Diver Indicted in 2003 GBR mishap

[Charlie59]

We are all innocent until proven guilty

Few are innocent. We are presumed innocent by the Judicial System until proven guilty.

 

[Tigerman]

Few are innocent. We are presumed innocent by the Judicial System until proven guilty.

Id actually go so far Id say that NONE is innocent, its just a matter of what law we broke and wether or not we did so knowingly..

 

[MikeFerrara]

I am sorry, ear trouble as a reason for not going down a few feet to save his wife? I have at times been forced to decend faster than my ears wanted too. An ear ache is a small price to pay for saving the life of anyone, especially that of your wife.

Descending when you can't equalize can cause more than an ear ache. A busted ear drum and the likely virtigo can cause a complete loss of control. You won't be rescueing anybody that way.

 

[idivetrain]

Descending when you can't equalize can cause more than an ear ache. A busted ear drum and the likely virtigo can cause a complete loss of control. You won't be rescueing anybody that way.

The fact that this man was still doing this dive for pleasure tells me that his ears werent bad enough to prevent him from diving, just bad enough to prevent him from decending to save his wife.

 

[MikeFerrara]

The fact that this man was still doing this dive for pleasure tells me that his ears werent bad enough to prevent him from diving, just bad enough to prevent him from decending to save his wife.

I don't know that we have enough information to jump to any conclusions like that. The description of the bare-hug and losing her sounds very much like two unskilled divers trying to manage a problem and ascend...something that I've seen quite a few times. As often as not, they are descending rather than ascending even though they are head up and kicking and this unintentional up and down stuff may even be what caused the equalization problems in the first place.

Like I said before, it sounds to me like just more crappy diving with a crappy outcome...which is also something that we've seen quite a bit of.

Buddy seperations, especially on dives that result in injury or death, are also about as common as flys on chit. In fact, it's probably safe to say that it's the norm. There is almost NEVER an eye witness to a diving fatality. Lousy diving and dive accident just go together really well.

Knowing how most divers dive, how diving is often taught and the way the training standards of the largest training agency are written (a total JOKE!), I find it far easier to believe that we're looking at multiple victems who just didn't know any better than any intentional wrong doing on the part of a vacation diver...rescue certified or not.

OW, AOW and rescue will generally get a "diver" rototilling with a lot of cards in their pocket. LOL

 

[Tom725]

I believe he sued the travel insurance company for not paying his original claim which was for a few thousand not 100's of thousands.

I have not seen written anywhere how many dives this man had. A rescue card does not mean you react to a stressful situation correctly nor does in make you "highly trained" as I have seen written.

 

[ketchumid]

It will be interesting to see what expert witnesses from the dive community are brought forward by both the prosecutors and defense- we could be following this story for quite a while

 

[Finno]

The case has been adjourned until January.

The latest information included police re-enacting the bear hug under water on video, and in the court room, with gear on. Police also showed how easy it was for the trained rescue diver to pull out the integrated weights on either of their BCD's, in case surfacing was an issue. An American doctor on the wreck at the same time stated:

"Her arms were stretched out to the sides, and the arms of diver two were circling her torso," he said.
"I could not see what the arms of diver two were doing behind her back.
"They were in this embrace for about 30 seconds and then they separated.
"Her limp body movements did not change, she did not start swimming, and I did not see any bubble trails."​

Analysis of his dive computer showed he took a 2 minutes and 30 seconds to ascend from 15m. The 'civilian' rate of ascent - 9m a minute - would mean he'd take 1 minute 18 seconds. Under emergency conditions you'd take less than that.

The Alabama police have him officially listed as a suspect, and Australian police and FBI are reported to have raided his house already...

I agree with Mike Ferrara in that I understand how one single mistake can ultimately lead to a crappy outcome / death, and a trained rescue diver may, in the heat of the moment, forget procedures, however I have to disagree this applies to this situation. This guy failed to perform several standard rescue procedures, made several major no-nos, and on top of this, his actions went against what an emotionally attached love one would do in a tragedy like this. In every course, OW, AOW, Rescue, you're taught about how important your buddy is, whether it's your wife or some guy whose name you don't even know.

 

[MikeFerrara]

Analysis of his dive computer showed he took a 2 minutes and 30 seconds to ascend from 15m. The 'civilian' rate of ascent - 9m a minute - would mean he'd take 1 minute 18 seconds. Under emergency conditions you'd take less than that.

Those assumptions assume controle. Unskilled diver may ascend too fast...or very slow because they go up...then down...then up...and in a midwater ascent, they don't know which direction they're going. They may also assume that he was headed straight for the surface. I don't know, was he heading back toward the boat underwater or looking for the boat? I haven't seen enough information to even guess at it.

As for the talk about dropping weights...it seems police divers are always wanting to drop eachothers weights underwater. Some FD team divers around here managed to kill a few that way. How many of these "experts have actually managed a panicked diver under water? I have and from what little we read, I think they're full of it.

The Alabama police have him officially listed as a suspect, and Australian police and FBI are reported to have raided his house already...

I agree with Mike Ferrara in that I understand how one single mistake can ultimately lead to a crappy outcome / death, and a trained rescue diver may, in the heat of the moment, forget procedures, however I have to disagree this applies to this situation.

That's not really my point at all. I'd bet real money that if I administered the simple skill evaluation that I used for evaluating con-ed students to this guy that he would fail. As a result I would require remediation before I would take him on any kind of OW dive. What I'm getting at is that, rescue diver or not, sight unseen and only based on past experience with lots of divers, that I would guess his skills to be what I would consider "unsafe at any depth". I really doubt that he can do much of a job of controling himself in the water let alone anyone else.

I cold be wrong but I think all we're seeing here is a newly certified diver (certified but not trained) diving a site she probably shouldn't have been diving (because she wasn't good enough to leave the pool yet) diving with a diver who probably wasn't much more skilled than she was. Just another one of the total clusters that we read about almost every day.

 

[Tigerman]

Sure Mike, off course you assume that both divers was totally clueless, afterall youve clearly stated further up in this thread that if you train with PADI youre dead.. I didnt intend to bother answering, but there is nothing as far as ive seen referred to in this thread that suggest it was two divers who shouldnt be in the water in the first place thats involved in this incident. What most of the others base their speculations on is, atleast, whats been referred to other places...