Diver missing in Davao

[neugierig]

yes tragic. dennis leaves behind pamela and three kids. we started diving together a few years back, he was a very close friend. i will miss him

there has been three dive related deaths in davao for the past four years. edwin in ligid, chito last march due to a heart attack, and dennis last kadayawan weekend

my condolences to dennis' family. i was in town when this happened. read it in the local news.

i hope richard recovers fully. he's the little guy at cara right?

i've never really felt comfortable diving with spearfishers and deep divers in davao. they're an accident waiting to happen. but i do understand the need to go extreme. diving in talikud gets boring after a while. there's not enuf trips to liguid, local wrecks, or other hard to reach sites.

for the spearfishers, a friend once told me 'if we take from the ocean, sooner or later ocean's gonna take one of ours'.

 

[World Wide Diver]

Richard is out of hospital and doing well, but its going to be many weeks before he can dive.

I heard some spearfishers have already decided to stop spearfishing and few people want to try now (or famililes won't allow).

Also, dive shops don't want these tragedies anymore. Next such incident from a dive shop will hammer more nails into Davao dive tourism

However, no formal investigation yet/PCSSD not following this up. DOT seem unaware of the seriousness of this matter.

 

[World Wide Diver]

Why don't PCSSD/DOT investigate dive deaths in the Philippine Islands???

Anybody know???

 

[jr.dm]

They will investigate it only after some rich dude or somebody with influence goes out and kills themselves. I bet there is less spearguns on the dive boats this weekend. Good hunting guys.

 

[stvbrit]

Glad to hear that Richard is recovering from the chamber treatments, hope he makes a full recovery. It seems to me that the Spearos down there should exercise more caution and plan better for contingencies, redundant gas supplies and more conservative depths if they choose AIR as there back mix. Since the 60's when SCUBA materialized, underwater hunting has been a very selective means of putting dinner on the table and a way to satisfy your passion at the same time, after all "It's not the kill but the thrill of the chase".

All said and done, you Spearos out there who like a good read, check out "The Helldivers Rodeo" by Homberto Fontova, these were the days when all caution was thrown to the wind, some insane exploits indeed.

 

[bing.]

<snip> I bet there is less spearguns on the dive boats this weekend. Good hunting guys.

yes, as most were in attendance in dennis' burial. next weekend there will be one less speargun, and one less person. thanks.

 

[World Wide Diver]

Bing

Condolences. Dennis was a good man and I know many will miss him.

To try and prevent future incidents, it would be worth considering forming a club where deep divers can exchange good info on safe/accepted deep diving practices and make 'informal' rules that are adhered to.

I do know one or two very knowledgeable people (such as Sonny M) who could help with this. Also, we/others would be happy to share any knowlege we have/through contacts with tech divers for dive profiles, etc. We used to get our profiles double checked in the UK by guys there whenever we did serious deco dives - which spearfishers tend to do in Davao without too much planning. Sure you have much info on this yourself.

Also, to stop spearfishing mixing with tourist divers, do you think it's worth spearfishers thinking clubbing together and putting a good payao in somewhere where tourist divers don't go. Pog is a good place for example.

By the way - did you know that the chamber in Davao had to be reassembled for Richard? Its not cost effective, so was due to be shipped out.

I think if the chamber had gone already, then Richard would have been in a bad situation regards treatment. I think Helicopter transfer takes 7 hours to Cebu chamber from Davao.

He is one fortunate guy.

 

[Gen San Chris]

Very sad but Dr Geoff Ramos told me the other day that the chamber was now closed as its being moved to Manila! Its lucky that the incident happened when it did or Richard would have had to go to Cebu for treatment!

 

[World Wide Diver]

Very sad but Dr Geoff Ramos told me the other day that the chamber was now closed as its being moved to Manila! Its lucky that the incident happened when it did or Richard would have had to go to Cebu for treatment!

The chamber had to be reassembled to treat Richard.

Richard is lucky it was still there.

Next diver with severe (type II) dcs is in very serious trouble - minimum 7 hours to Cebu/O2 therapy only.

This is another reason why deep diving spearfishers need to get organised very quickly and keep themselves apart from tourist divers.

At the moment, a very small percentage care/understand for proper precautions, planning and rules for deep diving from what I have seen many times.

They take uncalculated risks and seem very selfish to mix themselves with normal touristic divers who don't ever want to be exposed to this kind of diving and the fall-out from this.

The whole thing appears to have got completely out of hand now (but has been this way for 2 years). This is seriously affecting dive tourism in Davao and its environs for operators trying to make a living and those who are employed.

This has been partly due to some shops having their schedule dictated by some for best deep diving area for spearfishing rather than going to varied dive sites. This is an issue already raised by many divers here/overseas.


Still, there are more sports divers than deep diving spearfishers who simply like to have a good days diving without worrying is there will be an accident from their banca.

But, I think if something is not done soon, then third death can happen - then fourth, etc.... Question is just how many deaths/serious dcs episodes are required before PCSSD/DOT/LGU steps in to control diving?

 

[World Wide Diver]

People are forgetting tragedy already. Spearfishing (with scuba) arrangements been made for night dive already.

Spearfishing at night is banned in most countries and considered as 'unsporting'and 'unfair'even amongst the general spearfishing community.

Welcome to Davao.