Diver left behind - Florida

[Basking Ridge Diver]

What if the direction of shore is not clear, like you were on a a dusk dive and now it is dark and there are high waves and the "divers eyes and ears" are no longer reliable? And what about the activity of sharks and other predators as your robust, intrepid "decent diver" struggles (hopefully) in the general direction of shore? And it is not always easy to go ashore when you finally find it, if there are cliffs and high waves.

The dive operation should NOT have left the diver behind no matter how good a diver!

I wear a compass on my wrist for that very reason when diving in the Atlantic - head West. Eventually you will hit the shore line.

 

[Carl_F]

I just can't imagine anything simpler than what I do. I look every diver in the face and ask if they are OK. If I get Barry when I'm looking for Harry, they correct me. Apps and tags and calling a roll just shift responsibility from the Captain to someone else. If the Captain is willing to abdicate his responsibility, great, hope it all goes well. But at the end of the day, when a diver is missing, only one person will be held accountable.

One can delegate authority but not responsibility.

Carl

 

[KathyV]

I wear a compass on my wrist for that very reason when diving in the Atlantic - head West. Eventually you will hit the shore line.

Good idea! Hopefully it doesn't happen when you are diving in the keys or off a small island or out on a liveaboard and you miss land and are lost at sea. Or the current is going against you and you can't get to shore even if you know where it is. I still think that the dive operation should not have left the diver behind. But mistakes happen and thankfully this was a "near miss" so hopefully they will have learned something and will take precautions in the future.

 

[RJP]

I wear a compass on my wrist for that very reason when diving in the Atlantic - head West. Eventually you will hit the shore line.

Unless you're near a wreck that screws with your compass. In which case "eventually" could be a l-o-n-g time. And might not be the shoreline you expected.

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

And might not be the shoreline you expected.

Doesn't Everyone speak American?

 

[RJP]

Doesn't Everyone speak American?

With various and sundry accents...

 

[scagrotto]

A recap..

A short time after picking up the other divers we discovered he was not on board.

There's the important part. Does "a short time" mean the time it took to do a roll call once they thought the last diver was on board, time for a roll call plus a quick search of the boat to confirm that he wasn't aboard, or did it take longer? "A short time" is vague and subjective. If they thought everybody was aboard when he wasn't they messed up. If the boat had started back they left a diver behind even if "started back" only means they shifted out of neutral.