Free diver drowns attempting anchor retrieval - Key Largo Florida

[wgw04024]

50' of water sounds pretty deep to me without a tank...

 

[iluvcozumel]

No tank and weighted? 50'? hmmmm. Found on bottom near anchor? sad.....

 

[S R]

No mention of a wetsuit. Should not need a weight belt at all if not wearing a wetsuit.


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[DandyDon]

Whether he was trained or experienced as a free diver seems irrelevant to me. He was a better free diver than I ever was to get down that far, if he did make it to the anchor and it was at 50 feet - both open to speculation. Whatever, he was free diving.

No mention of a wetsuit. Should not need a weight belt at all if not wearing a wetsuit.

Maybe not, depending on his adipose ratio? I might guess that he wanted to accelerate his descent, but felt he could swim the weight back up ok. Too much like a "Hold my beer and watch this" story, but maybe he'd accomplished similar before. Maybe he panicked and failed to release his belt when he got in trouble, or it could have been shallow water blackout - or medical?

 

[Bob DBF]

He was a better free diver than I ever was to get down that far...

Getting down there is only half the issue.



Bob

 

[fbrissette]

That's not excessive depth at all for a freediver...

that's true for a trained freediver. However 50 feet is way way outside the range of your typical snorkeler. Judging by the results, I would venture he was the latter.

 

[DandyDon]

that's true for a trained freediver. However 50 feet is way way outside the range of your typical snorkeler. Judging by the results, I would venture he was the latter.

Champion freedivers Natalia Molchanova and Audrey Mestre seem to have had identical results.

 

[Ayisha]

Champion freedivers Natalia Molchanova and Audrey Mestre seem to have had identical results.

? Not sure why you're comparing Audrey Mestre's fatal dive to over 560 feet under suspicious circumstances or Natalia Molchanova's disappearance from a 115 foot dive in a high current area to this incident?

 

[scagrotto]

Was anyone sober? Starting with the person that tossed the anchor without checking whether it was tied off to the boat.

You think nobody has ever done that while sober?

Should not need a weight belt at all if not wearing a wetsuit.

Both constant ballast and variable weight freedivers use weights in order to descend faster, in order to get deeper in a given amount of time. The same strategy will work for a weekend boater who wants to recover an anchor line. The difference is that variable weight freedivers ascend without the weights, while constant ballast freedivers have to swim the weight back up. Maybe this guy only thought things half-way through, or maybe he just overestimated his ability to swim the weights back up.

Whatever thought process led him down that path it sounds like he died the same way as a lot of divers - in difficulty on the surface and still wearing his weights.

 

[DandyDon]

? Not sure why you're comparing Audrey Mestre's fatal dive to over 560 feet under suspicious circumstances or Natalia Molchanova's disappearance from a 115 foot dive in a high current area to this incident?

Not the same at all. My post was in reply to this one that assumes too much from too little. Results do not prove cause...

that's true for a trained freediver. However 50 feet is way way outside the range of your typical snorkeler. Judging by the results, I would venture he was the latter.