Feb 19 2017 Cozumel diving fatality

[RayfromTX]

All of what John posted is in agreement with the secondhand information that I have. I think the biggest takeaway for me is the reinforcement of my previously held beliefs that.... You should always have your own dsmb when diving, especially in Coz. You should never relinquish responsibility for your diving to someone else, not your buddy, not your DM and not your instructor. Scuba diving is a dangerous activity that can be made relatively safe or deadly simply by the seriousness or the nonchalance of the participants. The beginning and the end of the dive are especially critical in determining a safe outcome and the focus of buddies during those periods should not be distracted or taken lightly. The last five minutes of a dive may be the most important five minutes of your life or your buddy's life.

 

[Dan]

I was just contacted by a member of the dive group who does not wish to participate openly in this thread. This is what I learned.

1. The diver agreed before the dive to use the inflator manually.
2. The diver did not appear to have a problem with that during the dive.
3. When the diver decided to go to the surface, she did not seem to be in distress. The diver who contacted me did not see her signal prior to the ascent, but the assumption was that she had reached the 700 PSI, the pressure at which the first low on air diver was supposed to ascend according to the pre-dive briefing.
4. The DM sent up a DSMB, showed her how to work the reel, and she ascended alone.
5. She did not appear to be in distress during that ascent, which started from a relatively shallow depth.
6. The person who contacted me did not watch her the whole time, but believes she did not take enough time on ascent to do a full safety stop.
7. The person who contacted me saw her reach the surface safely, and she did not appear to be having any trouble there.

I was also contacted by someone else who had information he was not at liberty to disclose. Nothing in that contact disagrees with what I just wrote.

From what I have been told and from what I read on this thread, the inflator hose had nothing to do with this accident. IMO, continuing to discuss it just gets in the way of a discussion on what really happened.

Regarding to item 7, the fact that they found her on the bottom, it apprears that she was still negatively buoyant at the surface. My guess is either she didn't manually inflate the BCD enough air & compensated the slightly negative buoyancy by finning until she had health issue that made her stopped finning & slowly sank to the bottom & drown. So, I think the wrong connection of inflator is still have something to do with why she sank.

If I have a working inflator, I'll make dang sure that I'll be positively buoyant to the point of my mouth to stay above water without finning, just in case I pass out, rescuer still can find me floating, not sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

 

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

Divers who take PADI classes are asked to read, understand and agree to adhere to The Safe Diving Practices that are listed on the attached PDF. If divers adhere to the things listed they will be much better off while scuba diving.

 

[AdivingBel]

Doesn't seem like an equipment issue, but who knows.. Looks like she had a problem and no one else was there to offer assistance. It may not have mattered, but if you dive without a buddy, you are on your own (for good or ill). The group guide is NOT your buddy (in Coz or anywhere else). It's a big ocean out there. Dive safely. All IMHO.

 

[Ron Lee]

It is hard enough to follow the details of each of these unfortunate events without you mixing threads.

You can't follow a point about another thread and its relevance to comments made in this one?

 

[Ron Lee]

I read in the translated news article that is in an earlier post that she had a heart attack or stroke. The word used was infarct, that is why I mentioned that.

That may be a boiler plate comment for any dive fatality.

Diver really dies from a shark bite. News reports heart attack.

Diver runs out of air and drowns. News reports heart attack.

Initial reports are often less than factual.

 

[lionfish-eater]

You can't follow a point about another thread and its relevance to comments made in this one?

I was joking, thus the smiley face. I have no problem following the incidents, even with all the acronyms and abbreviations in the rebreather incident. I try to learn from other's mistakes to avoid making them myself.
Both threads are filled with sooooooooooooo much speculation.
One of the posters who had "first hand" info had stated she had a stroke. Others took that as true, then the poster reminded everyone that she read in one of the articles that she had an "infarc". If I remember that statement was made by someone the day of the rescue without any way of knowing.

 

[boulderjohn]

Regarding to item 7, the fact that they found her on the bottom, it apprears that she was still negatively buoyant at the surface.

Not necessarily. When you exhale normally, you still retain a tremendous amount of air in your lungs. If you die, it may be exhaled and thus leave you to sink. Deceased divers are surprisingly heavy. I remember an account of a recovery in a cave in which the person describing the recovery described how surprisingly negatively buoyant the body was, and that was after they had removed all his gear.

 

[dmaziuk]

As far as signaling OK, wasn't it reported that Rob Stewart signaled that he was OK to the boat crew after he and the other diver surfaced? Then a possible problem with the other diver had the people on the boat attending to him. Once that was dealt with, Stewart had already gone under water and at some point died.

So what's you point, if a diver signals OK we're to call the coast guard and rush to the rescue?

 

[Freewillow]

If there is a real thing to learn from BOTH events it is the following: establish A VERY POSITIVE BUYANCY, once you reach the surface.

The same goes to: the best qualified diver is the first in the water and the last one to climb the ladder.

Two VERY BASIC RULES, too often ignored