First-hand account of down current, with video footage

[WSOPFAN]

Thankyou Fan. I started replying to Mike's post but I could not do it with the decorum you used. I dive (600+) regularly in up to 5kt currents. The bubbles in the face does not happen because in a horizontal current the diver is being moved along as fast as the bubbles. I've done descents, ascents and stops. All the same as if I am in a pool. Cause when drifting, all is relative.
Something extreme was happening in that vid IMO regardless of what you attempt to show us with your arrows Mike. There are also the reports and warnings previously mentioned.

Actually I had to stop and erase what I had typed more than a few times for that response to "dive god mike". It was originally much worse........

---------- Post added April 21st, 2012 at 10:26 PM ----------



We have also had some divers post not only their personal experiences from around that time but also video footage in support of the difficult and dangerous conditions at the time. I have posted some responses based on my past diving history and experience at that location not to mention having previous knowledge of being in a whirlpool type scenario. Can you say the same Mike? No you can't ........

 

[scurbswife]

I would just like to say as the mother/wife of the two in the video, it is very hard as a parent to read all the comments on this thread, (I have tried to not make emotional comments) yes there were alot of mistakes made that day and we have learned alot from watching the video and we wish this situation on nobody, it was a very traumatic day for all involved not just us but the others that experienced trouble on that day. I have cried alot over this experience and the loss of Christina the missing woman who I never met! You all can keep saying it was because my son was a new diver I can handle that, but when Mike keeps saying it is his own bubbles I have a problem with that because clearly you can see the other 2 divers in the video you can see my son swim, float (whatever) directly over them, yes on the way up and during his breathing those are his bubbles. Also in the beginning of the video you can see the diver swimming up from below and his bubbles are not going up! You also can see in the video before panic sets in for my son there are alot of bubbles from below! Yes he was in a panic and yes he should have added air sooner. Also I don't believe my husband was in a panic he did what he needed to do to help our son and for that I am very grateful!! We didn't post the video to see where the mistakes were made, we posted the video because at the very start of the video you can clearly see the Sand Dollar boat in front of us, which is the boat of the missing diver, so we believe they were in the same area as us.

Also we were a team of 3 but because we all were not ready as you can see I am having trouble with my bcd (which by the we all had our own equipment and the first mate is helping me with it, the dm instructed my son, husband and the others that were in the water to go down and if you listen you can hear my husband say but we have 2 divers on the boat. I am a new diver and you all were a NEW diver at one point. When I decided to become a diver my fear was being alone in the ocean, and on that day I was alone because when the boat finally got into position and I was able to jump in I swam to the DM (who was already under the water and ringing his bell) as I reached him I looked at my gauge and realized I was at 80ft and didn't even realize it. He instructed me to go up (I'm assuming) he already seen the situation of the 2 divers at 165ft which I had no clue, I thought he was sending me up and we were going to meet on reef, but as I was swimming up (which was very hard against the current) I too started to panic because my fear was coming true, I had no idea where my son or husband were. I'm not sure if I will ever be an experienced diver after that day! I know if I do ever decide to dive again I will always ask if we are doing a wall dive and if we are I will be sitting in the sun instead of diving :-(. I truly enjoyed diving before that day and was amazed by the life and beauty underwater.

Also directed at Mike since you have some fancy program that can take our video and make pictures with nice arrows how about you play the video in slow motion and find all the divers on the wall in the background that are in deep waters they should not be in and you are not allowed to tag my son, husband or the other two!!

 

[DandyDon]

S-wife, I am sure you will be a better diver for all of this. Don't fear the walls as they are very, very rarely what you got into.

For future referencing: Whether in a buddy pair or a trio - even if a DM or someone is telling some to go, buddies stick together - in virtually all instances...

• Buddies gear up together, check each other, and if one has a delay - all are delayed together.
• Enter the water together.
• Descend together.
• And so forth thru every phase including back on the boat for review.

If you miss a drop because one of you was not ready for any reason, at least you are all together on the boat. None of this meet you on the bottom caca some do...

 

[Tigerman]

Video we took at Santa Rosa Wall 3/28/12 at 10:05a.m. Santa Rosa Wall 3-28-12 @ 10:10 a.m. on Vimeo​

That is SERIOUSLY scary ****

 

[scurbswife]

S-wife, I am sure you will be a better diver for all of this. Don't fear the walls as they are very, very rarely what you got into.

For future referencing: Whether in a buddy pair or a trio - even if a DM or someone is telling some to go, buddies stick together - in virtually all instances...

• Buddies gear up together, check each other, and if one has a delay - all are delayed together.
• Enter the water together.
• Descend together.
• And so forth thru every phase including back on the boat for review.

If you miss a drop because one of you was not ready for any reason, at least you are all together on the boat. None of this meet you on the bottom caca some do...

Agreed Don!! That was one of our first discussions!!!

 

[Craig66]

I would just like to say as the mother/wife of the two in the video, it is very hard as a parent to read all the comments on this thread.....
Also we were a team of 3 but because we all were not ready as you can see I am having trouble with my bcd (which by the we all had our own equipmentand the first mate is helping me with it, the dm instructed my son, husband and the others that were in the water to go down and if you listen you can hear my husband say but we have 2 divers on the boat.....
I too started to panic because my fear was coming true, I had no idea where my son or husband were....... I'm not sure if I will ever be an experienced diver after that day!

scurbswife, I fully understand and appreciate what you are going through and I know this is very hard. Firstly please know that this is not personal. We are all trying to learn from your experience so that we can make sure that this never happens to any of us. I was the one that pointed out that your husband did not have the reg in his mouth and did not inflate his BC on the surface - mainly because something along those lines once happened to me as I rescued an instabud and because of that I will never land in that situation again. We are all sitting in our arm chairs and can clearly see the mistakes that you made but are also wishing that we dont make the same mistakes because hindsight is always twenty twenty vision.

While responsibility for diving ultimately starts and ends with the diver, what has come out of the thread from which this is an offshoot, is that diveops also bear a lot of responsibility in ensuring a safe dive environment, especially for newbies. Clearly this was not a dive or a dive circumstance for newbies. As newbies you should never have been getting off the boat and descending without a hard bottom, you probably should not have been on Santa Rosa and especially at a time when currents had been wacky. You also had a dive plan involving three members and yet were forced to break that plan by the DM when he sent the two boys down. This broke your dive plan and theirs and essentially left you buddyless.

Please do not however let this stop you from becoming a regular diver. Make sure in the future that you take the time to discuss in detail with the dive op your concerns and needs and ensure that they have a plan to meet them. Do not be afraid to abort a dive if the promised plan is deviated from and you feel uncomfortable. Try and learn something that can be improved upon on every dive and before you know it you will have a bunch of great dives under your belt and along the way to becoming a more capable diver.

Thank you for helping us all become better divers

Craig

 

[scurbswife]

Craig

Thanks for the kind words. I can take the criticism, but when people start poking fun that is hard to take and that's what I feel Mike is doing on this subject. We wanted to help others understand that there were other things going on down there and if you look past my son you can see the people. We were there for 9 days this happened in the middle of our vacation and alot of people were talking about the crazy currents going on that week and in the past weeks.

Anyway Thanks again for the kind words,

Deanna

 

[frontiernurse]

Hello scurbyduck, scurbswife and son. I am fascinated by your video and so glad that you all are OK, and also that you shared the video. This is a great forensic learning experience! I am eager to learn what I can from this as I am going to a remote area with currents later this year, and I am not experienced with currents aside from one trip to cozumel. Based on the fact that between 1 and 3 minutes into the dive four divers were at 150-165 feet, there was a powerful current. Lets take that as a given.

As a (land) photographer, I recognize that the camera on the cameraman's (CM) head was wide angle as evidenced by the first 2 minutes of the video, so whatever happened under water in the footage was likely distorted.

It looks like the cameraman (CM) descended at about 1:50 in the video. All seemed OK. At 2:58 the video shows the wall. Because of the wide angle of the camera, it is hard to tell the distance from the wall, but it looked cloudy, with lines going either up or down (hard to tell). Was that bubbles from other divers? Or was that silt/debri washing over the wall in a waterfall that could have been a signal of trouble? I only ask in case I ever descend and see a signal of a down current. I’d like to know if there are warning signs?

Upon further viewing, I heard the CM adding air to his BCD at 3 and 4ish minutes into the dive, and that is when the panic seemed to set in, when he realized these measures were not stopping his descent. What was the father experiencing during those same minutes?

The hand-holding divers with the same problem grabbed the wall and waited for help, while the CM/father pushed off the wall and ascended. Thoughts?

This happened in Cozumel, a high-traffic current-dive destination, which is why I went there. Later this year I'll be going to the Solomons and I just learned there can be strong currents there too... but people probably don't discuss it cuz that is such a low traffic area. So I really want to soak up any info you have before I go.

THANK YOU!

 

[AaronRiot]

Thankyou for posting the video (and separating it to it's own thread). As a new diver it was very eye-opening to see. We read about these things but there are few real-world visual demonstrations of what it's like. I certainly have learned a lot from both the video and comments.

I'm glad all three of you are ok.

I can't find the quote but it was said for the 2 divers at 165 the DM brought them up separately?? Am I wrong in seeing an issue with leaving a lone diver at depth waiting while another is assisted to the surface? Especially when there was a 'situation' in progress? I would think leaving a diver clinging to a wall at depth in an unmanageable(?) current is a big no-no.... Maybe I read wrong or am ill-informed of particular emergency procedures.

 

[RickyF]

I would just like to say as the mother/wife of the two in the video, it is very hard as a parent to read all the comments on this thread, (I have tried to not make emotional comments) yes there were alot of mistakes made that day and we have learned alot from watching the video and we wish this situation on nobody, it was a very traumatic day for all involved not just us but the others that experienced trouble on that day. I have cried alot over this experience and the loss of Christina the missing woman who I never met! You all can keep saying it was because my son was a new diver I can handle that, but when Mike keeps saying it is his own bubbles I have a problem with that because clearly you can see the other 2 divers in the video you can see my son swim, float (whatever) directly over them, yes on the way up and during his breathing those are his bubbles. Also in the beginning of the video you can see the diver swimming up from below and his bubbles are not going up! You also can see in the video before panic sets in for my son there are alot of bubbles from below! Yes he was in a panic and yes he should have added air sooner. Also I don't believe my husband was in a panic he did what he needed to do to help our son and for that I am very grateful!! We didn't post the video to see where the mistakes were made, we posted the video because at the very start of the video you can clearly see the Sand Dollar boat in front of us, which is the boat of the missing diver, so we believe they were in the same area as us.

Also we were a team of 3 but because we all were not ready as you can see I am having trouble with my bcd (which by the we all had our own equipment and the first mate is helping me with it, the dm instructed my son, husband and the others that were in the water to go down and if you listen you can hear my husband say but we have 2 divers on the boat. I am a new diver and you all were a NEW diver at one point. When I decided to become a diver my fear was being alone in the ocean, and on that day I was alone because when the boat finally got into position and I was able to jump in I swam to the DM (who was already under the water and ringing his bell) as I reached him I looked at my gauge and realized I was at 80ft and didn't even realize it. He instructed me to go up (I'm assuming) he already seen the situation of the 2 divers at 165ft which I had no clue, I thought he was sending me up and we were going to meet on reef, but as I was swimming up (which was very hard against the current) I too started to panic because my fear was coming true, I had no idea where my son or husband were. I'm not sure if I will ever be an experienced diver after that day! I know if I do ever decide to dive again I will always ask if we are doing a wall dive and if we are I will be sitting in the sun instead of diving :-(. I truly enjoyed diving before that day and was amazed by the life and beauty underwater.

Also directed at Mike since you have some fancy program that can take our video and make pictures with nice arrows how about you play the video in slow motion and find all the divers on the wall in the background that are in deep waters they should not be in and you are not allowed to tag my son, husband or the other two!!

S-Wife,
I really appreciate your posting the video. It takes a lot of courage to post something like this so some can pick it apart and make their own conclusions of what happened. It is indeed a very scary situation that I am sure your husband and son never want to experience again! I know first hand that video can be very deceiving compared to what is actually happening at the time. I am assuming your son was diving with a gropro camera as I also have one. What appears to be a great distance on video can in reality be somewhat close. I have never been caught in a down current, but I have been in some pretty tense situations before and you never know exactly how you are going to react until it really happens! We can all sit here and "say" what we would do and we can all relate back to what out training says to do, but it until it happens to you, there is no way to actually comprehend it. It appears that your husband handled the situation very well and from his recount they had a pretty quick ascent from 150'. I totally understand his wanting to return for a safety stop after calming your son down.
I know that everyone wants to learn from your experience and am really glad that everyone of your family are OK. I just hope that you don't quit diving because of this. I just wish some would stop making light of what has been reported in numerous places about the diving conditions that were taking place at the time. Thank you again for posting this!