Holy S...!!

[Gombessa]

Very sad. The more details that come out, the more questions that are raised.

So he was diving with a buddy (albeit it sounds like an instabuddy). The depth reading on his computer seems to have been off by over 20m (he landed at 90m, body was at 111m, did he drift, was he really "entangled?") Nobody seems to know his dive plan (arch? bounce? set depth?)...

Just tragic.

 

[K_girl]

I have serious suspicions about some of these videos. Look at the one called Red Bikini Diver. The drowning looks very real on the video, but why didn't the videographer(s) cut her free from the line she was tangled in? Why did they just watch her die and continue filming?

From one camera angle, you could see her approaching from a distance towards the line, which looked new in my opinion. Then from another camera angle facing her, she swims backwards into the line, gets tangled, and drowns for what seems to be an agonizingly long time.

I doubt she was even a diver, based on how severely overweighted she was, how she "bicycled" in the water in an upright position, the way she used her arms for propulsion, the oversized wing she was using, and the way some of her gear hung loose. The whole rig looked a bit large for her.

I believe there's some acting going on, but it's hard to separate fact from fiction, and speculation from reality in this modern age of computer technology. There is probably some validity to some of the videos, but which ones? The real ones serve to remind us of some very hard lessons in life (and in death).

Pretty easy to tell this one is fake - even beyond the fact that the video is very smooth, obviously not a worry in world on the part of the videographer and he/she doesn't lift a finger to help her, which most people pointed out, but one more thing - her hand is holding the reg at the end of the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hijgOPX2Ah8

 

[FoSheZZie23]

When i first watched it my first thought was suicide because it seemed as though he had multiple areas to stop at.

But after reading and thinking about the situation a bit more i would guess that he was trying to "bounce it" and get a new depth record. hints him showing the camera his depth. and possibly being over weight so he sinks like a rock to get down fast. Then it could go in two directions

first he had trouble inflating his bc, possibly bad inflator hose (obiously he didnt use it going down) and fumbles to get his weight belt off. In the mean time being at almost 300 feet on, i would assume, air he gets an O2 hit and passes out. Eventually running out of air, that is if he kep this reg in his mouth when he passed out.

Second, when he reached almost 300ft he got an O2 hit and his body went into a seizure, hints the drastic moving around. Then passed out and ran out of air eventually.

 

[coldcoast]

why didn't this guy ditch his kit and CESA right from the get go. bounce attempt for sure i figure. why else would he have taken a look at his computer if he figured he was in trouble. I hate the see this sorta thing, scares the hell outta me. But when pushing limits that hard on rec gear what do you expect to happen.

 

[Dadvocate]

Wow…That is an unpleasant video (not to mention those that follow). I have to question the connotations of the statement that the guy makes at the end of the first video in the OP. Firstly, if he is such an expert, why would he toss out such a disparaging comment on a sport he would have spent hours becoming expert at himself thus knowing the fundamental differences between safe diving and what took place in the video? Secondly, what if he meant the “sport” comment to be more a reference to say the “sport” of bounce diving and not recreational diving or even proper tech diving? This might shed some light on the video and on what he means with that comment. I suppose it could be something synonymous to say a reference to base jumping (without proper training) as a sport and not the umbrella category of sky diving alone. Plausible?

I have to admit that this notion of “bounce diving” is troublesome since it seems to be a common enough occurrence based on what many have said in this thread. I assume that there must be some ratio of “successful” bounce diving attempts at this dive sight and at others if people continue to try this kind of thing. I’m baffled really with the idea of doing that. I’m very new to the sport and am always wary of going too deep too quickly, or the inverse for that matter.

Some have suggested it might have been suicide. To me any attempt at dropping like a rock while breathing compressed air is suicidal. Why not bungee jump three hundred feet off a bridge with only shoe laces tied to your feet? I don’t really see much of a difference to be honest.

Really very stupid if indeed that is what this diver did. And again I get that nausea in my stomach after reading this thread. My girlfriend thinks I’m nuts to keep reading these stories. I figure I’m keeping hubris out of the mix and reminding myself not to take any shortcuts, period. This one will be with me in Coron in two weeks. Thanks for the reminder, Coach Izzy!

Cheers!

 

[DomaNitrogen]

Well;

No facts = No conclusion;
* Dont know if he is an instructor or DM or just a normal Joe diver
* Was it on trimax or Air? did not see any deco bottle or anything but still not a fact that he was on AIR
* Multiple videos what is forged and what is not are they linked or different incdents.
* Bounce dive Could be; But if it was i think he would have checked he's computer more offten; Ex. if he's last record was 70 he would have checked more offten to reach 70 and then try to break it by 5 meter 10 or anything but he only checked once or thats what we saw.
* Equipment failier i doubt. Reg was breathing if the inflator was not working he would have inflated manule or even tried.
* He's Breathing was study (if not audio edited)
* He was not doing the the Blue hole Arch for sure he did not look for it

I think that leaves a medical condition.

 

[ccredifo]

Maybe he was filming an underwater version of Jackass? Seriously, you can't expect to dive that deep on a single AL80.

 

[Chicago-Diver]

I'm no expert, but a couple of things in the video jumped out at me. First, if the diver was in a desperate situation, he seemed awfully passive. Right up to the moment of death. It didn't seem like he was trying to do anything to fix his gear or whatever went wrong, or look for help from his buddies. He stayed focused on filming. And he even made a point of filming the computer on his wrist, rather than just dropping the camera and trying to do something to save his life.

I'm thinking it's possible he had a heart attack or some kind of medical emergency that limited his ability to move and speak. I've tried to "talk" to my buddies through my reg before and when I go back and watch the video later, the audio sounds a lot louder than the small squeaks that this diver was making...

I'm confused...

 

[Diver0001]

By the time he hit the bottom, I'd guess he was too narc'd to think straight and I wouldn't discount the 'entanglement' as some sort of confused attempt to GET OUT OF HERE!!!

Did anyone hear him inflate anything? I wonder if it wasn't an inflator failure which would explain the acceleration on descent.

Rachel

Nope. My impression (based in some part on the behaviour of other Russian divers I've encounterd in Egypt who are -- to say the least -- not risk adverse) is that he intended to get to the bottom.

I think the fact that (a) he was wearing a helm-cam to record the dive and (b) he held the computer up the helm-cam and not to his own face to show the depth at one point are good indications that he was doing this deliberately.

What happened to him near the bottom may have been a result of a couple of things. Either (what I suspect) his rated of decent increased to the point where his BCD's was unable to fill the BCD fast enough to compensate for the rate of descent or (b) he was narced out his skull and unable to piece together what to do.

In either event when they recovered the body the tank was empty so there probably wasn't an equipment malfunction.

And you can't get "entangled" with the bottom. There were not lines or ropes anywhere to be seen IIRC.

R..

 

[Diver0001]

"He was yelling help".

Anyone know the Russian word for 'help'?

R..