Diver missing - Pelham, Alabama

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I know very few rebreather divers who carry individual bailout. Almost all plan for team bailout, because 40's are easier to carry than 80's.

As a cave diver I find this statement to be a little odd. I would guess that 98% or more of the rebreather divers I see carry more than enough to get them out of the cave. This is the major reason rebreathers don't appeal to me - you put on this nice, compact, self-contained system, then you have to strap on a couple of 104s to get you out of the cave in an emergency that will almost never occur. (But you gotta do regardless.)
 
Pelham Fire Department Deputy Chief Blair Sides said in front of the Dive Alabama facility on Industrial Park Drive. "There's still a lot of area in this quarry that has got to be searched." "Our dive team in Pelham can't go below 60 feet," he added.

I am only curious - is 60 feet a self imposed limit by this dive team or do others know why 60 feet for Public Safety Divers might be a maximum? I may not be understanding the issue.
I am not criticizing I am asking because it caught me as odd and if it is a self imposed limit - that is fine by me but I am curious. Thanks.
 
As a cave diver I find this statement to be a little odd. I would guess that 98% or more of the rebreather divers I see carry more than enough to get them out of the cave. This is the major reason rebreathers don't appeal to me - you put on this nice, compact, self-contained system, then you have to strap on a couple of 104s to get you out of the cave in an emergency that will almost never occur. (But you gotta do regardless.)

But the CCR guys can go here, there, and explore everywhere on a single dive as long as they stay X,XXX from the hole. Ginnie is awesome for CCR, you can explore the majority of the front cave with two aluminum cylinders of your choice as bailout. With OC, all dives lead off the property to the fill station. I'd just assume load up a scrubber in the parking lot and make another dive. I generally like to get fills when the diving is done for the day. To each his own, I guess.
 
More Mapping technology and a visor digital display to assist with the murk @ depth. Would love to hear some news other then still looking for some closure for the family.Search for missing Tennessee diver in Pelham getting new technology to aid divers | AL.com

PELHAM, Alabama -- Emergency personnel looking at a former quarry in Pelham for a missing Tennessee scuba diver are getting new technology today to aid in their search.
Divers are undergoing training this morning on using a handheld device that projects a digital image onto a flip-down visor for enhancing their ability to see through murky silt in the depths of the Dive Alabama facility.
In addition to the vision-enhancing equipment from Coffee County, Tenn., a 24-foot pontoon boat equipped with sonar technology that can map the bottom of the quarry is arriving around noon from Georgia to assist divers.
An abundance of resources from throughout Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida have arrived to help in the search for Daren Gray, 49, of Spring Hill, Tenn. "It's unbelievable," Ray said about the support from other emergency agencies.
The ongoing effort has entered its sixth day as crews search for Gray, who failed to check in after a planned two-hour dive on Saturday afternoon, leading Dive Alabama staff to notify first-responders at about 5:30 p.m.
"We're still continuing to search some promising areas," Pelham Fire Chief Danny Ray said at a press conference this morning at the site.
Already one dive team had completed a search this morning and a second team was in the water, Ray said. Deep-water divers are continuing to search in an area that showed "significant indicators" from sonar earlier.
"We're concentrating in that area we talked about yesterday. We're systematically searching that area," Ray said.
The area is described as about 100 yards wide by about 300 yards long at a depth of between 105 to 130 feet. It falls in line with the "diver's exit route" in his filed plan, Ray said.
The silt in the deeper areas limits visibility to about 4 to 6 feet. "You can actually sink down into it," Ray said about the silt at the quarry's bottom.
Divers are using a technique to search in circular patterns 100 feet out from a buoy placed in the specified area. Today's search is utilizing five deep-water divers split into two teams with a sixth member on standby, Ray said.
"We're still using sonar when we don't have divers in the water," he said. "The interesting areas we identified, what we're attempting to do is reproduce those (images) with the sonar."
Crews searched until 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday in order to finish a dive that started later in the day. The plan is to continue searching again until around sundown today.
Ray said he is not predicting when the search will end if Gray is not found. "We haven't hit that point. I will not even estimate an end. We are going to continue as long as necessary," he said.

---------- Post added October 9th, 2014 at 04:20 PM ----------



---------- Post added October 9th, 2014 at 04:21 PM ----------

As a pro/con I had thought in the past about doing a solo cert at sometime in the future as have had a time or two when I had to redo plans or outright cancel a dive due to not having a partner or someone waking up with sinus issues. While the training is probably very informative(and I may still take it at some point in the future, just because I have it does not mean I have to stop diving with partners) I think I am personally leaning more toward staying with a buddy / group if for no other reason then to have someone know where I am in he event of a problem/emergency/tragedy.
 
Solo Diver training is well worth the class. You will learn a lot whether you ever dive solo or not. I had been diving solo for years, but commercial quarries and dive boat captains I did not know personally would not allow it, even for tech divers and cave divers (they've loosened up a bit these past few years). So I took a solo diver course thinking it would at least give me a c-card and dive boat captains would stop making me buddy up with strangers of questionable ability. I learned way more than I expected and it changed the way I dive, every dive, buddy or no. The planning and techniques are excellent for all divers all the time. We learned to hover blind-folded with no movement, we shot bags from depth and switched to pony bottles (bail-out bottles), we planned the dive in more detail than you can imagine, right down to the minute of bottom time we planned to be at each waypoint, each depth, and we learned what plan your dive, dive your plan really means!

You may think you will never solo dive, but no doubt you already have! Ever have a buddy of lesser ability and/or experience than you? Ever "led" a dive and have your buddy wander off? Ever seen your buddy more than one or two fin kicks away from you? Ever do a lost buddy search, if even for a few seconds? You were solo. Why not get the training? Most of the training I've done has been "post-hoc." I mean I was already doing the dives when it would dawn on me that maybe now is the time for that next class!

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He was found today. Great job to all of the recovery divers who never gave up hope of finding him. RIP

Searchers find body of missing Tennessee diver at quarry in Pelham | AL.com

"The Pelham Fire Department announced tonight the discovery of the missing Tennessee diver at the Dive Alabama facility. Pelham Fire Chief Danny Ray in an email sent by the City of Pelham reported the body of the missing diver "has been located and recovered." A press conference about the discovery will happen at 7 tonight.

First-responders and others have been searching the 27-acre former quarry for Daren Gray, 49, of Spring Hill, Tenn., since last Saturday.

The ongoing effort entered its sixth day today as crews searched for Gray, who failed to check in after a planned two-hour dive on Saturday afternoon, leading Dive Alabama staff to notify first-responders at about 5:30 p.m."


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I just watched a local TV news story and read an extract from the press conference. Getting contradicting info. The local news said he was found in 70 ft of water and not entangled. The press conference says a tech diver found his lift bag at 105 ft on Tuesday and they narrowed the search from there. They didn't report a specific location, cause of death, or determine if the area where he was found was on his dive plan. Maybe they'll release more info tomorrow.

UPDATED: Missing diver?s body found in Pelham | The Pelham Reporter

Dive Alabama
 
I just watched a local TV news story and read an extract from the press conference. Getting contradicting info. The local news said he was found in 70 ft of water and not entangled. The press conference says a tech diver found his lift bag at 105 ft on Tuesday and they narrowed the search from there. They didn't report a specific location, cause of death, or determine if the area where he was found was on his dive plan. Maybe they'll release more info tomorrow.

UPDATED: Missing diver?s body found in Pelham | The Pelham Reporter

Dive Alabama

The article I read is pretty clear that a lift bag with his name on it was found at 105ft on Tuesday. They started concentrating more on that general vicinity above and below and found him at 72ft today. Not sure what is contradicting or hard to understand about that.
 
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