scuba diving?

I'm not either. More importantly, the outcome would seem to indicate that she wasn't.

was he an intelligent man?

Lots of people who you would assume to be intelligent get pretty dumb in the water.

and how can we protect ourselves from being buddied up with someone like this?

First of all, you nee solid skills yourself in order to know solid skills when you see them. Then you dive with people you know and practice with OR in conditions where you are comfortable being in control (like a teaching situation).

For example...I think I have a LOT more training and experience than the accused and that dive doesn't sound like one that I would have done with the victim, given her training and experience level. It's very possible that I wouldn't do the dive with the accused and I sure wouldn't send a new diver out on that dive with him.

can someone be capable of mask clearing, buddy breathing and even pass a resue diver class yet be so incompetent that he could not at least make an attempt at rescue.....

The transcripts indicate that he did attempt a rescue. That's what all that trying to tow her back to the line was all about.

really he should have been taught that if she was too heavy he should have dropped her weights, inflated her Bc, or his.....if the current was too strong he could have let go of the line partnered up and made a free accent to the surface...T O G E T H E R, and took their chances on the surface...

Sounds good to me but the line is a really tempting place to go.

When I was a DM candidate I was on a dive on one of the bridge spans in the Gulf with my wife (who was a fairly new diver), an instructor and two divers the instructor had certified the day before in the springs.

I spotted one of the two former students alone and drifing away down current from the bridge and struggling. I went after him and when I got him I spotted the line so I drug him to it. By the time we got there I was exhausted. The instructor had seen what was going on by that time and joined us. We had ascended some by the time we got to the line and I was down to about 18 cu ft of gas.

Naturally my wife hadn't seen what was going on and didn't follow and was nowhere in sight so I headed back down to look for her.

Jsut an all around Cluster Fudge.

really if he is innocent we need to be asking questions if divers are actually intelligent enough for real world diving.

Well the smartest person in the worl can appear pretty dumb while diving if they don't know how to dive.

On second thought we hear of divers dying everyday during the short lobster season where they DUST of 20 Year old equipment and jump in the water expecting it to work

It's not just lobster season. Read through the many threads in this accident forum. Very few accidents result from actions that sound "smart".

 

[Tricia]

In the transcript it appears to indicate that Tina was wearing possibly 38lbs, or 17Kg. Without knowning her size/body type, difficult to say whether she was overweighted but that certainly sounds very overweighted to me. And he was wearing 13.5Kg. That seems like a huge amount of weight. Some locations are saltier than others which require more weight, for example the Red Sea - anyone know whether Pulau is normal in terms of the sea salinity or whether it's more like the Red Sea? And are there any pictures of the Watson's? Be curious to see their size and whether they really were monstrously over weighted.

The transcript certainly reads very differently to the other reports in the media. I might even end up agreeing with MikeF by the end of it! Altho obviously I'll try not to

JClynes - does it say WHO advised Tina to wear 38lbs/17Kg? The Dive Master on the boat? Or her husband...? :11:

And Noboundaries: yes, you're right, I'm sure lawyers on both sides are picking up ideas. I just hope the prosecutors realise they are going to have to first teach that jury what is a "normal" dive - and then show the anamolies.

Trish

 

[MikeFerrara]

JClynes - does it say WHO advised Tina to wear 38lbs/17Kg? The Dive Master on the boat? Or her husband...? :11:

In theory, since she was a certified diver she should have been able to properly weight herself without help. Right?

But...we don't have to go any further than this board and all the questions concerning weighting to see that there are many divers who are certified without being taught such basics.

I don't know how big the accused is or what kind of wet suit he was wearing but it sounds like he might have been too heavy...and boat DM's are liable to set an unsespecting diver up so they'll be heavy...and we're probably better off not getting into what's done in most classes, huh?

I just hope the prosecutors realise they are going to have to first teach that jury what is a "normal" dive - and then show the anamolies.

Trish

And the prosecutors are qualified to do that?

 

[InTheDrink]

If you were relatively new to diving, hugely overweighted and in a current that made you anxious, you could easily hit the wrong button and start sinking fast. The somewhat leisurely ascent could also be easier explained also if he had indeed tried to get a couple of diver's attention. I still reserve judgement but I'm surprised how 'normally' the transcript reads of something going wrong, but not so obviously cataclysmically wrong that he didn't think that there might be a better chance getting someone else to help - she was after all in possession of her reg. The cause of death is still a mystery tho. Drowning/Asphyxiation. How could that happen in this scenario? The only plausible cause I've read is a dodge reg that stopped giving her air a some depth. Still, wouldn't there be water in her lungs?

 

[MikeFerrara]

If you were relatively new to diving, hugely overweighted and in a current that made you anxious, you could easily hit the wrong button and start sinking fast.

The first thing that I think of here is not only overweighting but the head up trim that results from having that weight in the wrong place.

Head up trim results in the diver being neg while moving forward. When forward motion stops they sink unless they continue kicking.

I bring this up because it is so COMMON not only with new divers but even long time divers who just never learned. The industry turns the other way and refuses to teach or require proper trim in entry level courses. It not only results in divers strugling but it can be dangerous.

The first rescue I was ever involved in (which I mentioned earlier in the thread) was cause by exactly this. The new diver was neg and trimmed head up. When she stopped kicking to look for and check her depth guage, she sunk like a rock and paniced before she could solve the problem. Sorry but this is what we get when we teach divers to dive overweighted and on their knees.

The somewhat leisurely ascent could also be easier explained also if he had indeed tried to get a couple of diver's attention.

Two minutes sounds like a long time but I don't think it is. Someone said that the other divers were interviewed an none of them remembered him trying to get their attention. But...we've all seen the picture of the head up diver smiling in the camera with the body of the victim just below and behind so we see how alert they all were.

And what is the prosecutions story going to be? That he prevented her from breathing by bear-hugging her? Didn't the witness say he was seen holding her and her arms were outstretched? If I turned your air off and held you would you just hang there or would you struggle? Frankly, I've never heard such a bunch of BS in all my life...well maybe I have but it's till beyond the pale.

I still reserve judgement but I'm surprised how 'normally' the transcript reads of something going wrong, but not so obviously cataclysmically wrong that he didn't think that there might be a better chance getting someone else to help - she was after all in possession of her reg.

Who knows? It reads to me like he was task loaded and pushed to his limits and beyond too.

The cause of death is still a mystery tho. Drowning/Asphyxiation. How could that happen in this scenario? The only plausible cause I've read is a dodge reg that stopped giving her air a some depth. Still, wouldn't there be water in her lungs?

I'm no doc but there wouldn't necessarily be water in the lungs. Still, the thing that caught my eye in the coroners report was the mention of an embolism.

I'd rather reserve judgement too but I'm not going to Autralia to dive and I started avoiding most recreational charters years ago because of this kind of nonsense. I'll do so more now if they're going to start throwing the survivors in jail.

 

[Geoff_H]

I wonder if he dumped air or if he was trying to swim down against a bc full of air? I've seen that about a thousand times. Anyway, in my experience, it all seems so absolutely typical.

I have to question your motivation on this Mike. You have dragged another thread into a one man agency bashing extravaganza. I also question your "typical" experiences. Maybe the divers in the US are absolutely clueless, but your experiences are not anywhere near typical for me.

Sure, we all see new divers struggling and sometimes we even see an old one who hasn't got good trim or decent bouyancy control. However this number sharply diminishes as their training level goes up. I have no doubt the training does not contribute significantly to this, but the fact they want to keep diving means they already have progressed past the level of most open water dives. So, my feeling is that most people who have sought extra training are better divers than those who have not, if only because they now have 20 or 50 or 100 dives rather than 5 or 10.

Most people who have taken a Recue cert I have seen have been reasonable divers, not all and I fully accept this guy could have been one of the few. I don't think your "so absolutely typical" comment is at all fair or accurate... as least from what I have personally experienced in several hundred dives in Asia, mainly diving with people & shops I didn't know before. Maybe it's different in America, and all new divers suck but I think it is more likely you are simply prejudiced from your negative experiences with PADI?

 

[Ayisha]

In the transcript it appears to indicate that Tina was wearing possibly 38lbs, or 17Kg. Without knowning her size/body type, difficult to say whether she was overweighted but that certainly sounds very overweighted to me. And he was wearing 13.5Kg. That seems like a huge amount of weight.

Take a look at the picture of her final moments or any other published picture with her beside Gabe or other people for comparison. She is clearly a slim female. Gabe is a stocky male, much larger than her.

We don't know whether she was using a steel or aluminum tank or what capacity tank or the thickness of her wetsuit or the lift of her BC, but 38 lbs would be a massive amount of weight even in the most weight-requiring set-up (7 mm wetsuit, aluminum larger tank) for a female of her apparent size. It makes no sense that a man of Gabe's apparent size was wearing less than her.

For example, with a 3 mm full wetsuit in salt water with an AL80, I wear 8 lbs.
In a 7 mm 2-piece wetsuit with hood, gloves, etc., in (cold) salt water with an AL 80, I wear 22 lbs.
Somewhere around these weights or a little higher would be pretty common for slimmer women if they are correctly weighted, just as a comparison.

It seems that she was definitely very overweighted.

 

[Geoff_H]

I have just read the transcripts, here are some points which I have not seen covered yet:

1. The police interviewer - denoted "Lawrence" is clearly a diver since he uses the correct terminology throughout the statement and asks sensible questions in the correct context.

2. Watson had been to 150 feet at least once, and used the phrase "narked" in that his instructor wanted him to experience being narked at that depth.

3. He was certified in 1996.

4. He used an AI computer, and he lied about the battery issue.

5. He has had training in the use of lift bags

6. He is a spearfisher

7. He talks about air embolisms

For me, points 2 to 7 help add to the picture Watson is an experienced diver. It doesn't conclusively prove it, but he had been certified and owned all his own equipment for the 12 years, has been deep diving experience, knew about narcosis, had been to Cosumill (presumably Cozumel), has had his gear serviced yearly, had used lift bags, knew what an air embolism was and had been spearfishing on scuba.

All these help been to dispell any myth he was a novice, in my view.

 

[MikeFerrara]

I have to question your motivation on this Mike. You have dragged another thread into a one man agency bashing extravaganza. I also question your "typical" experiences. Maybe the divers in the US are absolutely clueless, but your experiences are not anywhere near typical for me.

Motive? None other than to point out I don't see bad diving as being at all uncommon and I don't think it's a basis for a murder charge.

Most people who have taken a Recue cert I have seen have been reasonable divers, not all and I fully accept this guy could have been one of the few. I don't think your "so absolutely typical" comment is at all fair or accurate... as least from what I have personally experienced in several hundred dives in Asia, mainly diving with people & shops I didn't know before. Maybe it's different in America, and all new divers suck but I think it is more likely you are simply prejudiced from your negative experiences with PADI?

I don't know about Asia but this guy is from the US and I've dived in his old stopmping grounds. In fact the rescue that I mentioned earlier where the new diver sunk like a rock was at Bue Water Scuba right there in Alabama. But, what's you experience with "rescue divers"? I've taught a bunch of rescue classes, DM courses and tons of other courses to divers of that level and that's what my opinion is based on.

In fact, most DM's that walked into my dive shop off the street looking to work weren't any better and couldn't be used in classes without considerable "remedial" training.

If you say your experience differs I'll just have to take your word for it but I have to wonder what your motive is. LOL