Diver missing at Cove 2, West Seattle

[openmindOW]

between what he wrote and the support for his comments from even less-informed people it is very clear that scubaboard is not my kind of place.

Then don't log on.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Then don't log on.

He hasn't logged on since he posted that on the 6th. Finally someone who lives up to their word when they try to make a dramatic exit. Usually they sneak back in to see who might have missed them.

 

[lamont]

The person who found Tareq confirmed that his cylinder was empty.

That is incorrect, based on analysis of the gear after recovery he had 700 psi left. No disparagement intended but narc'd eyewitnesses (including me+casey+LJ) need to have their information taken with a grain of salt.

Cause of death was determined to be drowning, but with barotrauma.

We've theorized that the rapid ascent theory is correct and that he blew his lungs lost consciousness, but managed to dump gas, lost his reg eventually and drowned in the process. Given that barotrauma takes awhile before you lose consciousness (e.g. Cheryl made it to the surface, inflated her BC, and said a few words to her buddy before falling unconscious), its plausible he could have swum around a bit. Explains the baurotrauma, the drowning, and the gas still in his tank (also the lack of gear rejection and such as he went unconscious).

As far as the depth goes, we found him at the top of the logs, with drag marks pointing back towards the I-beams, not downslope (we went back twice to look on subsequent dives). There's no way that they dragged him up from 130 to there (also that's just effing deep to be searching and you lose all your landmarks down there other than the occasional large boulder -- I don't believe that at all -- and like Bob said it gets flat down there). Max depth I've ever been at the bottom of the deepest log is around 115-120 on a high tide and it looks like he was shallower than that (north line runs deeper than that log and its only around 120-125 on a high tide, i definitely know i've never busted the old 30/30 MOD that bad going down there). He may not have been found much deeper than the 105-110 we found him at.

Apparently it'd be nice if we knew his profile of his computer, but nobody has talked about that info.

When it comes to the dive plan and the buddy's report that the instructor started leading them upslope but it didn't get any shallower -- that is exactly how the boundary cable runs from the logs -- its pretty flat up until you get closer to where it gets steeper below the penguin. And if you're at all narc'd and/or spooked it seems like it takes forever for it to start getting shallower. Nothing there contradicts the dive plan or the instructors report.

Right now I'm thinking that the dive went basically how everyone said it did. Dive started at the yellow buoy on the line, dropped down, followed the line, went to the top of the logs, turned the dive and went back where he had a rapid ascent issue. There's no really solid information that disputes that. I tend to suspect that the accident happend a bit deeper -- 80 feet-ish downslope of the penguin -- which makes the location of the recovery a bit more consistent, and one of the buddies posted on NWDC that it started a bit deeper -- but who knows, and that's a fairly small detail and I don't think it changes anything...

 

[lamont]

[...] As I have spoken with people involved that you have not and you have spoken to people involved that I have not and we each have theories as to what happened I think it likely that by putting the pieces together we could come close to discovering more of the truth about what happened. [...] It is entirely possible that amongst all the conjecture that this is a small piece of the truth. And after all that is the point of having discussions like this, to discover what really happened.

And let me state one more thing really, really clearly here which is that I'm unaware of any accurate evidence which contradicts the accounts of the instructors and the buddies and the dive plan. I think we basically know the truth. And myself and LJ have picked over every last niggling detail, and we're personally satisfied that it happend roughly the way that its been reported that it happened. You want to argue about the responsibility of the instructor or not, you don't need to start inventing fantasies about taking steel 72s to 130 feet...

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

That is incorrect, based on analysis of the gear after recovery he had 700 psi left. No disparagement intended but narc'd eyewitnesses (including me+casey+LJ) need to have their information taken with a grain of salt.

Cause of death was determined to be drowning, but with barotrauma.

We've theorized that the rapid ascent theory is correct and that he blew his lungs lost consciousness, but managed to dump gas, lost his reg eventually and drowned in the process. Given that barotrauma takes awhile before you lose consciousness (e.g. Cheryl made it to the surface, inflated her BC, and said a few words to her buddy before falling unconscious), its plausible he could have swum around a bit. Explains the baurotrauma, the drowning, and the gas still in his tank (also the lack of gear rejection and such as he went unconscious).

As far as the depth goes, we found him at the top of the logs, with drag marks pointing back towards the I-beams, not downslope (we went back twice to look on subsequent dives). There's no way that they dragged him up from 130 to there (also that's just effing deep to be searching and you lose all your landmarks down there other than the occasional large boulder -- I don't believe that at all -- and like Bob said it gets flat down there). Max depth I've ever been at the bottom of the deepest log is around 115-120 on a high tide and it looks like he was shallower than that (north line runs deeper than that log and its only around 120-125 on a high tide, i definitely know i've never busted the old 30/30 MOD that bad going down there). He may not have been found much deeper than the 105-110 we found him at.

Apparently it'd be nice if we knew his profile of his computer, but nobody has talked about that info.

When it comes to the dive plan and the buddy's report that the instructor started leading them upslope but it didn't get any shallower -- that is exactly how the boundary cable runs from the logs -- its pretty flat up until you get closer to where it gets steeper below the penguin. And if you're at all narc'd and/or spooked it seems like it takes forever for it to start getting shallower. Nothing there contradicts the dive plan or the instructors report.

Right now I'm thinking that the dive went basically how everyone said it did. Dive started at the yellow buoy on the line, dropped down, followed the line, went to the top of the logs, turned the dive and went back where he had a rapid ascent issue. There's no really solid information that disputes that. I tend to suspect that the accident happend a bit deeper -- 80 feet-ish downslope of the penguin -- which makes the location of the recovery a bit more consistent, and one of the buddies posted on NWDC that it started a bit deeper -- but who knows, and that's a fairly small detail and I don't think it changes anything...

Thank you ... it's good to have reliable information to work with. Given that information, one does have to wonder what would cause a diver coming upslope from a deep dive to bolt to the surface. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if it wasn't something simple like CO2 buildup. A diver who didn't understand the symptoms might interpret them as a regulator malfunction and give in to the bolt instinct.

Can you share more details about the accounts from the instructor and buddy? It'd help put some pieces in place ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[mcguiver]

Thanks for the info Lamont, BTW not 130 feet, the diver was (according to the diver who found him) found at 115'. Are you saying it was not a steel 72 cylinder he was using?

 

[lamont]

Thank you ... it's good to have reliable information to work with. Given that information, one does have to wonder what would cause a diver coming upslope from a deep dive to bolt to the surface. The more I think about it, the more I wonder if it wasn't something simple like CO2 buildup. A diver who didn't understand the symptoms might interpret them as a regulator malfunction and give in to the bolt instinct.

Can you share more details about the accounts from the instructor and buddy? It'd help put some pieces in place ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

He had 50 mostly warm water dives, so this was likely one of his first drysuit dives, too.

 

[fjpatrum]

The last couple pages of this thread, and especially Lamont's last two posts got me thinking. Why not send down a gopro with recovery divers. Or even a couple of them. One dedicated to watching a dive computer and one watching the dive progress (IE the visuals of landmarks etc.) Does anyone do this or is it not done out of respect for the victim if the videos got leaked? It seems to me it would be a great way for recovery divers to sort out details like "how far a body was moved" or actual depth and that sort of thing.

 

[lamont]

Thanks for the info Lamont, BTW not 130 feet, the diver was (according to the diver who found him) found at 115'. Are you saying it was not a steel 72 cylinder he was using?

I thought it was a bigger tank, I'll try to find specific details, but I don't think this detail enlightens much other than shedding light on who was or wasn't narc'd when they found him... Maybe it adds a stressor to the dive, but I can find enough of those as it is...

 

[lamont]

The last couple pages of this thread, and especially Lamont's last two posts got me thinking. Why not send down a gopro with recovery divers. Or even a couple of them. One dedicated to watching a dive computer and one watching the dive progress (IE the visuals of landmarks etc.) Does anyone do this or is it not done out of respect for the victim if the videos got leaked? It seems to me it would be a great way for recovery divers to sort out details like "how far a body was moved" or actual depth and that sort of thing.

They might, I don't know, I wasn't looking that closely at the police divers on the surface to be able to notice a camera that small...

Obviously we had camera equipment (including a contour HD available), but weren't going to do that...