Fatality at Jersey Island

[DandyDon]

Death of diver at St Catherine « Jersey Evening Post

A 41-year-old woman died on Saturday afternoon possibly as a result of a diving accident at St Catherine.

Police inspector David Turnbull confirmed that officers were called to St Catherine's breakwater slip at 5.20 pm.
He said that other divers were present at the time but it is not known if they were with the woman who died.
The inspector said: 'I cannot comment further at this time other than to say there is now a police investigation into the circumstances of the death.'
It is understood that the woman who died was a good and experienced diver.

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

Posts related to the fatal incident have been merged from the thread Rebreather blamed for Jillian Smith's death. Many posts were deleted for being off topic and breaching the special rules of A & I. I have moved the posts that related primarily to Rebreather design issues to the rebreather forum thread http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/re...al-safety-improvements-rebreather-design.html Please ensure the general discussion on Rebreather safey issues remains in the correct forum and separate from the A & I discussion. I am opening this thread, I strongly encourage posters to read the stickys at the top of the main page of this forum. Bowlofpetunias

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[gianaameri]

Equipment blamed for diver's death | Channel - ITV News

Lesson learned: rebreathers should be designed to minimise the risk of assembly error (or "blow bubbles for no troubles").

Anyone knows which make/model this was?

View attachment 197517

 

[Dr. Lecter]

Was this an assembly issue or a channeling issue? It's not clear either way, but I wouldn't call improper scrubber packing an "assembly" issue.

The following is hilarious, though: "I am surprised that in this day and age dive equipment can be made in such a way that it allows any incorrect assembly." Minimizing the chances of human error is great, but allowing it to become the sole, overriding consideration in design is simply not realistic or even desirable. There are other considerations at play--like is my CCR simple, uncomplicated, and easy to use for the purposes for which I'm intending it--that are equally or more important to overall safety.

 

[dreamdive]

---------- Post added November 13th, 2014 at 06:18 PM ----------

Tragic diving death | Bailiwick Express

A shallow water rebreather fatality - another pointless and unnecessary loss of life.

There was no reason to use a rebreather for a dive like this.

Ahhhhhhh, and the mantra continues........

What this post's title should be then is "Diver died because of diver's mistake". The unit did not kill her, the unit did not assemble itself, the scrubber did not pack itself......she did - very very unfortunately.

---------- Post added November 13th, 2014 at 06:32 PM ----------

Wierd! the report came from ITV, a British network. Why would a British network be interested on a New Jersey diver's death? Is this an Alex Deas ploy?

ITV is a commercial TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 as Independent Television under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

Wierd! the report came from ITV, a British network. Why would a British network be interested on a New Jersey diver's death? Is this an Alex Deas ploy?

Jersey (specifically the Jersey Islands) is not New Jersey. [insert joke about Americans' lack of basic geographic knowledge here]

 

[TheWartHog]

Just to clarify:

The Channel Islands (C.I.) is a group of islands situated within the English Channel (the sea between England and France) but located closer to France than England.

Jersey is just one of the Channel Islands and is approximately 100 miles south of England but only about 14 miles from France and is the largest island of the Channel Islands.
It is not known as Jersey Island, the Jersey Islands, Jersey Isle or even New Jersey, but just Jersey or Jersey, Channel Islands.

Other islands in the Channel Islands are Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, Herm, Jethou and Brecqhou.

My commiserations to the family and friends of Jillian Smith.

 

[boulderjohn]

I am not a rebreather diver. I am solidly on the fence about using them. I have several friends who swear by them and use them all the time. I am not sure, and I hope to find a good, reasoned debate will help me come to a decision. A couple of years ago someone started a thread about people's opinions about the future of scuba technology, and my primary prediction was that rebeeather technology will eventually reach the point that they dominate diving. I am wondering how close we are to the technological necessities for that.

Last year I spoke for many hours with a very famous diver who is frequently called upon to offer expert opinions in scuba-related court cases. Our discussion had nothing to do with rebreathers, but in relation to a different point he said that in every instance in which he had to testify about a rebreather-related fatality, the cause was diver error. He concluded that rebreather technology was thus safe--it was the divers who were screwing up.

This case raises the point I raised in response. Why is the design such that it is apparently so easy for highly trained and experienced users to screw it up? I am a pretty careful diver, but I often jokingly refer to myself as the poster child of adult ADD. I figure if anyone is going to screw up a rebreather setup, it is going to be me. One of my friends who was new to rebreathers spoke of his pre-dive checklist once when we were diving together. IIRC, it had 43 steps. I thought, "Wow! Lots of opportunities for me to make a fatal error."

I hope, therefore, that those of you who are more knowledgeable about this than I, which is probably most of you reading this, will address this issue. How complicated is it really? Can it be made simpler? Will making it simpler make it less prone to operator error?

 

[PfcAJ]

Pretty much every dive fatality is "diver error" except medical issues.

The trick is to reduce the number of places that the diver can make an error.

 

[boulderjohn]

Pretty much every dive fatality is "diver error" except medical issues.

The trick is to reduce the number of places that the diver can make an error.

That's pretty much what I am looking for.

 

[decompression]

I agree John, I don't have hundreds of hours on them but I've dove many systems and the critique I get is the complexity. Most people embrace this at the outset but can suffer from the dreaded complacency. Having lost a close friend on CCR a couple of years ago made me step back and reevaluate things. I still regard them as another tool in the box to accomplish your goal. Due to their nature and current designs I don't feel they are ready for the mass acceptance that the industry hopes for. They are a specific tool for a specific job, a tool that needs respect.


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