Fatality on Rosalie Moller wreck

[ginti]

I don't agree with this at all. Moving from cold dirty water to warm and clear is far easier than vice versa.

Partially agree with you. I've said "shocking", not hard, because the change of environment can introduce new variables that the diver is not used to manage (which are objectively less hard, but still new, when switching from cold/murky to warm/crystal). The examples in the few last posts are exactly what I was thinking of, especially the example of the weight falling down given by @bcaderunr... and apparently you agree with this:

Yes I agree, that is why I said what is really relevant is what type of recent experience the diver has had in similar conditions. I don't necessarily assume that a very accomplished quarry diver is going be comfortable diving with tropical sharks and stinging gorgonians while wearing a speedo.

so it was just a matter of language, but we share the same point f view

(not native English speaker here, sometimes it is hard to go straight to the point in a clear way )

Yes, it can though it's unlikely our victim had done all of that.

She had taken a deep dive course. The question is when and where.

My point is that it is unlikely that she had experienced enough to treat "that environment".

"that environment" is not "tropical warm water sea"... the problem is that the seabed was too deep for her, plus the good visibility can lead to a false sense of control. Add the psychological pressure we have already discussed, the planning of the dive without redundancy and all the other stuff -> and here you are a bad receipt.

The very bad thing is that all of these things are small pieces, and if they sum up gradually a person can hardly realize when it's time to stop.

I mean, something like this:
"I am going on a trip to the red sea... I worry about my buoyancy, but with some extra weights I can manage it" =1 problem to manage
The first day: "the computer is broken... it's bad, but I can manage it" +1 = 2 problems to manage
The second day: "I am tired, but I can manage it" +1 =3 problems to manage
.... = the diver is overloaded and cannot manage any extra issue, but since it happened gradually, she didn't realize it
During the dive: "Damn, I lost my weights, I absolutely need it" --> bad ending

I am not blaming her, because if you are not lucky enough to dive with people who can explain this to you, it's very hard to understand these things.

 

[rjack321]

Please could you explain the exact way to do this and be able to recover it at the surface ?

shoot the SMB
pass the spool under a piece of wreckage
"unreel" the spool as you follow the SMB line up
on the surface unclip the SMB from the line and reel up the spool

realistically? its bogus

in an emergency either leave the spool tied to the wreck after shooting the smb
or drift the ascent

 

[chillyinCanada]

Yes I agree, that is why I said what is really relevant is what type of recent experience the diver has had in similar conditions. I don't necessarily assume that a very accomplished quarry diver is going be comfortable diving with tropical sharks and stinging gorgonians while wearing a speedo.

No self respecting quarry diver wears a speedo,

Her tank was empty when she was recovered, as you surmised.

Any air in her bcd at time that they found her on bottom?

 

[chillyinCanada]

Yes, it can though it's unlikely our victim had done all of that.

She had taken a deep dive course. The question is when and where.

Sorry, it appears that I may have threads mixed up.

I'm now unable to find that she had deep dive course.

My apologies.

I did find that she was tropical waters only diver.

 

[Kimela]

Sorry, it appears that I may have threads mixed up.

I'm now unable to find that she had deep dive course.

My apologies.

I did find that she was tropical waters only diver.

It was in the very first post, that she had a Deep Dive Specialty (which I don't give a lot of credit for, honestly). Experience means a lot more than a cert card (IMO).

 

[Kimela]

I'm having trouble making sense of this. She had 200 dives, I'm assuming a few of them were advanced.

Why would the computer have caused her to be concerned about holding a depth? It shouldn't have, so I'm going to set that aside.

Going after the weight makes no sense. Frankly, overweighting herself in the first place makes no sense to me.

On our last dive trip we noticed that most divers were wearing 15-20, or more, pounds of lead. My husband carries 4 pounds, and I carry 8. I think too many divers get used to wearing a ton of weight and using their BC's inflator/deflator as 'elevator buttons' and they don't develop solid buoyancy skills. I 'think' if I was this worried about maintaining my safety stop (or potential deco stop) I would skip the dive. Sounds like she was too nervous to continue. Very, very sad - and avoidable - loss.

 

[Shasta_man]

Tragic story for several reasons. Chasing the weight pouch when there was a 150+ feet bottom. And the pouch doesn't go straight down.

Given she always dove overweighted, and losing a pocket on a liveaboard where more dives were to come probably combined to make her value the pouch. Then pumping hard all the way to the bottom...

I think a lot of people dive overweighted and think it is preferable. I mention my experience to illustrate the diff. I never intentionally dived overweighted. I took time on a liveaboard trip, at the end of the dive, to try to get properly weighted, I dropped like 4 lbs to 10 lbs and found how much easier it was to move around and how even air consumption improved because I wasn't going up and down all the time adding and releasing air in my bc. Not being overweighted made a big difference. Now at dive start, no air in the bc when descending and maybe a tap on the inflator at depth is all. No up down the whole time. Before ascending dump all air from bc.

 

[Centrals]

Let us assume that for a minute. Why would she panic?

What about dropping the weight was worrying to her? Getting told off on the boat? A rapid ascent? Missing stops? Discovering she didn’t need it after all? Or was she overwhelmed already?

I am NOT in any position to answer them!

She paid the ultimate price for the action.

 

[Edward3c]

Before ascending dump all air from bc.

That’s not good practice. When you dump all air from your BC you are putting yourself into a negative buoyancy situation. You need to learn to dump a little often on the way up to maintain neutral buoyancy.

 

[chillyinCanada]

Tragic story for several reasons. Chasing the weight pouch when there was a 150+ feet bottom. And the pouch doesn't go straight down.

Given she always dove overweighted, and losing a pocket on a liveaboard where more dives were to come probably combined to make her value the pouch. Then pumping hard all the way to the bottom...

I think a lot of people dive overweighted and think it is preferable. I mention my experience to illustrate the diff. I never intentionally dived overweighted. I took time on a liveaboard trip, at the end of the dive, to try to get properly weighted, I dropped like 4 lbs to 10 lbs and found how much easier it was to move around and how even air consumption improved because I wasn't going up and down all the time adding and releasing air in my bc. Not being overweighted made a big difference. Now at dive start, no air in the bc when descending and maybe a tap on the inflator at depth is all. No up down the whole time. Before ascending dump all air from bc.

The light bulb goes off!

It wasn't the weights she was chasing, it was the weight pocket.