genenaples
Contributor
On Saturday morning March 18th, 2006 a man died while free diving spear fishing at the Thunderbolt wreck site near Marathon Fl. I was tied off to the stern mooring barrel at the time of the incident with my wife and two friends on my boat. We had the unfortunate duty of recovering the body from the ocean floor. Although this is not technically a scuba diving accident, I have some questions, some which may never be answered about this unfortunate accident. I hope to hear from other scuba divers who have had experience free diving to help with my questions. In addition, I have found the Boards, especially this thread, to be useful in the past both for my continuing education and help in understanding the possible causes of accidents. I want to first express my sincere condolences to the family and friends of this diver and will endeavor to not release any information that may hinder the accident investigation. Saturday morning we set off from Hawks Cay to the T-Bolt Wreck http://www.fknms.nos.noaa.gov/sanctuary_resources/shipwreck_trail/tbolt.html, leaving the dock at 7:00am to arrive and finish diving the wreck before the commercial boats arrived. The 189 foot long wreck lies in 120 feet of water, there are only two mooring barrels at this site, bow and stern. We arrived and tied off to the stern barrel and prepped for our two dives. My wife, who did not dive on Saturday, is advanced and I am certified as a PADI Master Diver, of my two friends who were with us one is an Instructor and the other a Dive master Candidate. Our dive plan was set up with Nitrox and we planned to not descend beyond 100 feet or so. We've dived this wreck before and we knew what we wanted to look at. Just before we splashed another private boat arrived and tied off to the bow barrel. We had a great first dive with 50 feet of vis and a mild current, water temp was 74f. The wreck was teeming with fish, at least two 300 pound Jewfish among many other species. During our first dive we began to hear the unmistakable sounds of spear guns and we saw free divers down near the wreck at about 80 feet, maybe deeper. We signaled each other and watched for a moment. After our return to the surface during our SI we watched the other boat that was tied off to the bow recover their divers and depart after a single dive. My wife who remained at the surface said that the four spear fisherman arrived about five minutes after we splashed in. We watched them circle us and retrieve many many very large fish, they were having a very good day it seemed. We planed on about an hour SI and as we talked we remarked about free diving to extreme depths and what kind of toll this might take on the body. We moved on to other subjects as we watched the free divers load fish after fish on their small boat. About 30 minutes into our surface interval the small boat pulled up to my stern and asked for help in locating a missing diver, they said they searched for a couple of minutes and could not locate him. They feared the worst and asked if we would dive the wreck and search. Thankfully we were diving Nitrox because the short SI concerned me. However we were the only ones on the wreck and at this early hour no one else was in site. The free divers asked me to contact the Coast Guard and I immediately did that on my VHF, and reported a missing free diver. Two divers from my boat splashed and located the body in the sand next to the stern. As I was descending to relive them in the search they were ascending with the free diver’s body. He had been down at least 20 minutes at this point, maybe more as we do not know how long his boat searched for him before asking us for help. We waited for the Coasties and turned it over to them. We were all trained in Rescue and it certainly helped us cope, but of course now we are searching for answers. It was difficult to say the least to perform this recovery, but what we do not understand is the methodology and training behind free diving. Here are a few questions for those of you who may have free dived before. Is there any training for free divers? Is there any certification levels? If not is it just strap on some weights with your buddies and jump in? It seemed reckless to us to see free divers at such an extreme depth, over and over and over. Maybe spending a few minutes on the surface breathing through a snorkel and then the dive again. These divers were participating in a tournament according to the captain of their vessel. Is free diving done without scuba so you can descend and ascend quickly? Can anyone speculate on a possible cause of this accident? We thought maybe he hit a big fish and it pulled him down to far? Maybe a blackout? It seemed very unsafe to us, but none of us has experience in the sport of free diving or spear fishing so we were hoping to get some input from our peers. Its been a great help writing this, sorry if its longwinded, it was not my intent, I just wanted to give as much detail as possible. Again condolences to the family of the diver, may he rest in peace.
Note: I use the term free diver and spear fisherman throughout, they are one in the same as it relates to this incident.
Note: I use the term free diver and spear fisherman throughout, they are one in the same as it relates to this incident.
