Fatality Off Miami Beach - Florida

[Anna G]

I don't think I have ever had a card checked on the boat. That has always been taken care of when I signed up for and paid for the dive itself. If someone asked me for my card while I was on the boat, I would usually not be able to produce it. I rarely bring it with me on the actual dive.

No, not necessarily on the boat. Just at some point. When I dove in Florida I went to the shop first and showed it there (paid there etc), but in Hawaii I didn't go to the shop, the meet-up was at the boat. I was asked for my card at the dock, and I paid at the dock with a remote e-cc reader doohickey.

 

[openmindOW]

I have not been to a ton of places to dive but I did find the diving in the Keys to be by far the most hands off diving I have ever seen.

That's one of the things I like about the Keys. The dive Ops assume you are an adult and they leave you alone.

 

[tracydr]

I was one of the divers on the boat yesterday (The EMT) that did CPR on her on the way back to Miami Beach Marina. This really should not of happened yesterday and we did what we could but she was down for at least half an hour. As far as her mask on her head, I was the diver that motioned her to put her mask back on her face but she did not comprehend until she got to the line behind the boat. I think the dive masters should of been checking everyone's cards especially if there was suspicion beforehand that a coupe other guys noticed on the boat that i later found out. To be honest I didn't think much about the mask incident until I knew what was happening.

This is what I believe happened related to the fatality: About 10-15 minutes into her dive, her regulator must of gotten lodged away from her at some point or something dramatic caused her to panic and intend to bolt for the surface. We found the tank with 2400 psi left and the air still on when we began searching for the missing diver. When she was unable to retrieve her 2nd stage by using technique, she panicked in an attempt to get to the surface. She consciously removed her BC straps with the tank attached and possibly her fins as well in the attempt to reach the surface. Oblivious because of panick however the weight belt was still on her waist that made her sink. She was wearing about 12-14 lbs based on her previous buyoancy and wetsuit mm suit when I used the shears onboard the first aid kit to get access to her chest area for CPR monitoring. Due to fatigue she drowned and remained in between the patch at the North end of Emerald Reef and the the beginning of Rainbow Reef. No signs of trauma or foul play on initial assessment. Upon compressions we found that the victim had distension and edema (Fluid) in the lungs and stomach and that she had taken on water for some time during the incident. Based on the GAP of the victim, she was without oxygen for a minimum of 50 minutes to one hour based on dive time, and search response before the body was discovered.

Also if you guys have any other questions you need me to clarify since I was on the boat yesterday and performed CPR for her en route to the marina I will be glad to clear things up seeing as how nobody else from the boat is here on SB.com. I will edit this post as needed when I get more information or questions.

Thanks so much for sharing. You're absolutely right that you can drown in a few feet of water.
Curious- what type of exposure suit did she have on? 12-14 pounds of weight seems like an awful lot for an Asian girl, whom I'm assuming is probably relatively small. I dive with 4-6 pounds in tropical waters if I'm using a regular BC and aluminum tank. That would be with a 3 or 5 ml suit. So, 12-14 pounds seems like a bunch.

 

[djcheburashka]

I waited for you to edit this mischaricterization as you said you would, and since you did not, I will have to respond to it.

You and I had a PRIVATE CONVERSATION where YOU told me of your dive with Ari and a student at the BHB.

Dan I'm just seeing this now. I offered to edit out your statements about Ari (since you two occasionally socialize) in exchanging for a promise from you to stop posting--a promise that you have violated in the extreme.

Let me eliminate any doubt: yes, you did say repeatedly to me that you believed that Ari was dishonest and unreliable. You also agreed with me that Ari's version of the BHB incident was nonsense that would be obvious to anyone who had been to the site. You told me numerous examples of times that Ari had lied to you. You even suggested having an intervention to get Ari to give up her instructors license.

The inference--which you acknowledged--is that ari's statements about this incident, which continue to form the basis for nearly the entire discussion, are utterly unreliable.

And if that's the case, then the *other* version of events--that this person was actually diving in a group led by Ari--needs to be taken seriously as a potential causal factor in the incident.

Ari indicated you ran off with the flag, putting her and the student in a bad situation. In other words, you went in as buddied with the two of them, then left with the flag.

How exactly does one "run off" and hide a flag, in water that is 6" deep, in an area with no obstacles to obstruct visibility? If you have any doubt about what happened, I'm sure the lifeguard who was nearby and had to call a rescue team will remember.

you KNEW that Ari did not have this Chinese Girl as a student....again, this is obsfucation and mis-direction.

Not *really*. We both know that Ari trolls boats and will use her instructor status to get people to join her, then tell the boat captain they're her students. Thats how i met her. You told me stories of her being banned from boats for doing this. Anyway it sounds pretty analogous to what happened here --"come buddy with us, you can trust me I'm an instructor, ill teach you to find nudibranches."

I think Ari is equally likely to be telling a correct version of events that transpired to any of the other actual witnesses on the boat....And hang on... you were NOT on the boat....so what we have is you coming here telling us that your 2nd hand account is somhow better than several first hand accounts--Ari, Peter and Dennis....all saying the same thing--all there.

Nope. You have one first hand account by a known liar, one first hand account by someone who has... I have on good authority radically exaggerated their role in what took place... And that's it. You *had* someone else posting here who was present, but i dont think you noticed what she was saying, and she stopped posting.

And you *know* that I have access to more information than you do.

The vast bulk of posts I have made in this thread are about how we can learn from an event like this, to prevent similar issues....

No Dan, the vast bulk are posts in this thread - more than half i think - are yours, and based purely on speculation which in turn is based on the widely published public statements of someone you know to be dishonest --- who happens to have been the leader of the group this diver was with when she died.

I'm sorry, but if you're actually interested in safety and in understanding the incident, you're going to have to accept that simple reality.

 

[danvolker]

Amos, this is the kind of internet argument that ruins discussion boards. If you REALLY want to discuss this, then meet me in Palm Beach the next time you go diving here.

 

[letterboy]

~~SNIP~~
No Dan, the vast bulk are posts in this thread - more than half i think - are yours, and based purely on speculation which in turn is based on the widely published public statements of someone you know to be dishonest --- who happens to have been the leader of the group this diver was with when she died.

I'm sorry, but if you're actually interested in safety and in understanding the incident, you're going to have to accept that simple reality.

no, only ~16.2% of them are his, so far.

• Posts 43 danvolker
• Posts 18 diverrex
• Posts 13 boulderjohn
• Posts 11 SC_Hoaty
• Posts 11 Scott from LongIsland

 

[djcheburashka]

this is the kind of internet argument that ruins discussion boards. If you REALLY want to discuss this, then meet me in Palm Beach the next time you go diving here.

Dan the person who's been keeping this thread going is *you*. While you don't have half the posts as I thought, you're by far the most frequent poster, with more than twice as many posts as the next-most-active poster.

I -dont- want to discuss this incident on a bulletin board. I want to -stop- a discussion that is founded almost exclusively on misinformation and speculation, and which is therefore utterly pointless, from continuing.

I also explained to you that while I do respect you as a person and diver, I -dont- want to have a discussion about it with you, at least until *facts* are available to displace the rank speculation. Because until then there's nothing worth discussing.

I also explained that many of these posts either implicitly or explicitly point the finger (in each case out of ignorance) at what many of us in Miami view as the safest, most responsible, and most reliable local operator.

You promised me that you would, in fact, stop posting about this. Please do.

 

[Anna G]

Dan the person who's been keeping this thread going is *you*.

That's...kinda hard to claim when you just bumped this thread - the last post before yours was almost a week ago.

 

[djcheburashka]

That's...kinda hard to claim when you just bumped this thread - the last post before yours was almost a week ago.

Yeah I hadn't looked at this in a while, since making my deal with Dan. I looked at it by chance, and it seemed to me that a response was necessary.

 

[daniel]

You know I ended up here in an round about way, I seen an Google hit on searching for key Biscayne diving. So I followed it and found that 6 days after I dove with RJ, yes Mercedes was the DM on my charter, she actually gave me the nick name "Chicago" in September 30, 2011. They left two divers stranded, and than this most recent event a fatality of a single diver.

As you all can see I have been an member for a long time here, I had second thoughts about diving with them in 2011 because of post I found on line about RJ's and Tarpon Divers both. But I had an pleasant experience diving with them on Neptune memorial reef, and the Belzona.

Regards

Diver Dan