Diving Accident Report

[Salmonboy97]

A 21-year-old New Brunswick man was killed in a diving accident over
the weekend in the Northumberland Strait, RCMP said Monday.

Jonathan Parker, of Campbellton, died Saturday while diving in the
Pointe-Sapin area. He was one of two divers trying to refloat a
fishing boat that sank earlier this year.

The cause of the accident remains under investigation, and an autopsy
will be conducted.

At 07:34 PM 12/8/2008, outardes201 wrote:
>Campbellton man dies in diving accident on weekend

 

[ascoobydonot]

maybe I am wrong but it sounds and feels of scuba divers doing a commercial divers job.......always tears before bed time

 

[ahava]

maybe I am wrong but it sounds and feels of scuba divers doing a commercial divers job.......always tears before bed time

Not enough info to come to that assumption at this time!!

 

[diver 85]

Not enough info to come to that assumption at this time!!

What's the water depth, temp etc of the site??...Anyone have any idea.......

 

[RAD Diver]

If you go to the link, there is a comment that the diver was a commercial diver experienced in salvage work.
Now I don't know the poster, but it seems as though she knew the diver.

 

[Salmonboy97]

Some new information:

For those who are wondering what happened here, a group of 3 divers
were raising a 50-some feet fiberglass fishing boat that sank last
August from the Strait of Northumberland (2-3 km off the wharf of
Pointe-Sapin, New Brunswick).

Two divers (the 21 year old deceased and his scuba instuctor/mentor
who were both certified commercial divers) were in the water and one
on one of 2 (I believe) boats on the surface. The boat was lifted
with liftbags close to the surface, but the sea had started getting
rough and the balloons apparently started deflating once the waves
were hitting them. This caused the boat to start sinking again, and
faster as the volume of the remaining air in the liftbags got smaller
by the increasing pressure.

I am not sure at which moment of all of this the deceased had
signaled to the other diver that he was running low on air and was
going to surface, and so they separated. When the boat hit the
bottom at approximately 40fsw, it got dragged to one side and tilted
almost trapping the surviving diver by the fins under the boat. Once
the boat stopped moving he tried to pull on one of his liftbags, in
very low visibility I might add, which was almost underneath the boat
by now, and he couldn't pull it free, so he went over it to go look
around the boat when he saw his buddy already dead underneath the
boat. What happened that he did not surface and ended under the boat
is up for speculation, but knowing the guy, he probably tried to add
air in the bags when he saw the boat going to the bottom, and somehow
got stuck when it hit the bottom, but no one will ever know for sure.

If I get more precice details later on I will add them here.

 

[ascoobydonot]

Lift bags..... low on air!!!! correctly trained Commercial divers do not use lift bags nor do they use scuba when undertaking such a job. It is an unfortunate accident but I have heard of this happening so many times, RIP

 

[Salmonboy97]

More info:

Only the bow was lifted by the bags. The stern was always touching
the seabed. This was done to pass a sling under the boat at the
stern. The boat was unstable in this position, and with the lift bag
(s) at the bow having lost some air at the surface it came donw and
rolled to one side.

 

[I Dive]

I don't know much about Commercial Diving aside from some reading I've done on it, but I thought they always used surface supplied air when working? I say "when working" because I'm sure most Comm divers also do fun dives on SCUBA in their off time, but I thought any time they were engaged in actual Commerical Diving they used surface supplied.

 

[widget]

I don't know much about Commercial Diving aside from some reading I've done on it, but I thought they always used surface supplied air when working? I say "when working" because I'm sure most Comm divers also do fun dives on SCUBA in their off time, but I thought any time they were engaged in actual Commerical Diving they used surface supplied.

Hmm, as a comm diver of 25 years experience, I have seldom seen this kind of work undertaken on Scuba, and using lift bags..............!!

Yes, its very sad, it seems they were doing work outside of either their training or their equipment (or both) capabilities, this kind of accident is seen all to often and mostly easily avoidable.