English tourist dies on Intro dive - Queenland Australia

[DandyDon]

A few different versions of the news article: English tourist dies while diving off Hayman Island in north Queensland's Whitsundays - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Tourist dies during dive lesson off Hayman Island | Mackay Daily Mercury

https://au.news.yahoo.com/qld/a/26329390/second-tourist-dies-in-qld-reef-waters/

No Cookies | The Courier-Mail

A TOURIST has drowned while diving off an island in the Whitsundays. A 29-year-old English woman drowned while completing an introductory dive at Blue Pearl Bay, which off Hayman Island.
It is believed she drowned while participating in a session run by a diving company.
Which company was hosting the dive remains unknown.
Investigations are continuing and a report for the coroner will be prepared.
This is the second death of a tourist in Queensland waters this week, with a Chinese tourist downing near Cairns on Monday.

 

[Jan Kruger]

Tragic loss again ! Several students this week that had died. This can not be right. Is anybody on the training side of the market looking at investigating why these students didn't make it ? Especially young students ? Training agencies ? You know 1 or at the most 2 students lost in a few months we might still be able to argue away with conditions , medical conditions , panicking at the wrong time , pressure from training agencies to get the numbers of qualifying divers increased etc, etc. What about training standards, duration of intro diving training, skills improvement of students , size of training class groups etc ,etc ?
3 Tragic deaths of students in the space of a week or two ? No way !

 

[DandyDon]

Tragic loss again ! Several students this week that had died. This can not be right. Is anybody on the training side of the market looking at investigating why these students didn't make it ? Especially young students ? Training agencies ? You know 1 or at the most 2 students lost in a few months we might still be able to argue away with conditions , medical conditions , panicking at the wrong time , pressure from training agencies to get the numbers of qualifying divers increased etc, etc. What about training standards, duration of intro diving training, skills improvement of students , size of training class groups etc ,etc ?
3 Tragic deaths of students in the space of a week or two ? No way !

Well, 3 in a week is sad, but they're several thousands miles apart, so I'd call it a random chronological cluster if anything. The Florida diver did panic I think, but we have little info on the Dubai student or this one in Queensland. This one was reported as a Discover Scuba dive, and while we don't know how closely she was supervised - it does amaze me how agencies will allow 4 per Instructor I think. My first dives were Discover dives in the Caribbean, and while we did break some rules (like my 100 foot dive on the third!) - and I was clueless as what I needed to know but didn't, at least I had my own personal DM or Instructor on each dive. He handled the air in my BC.

On the other hand, while we post the stories that show up on Google or are reported from personal observation - we have no idea how many happen that we don't hear about. Many dive destinations try to keep problems out of the news

 

[Jan Kruger]

This is true...I always try to get mates of mine to join the scuba diving sport/family. One of my partners at the office did just that & did his course with a large diving shop. The day of his first dive , they were 10 students between the DM & support DM!
The hose of his regulator given to him was actually supposed to be used by a female and it was thus very short- but since it was to be his first dive he did not know this , and while being under water ,he turned his head ....the rig was pulled out of his mouth at depth of 15 meters....he nearly drowned ! The DM & support DM did not even notice this!

He was saved by a passing group of divers.....He now does not really feel like diving...I blame the training staff for lots of close shaves like this as they really DON'T MAKE the effort properly to ensure a student's safety!
We were lucky that we did our training in a group that looked out for each other at the time....

 

[Centrals]

I believe in small group training, instructor to student ratio should never exceed 1:2.

 

[finnks]

I believe in small group training, instructor to student ratio should never exceed 1:2.

Shouldn't this depend on conditions? I've been on dives where I felt like one student was too many. I was incredibly lucky in having both students surface after I lost them at about 5'-10' depth within roughly 10-15 seconds after starting the dive. Training dives should not be made in visibility is so bad you cannot read your depth of wrist computer! Three changes in how I DM - (1) no longer trust anyone else's judgement and insist on descending to confirm conditions myself (2) maintain strong physical contact in anything short of great visibility (3) no longer work with that instructor.

Any other suggestions?

 

[Peter69_56]

My experience with Australian diving is that in general the amount of care taken is poor. In particular in Queensland. Given that a number of incidents have made the world wide stage, one would think that dive agencies and dive boats would be anal about following all the rules, yet one finds that often no sheets are used to check off divers on returning from dives. Such a simple thing yet often not followed. How hard is it to have a sheet and some simple data entered for each dive, gas pressure in and out, time in and out, sign sheet on exit.

The bigger providers up in the Cairns area seem to be a lot better at ensuring rules are followed, given the incidents that have happened there, but smaller operators often continue to fly by the seat of their pants. This is not just in Qld either, in my local state I have seen this happen as well. I have seen OW divers taken to 50m and inside wrecks, inexperienced divers taken to clearly bad conditions and dropped in the water, all to ensure the almighty buck keeps flowing regardless of conditions. These actions just beg for an incident to happen.

Given that diving is a high risk sport, it really begs belief that we see people continuing to take high level risks, in particular with inexperienced divers. Perhaps its the Auzzie complacency "She will be right mate".

Human nature being what it is, complacency and laziness creep in continually. And at the risk of repeating, repeating,repeating myself, "The inexperienced divers don't know what they don't know until they get there, and often its then far too late".

I know in all parts of the world, poor operators exist, however in a first world country one would expect that we understand the risks and given the living standards should "do whats right" to minimise those risks. In a third world country, whilst no more acceptable regarding loss of life, is somewhat understandable, given living standards and the struggle to exist. However my experience has been that the third world countries are in the main quite good at following and implementing good diving practices.

 

[Heg]

The hose of his regulator given to him was actually supposed to be used by a female and it was thus very short- but since it was to be his first dive he did not know this , and while being under water ,he turned his head ....the rig was pulled out of his mouth at depth of 15 meters....he nearly drowned ! .

Since when has there been a difference in hose length for female versus male?

 

[PygmySeahorse]

My experience with Australian diving is that in general the amount of care taken is poor. ... However my experience has been that the third world countries are in the main quite good at following and implementing good diving practices.

I was very struck by the point about Australian diving. Most of my diving has been in the developing world - where I've seen some truly abysmal safety standards, notably in Coron in the Calamians. However, given Australia's obsession with health and safety and regulation, I was truly shocked when I dived in Australia by how unsafe things were relative to the culture in general: I dived Byron Bay. One of the guys in the group had six dives total, the last one three years prior to the dive: he wasn't recommended a refresher, and he didn't cope terribly well. I was overweighted - I said I dived 5kg in a 5mm full suit with camera, so should dive 4kg in a 3mm full suit with camera, and was given 7.5kg, and knocked back when I tried to argue. Further, I asked what conditions were likely to be, because it looked murky and currenty, and was told "no current" and 8m visibility. The viz wasn't my idea of 8 metres, and there was a tonne of surge and some current - which, a friend who learned to dive in Byron told me that evening, is always the case at that site. It had all the bravado and slackness of developing world diving without the extra numbers that, to put it crudely, developing world diving can provide.

 

[DavidFL]

My very first dive in Australia was at Heron Island in 1975....the operators there were very professional and very safety oriented; far more so than most others in that timeframe.

I have been back to Australia to dive on the order of 9 or 10 times; I have taken friends on "Discover SCUBA" experiences on day boats out of Cairns; have made multiple daytrips from multiple operators from both Cairns and Port Douglas over the past ten years. All have been competent and professional.