In Coz: You, Your Buddy, Your Group and Your DM. Who should do what?

[Ron Lee]

A novice diver should not need to take the additional risk of a drift dive on a wall. There's simply no reason for it.

Maybe that is one of the policy changes that helps to reduce this type event.

Cost: zero.

 

[Basscat]

A shallow, hard bottom and a moored boat could have made all the difference in the world. If Cozumel doesn't have the geography to support this, or the dive ops are unwilling to take new divers to appropriate locations, then maybe Cozumel isn't a good location for new divers.

flots.

A shallow bottom would have been a better choice, especially with the apparent current issues that week, agreed. I don't think a wall dive is a good choice for divers that the OP hasn't had a chance to observe their skills. That said, Coz has plenty of usually easy current and hard bottomed drift dives that are great for novice divers, and work fine for one day dives off the cruisers. There is only one dive with a moored boat, the wreck dive on the C-53, and I would not recommend that for a novice.

 

[Mike]

falcon, how many novice deaths a year are you willing to accept as normal in Cozumel? What if SIMPLE policies that may not even impact you can reduce these deaths by 50% or >80%?

I find it odd that among this group so many are vocal about fixing a CO problem that may not be a problem...yet clearly deaths are occurring for some reason that may be easily preventable.

What do we actually know about the recent deaths that are attibutable to advanced dives?

I can recall a death due to CO poisoning. There was a death of a woman who surfaced in 50 ft of water on the c-53 dive by herself and there has been a death of a woman who disappeared or was abandoned by her buddy while she was on her way up form 30 feet.

None of these divers were blown off the reef and disappeared in deep depths, the last two were involved in 30-50 ft and on their way to the surface. Odds are only two things happened - 1 was they made it to the surface and then for some reason went back under and drowned, or 2 they never surfaced. Odds are there was a medical condition was involved such as a heart attack or a stroke, or there was panic involved and a mistake in basic diver safety such as a run away ascent followed by massive air embulism? deflating instead of inflating a bcd at the surface, forgetting they could drop weights or something equipment / panic related.

When divers disappear between 50 and 30 feet and the surface it's really not the results of being on an advanced site, there is likely something totally unrelated going on.

This 10 year study reveals that over half of diving accidents were caused by a cardiac incident or Aterial Gas Embolism. So either an out of shape diver or one with a cardiac defect or having a stroke or a diver surfacing too fast while holding their breath are the reason for more than 50% of scuba deaths.



In a DAN diver fatality survey 26 percent were classified as normal weight, and 74 percent were overweight or obese. Forty-five percent were obese or morbidly obese, representing a higher proportion than in national surveys.

 

[Sorrows]

I guess a lot of people dont read the liability release that they sign.
You are responsible for you own safety. Diving is dangerous, You may die doing it. Even if you follow all the rules you may still die.

Why does anyone think that more rules, regulations or laws will save someone when we dont even know how they died? Seriously, all we know is one second she was there and the next she was gone. And somehow somebody thinks they could have saved her with more rules?

We know that she shouldn't have been on Santa Rosa Wall on such a day, don't we? I would argue that the dive op/DM didn't follow existing PADI rules. The victim here had completed a mere 10 dives; she was not AOW certified, which means she was not supposed to go below 60'. Santa Rosa Wall is at least 80 feet, but how would she know that before she booked the dive, when the destination (most likely) wasn't even chosen until everybody was on board and the more experienced divers began clamoring for SR Wall?

This happens at just about every dive destination I can think of, btw, where disparate people get into a boat and start talking about where they are going to go. Sometimes conditions and the DM's inclination will prevail; often the wishes of the biggest/loudest group prevail. Sometimes the more experienced divers are bored, sometimes the new divers are in over their heads. Usually it works out okay, except when it doesn't.

I do wonder, however, if this (divers finding themselves at dive sites beyond their ability and training) happens more in Cozumel than in other places--perhaps because of the huge influx of day-trippers?

 

[MMM]

You know, I have a great deal of sympathy for the DMs in this regard. And especially when they know they will likely never see these divers again and thus build a rapport with them. Hence they do all they can in the moment to please the divers on the boat to maximize tips. As has been said many many times, new divers don't know what they don't know and so probably wouldn't think to ask the depth, difficulty etc. And once at the site, don't want to rock the boat. So you may well be right that day-trippers change the landscape entirely. Something I had not given a lot of thought to until now. BTW, after hundreds of dives in Coz I am NEVER bored on even the easiest of dives. I can always find something to entertain myself on any dive (even my less favourite sites) and never clamour for a particular site or roll my eyes at the choice of the group on the boat. I can be perfectly happy mucking around in 30 feet of water with no current but the DM and group had best be prepared for a long dive! Most experienced divers I have encountered feel the same way. I don't think it is the experienced divers one needs to be concerned about annoying.

how would she know that before she booked the dive, when the destination (most likely) wasn't even chosen until everybody was on board and the more experienced divers began clamoring for SR Wall?

This happens at just about every dive destination I can think of, btw, where disparate people get into a boat and start talking about where they are going to go. Sometimes conditions and the DM's inclination will prevail; often the wishes of the biggest/loudest group prevail. Sometimes the more experienced divers are bored, sometimes the new divers are in over their heads. Usually it works out okay, except when it doesn't.

I do wonder, however, if this (divers finding themselves at dive sites beyond their ability and training) happens more in Cozumel than in other places--perhaps because of the huge influx of day-trippers?

 

[gypsyjim]

That has not been my experience. Plus, expecting a novice diver to deploy it at 30-50' is unrealistic. This whole thread originated as the result of the apparent death of a female diver with ten or less dives. I doubt that a safety sausage would have saved her.

No one even inferred such. The discussion was many faceted.

I will make one comment about that though:

In my limited experience diving Coz I have repeatedly seen DM's deploy their SMB when a diver who has no SMB of their own, needs to ascend, then the DM waited below until they actually saw the boat picking up that diver, before the DM reeled their SMB back down to depth and then continued the dive with those divers who were continuing their dive.

Had this procedure (of the DM slowing the dive and doing the deployment of the SMB while monitoring the ascent of the diver, and her husband buddy) been observed, the results of this incident could possibly have been very different, in that at least the ascending diver would have been being watched, and might not have disappeared.

A novice diver should not need to take the additional risk of a drift dive on a wall. There's simply no reason for it.

The best accidents are the accidents that don't happen. Taking new divers to an appropriate dive site would have "eliminated a failure point" (to steal and partially mangle a DIR phrase). It's not possible to have buoyancy or current issues over a hard, current-less bottom, and keeping it shallow makes it much more difficult to run out of air or no-deco time.

A shallow, hard bottom and a moored boat could have made all the difference in the world. If Cozumel doesn't have the geography to support this, or the dive ops are unwilling to take new divers to appropriate locations, then maybe Cozumel isn't a good location for new divers.

flots.

BUT Cozumel IS a major dive destination, and one that new divers have been encouraged to go to for quite a long time now. A perfect site for new divers? Maybe not, but I do not think we are going to convince the dive industry and the local economic interests to suddenly close the door for new divers after all these years of Coz diving being so popular.

What do we actually know about the recent deaths that are attibutable to advanced dives?

I can recall a death due to CO poisoning. There was a death of a woman who surfaced in 50 ft of water on the c-53 dive by herself and there has been a death of a woman who disappeared or was abandoned by her buddy while she was on her way up form 30 feet.

None of these divers were blown off the reef and disappeared in deep depths, the last two were involved in 30-50 ft and on their way to the surface. Odds are only two things happened - 1 was they made it to the surface and then for some reason went back under and drowned, or 2 they never surfaced. Odds are there was a medical condition was involved such as a heart attack or a stroke, or there was panic involved and a mistake in basic diver safety such as a run away ascent followed by massive air embulism? deflating instead of inflating a bcd at the surface, forgetting they could drop weights or something equipment / panic related.

When divers disappear between 50 and 30 feet and the surface it's really not the results of being on an advanced site, there is likely something totally unrelated going on.

This 10 year study reveals that over half of diving accidents were caused by a cardiac incident or Aterial Gas Embolism. So either an out of shape diver or one with a cardiac defect or having a stroke or a diver surfacing too fast while holding their breath are the reason for more than 50% of scuba deaths.

In a DAN diver fatality survey 26 percent were classified as normal weight, and 74 percent were overweight or obese. Forty-five percent were obese or morbidly obese, representing a higher proportion than in national surveys.

Do you know: does DAN have stats on the proportion of "normal weight" divers, to overweight divers, in the general dive population? Scuba diving is a sport that costs a significant amount of money for gear, and even more for warm water trips, so it is attracting a more "mature" segment of the overall population than it did in the past, in part because of this cost.

I would think that is fairly safe to assume there is also a fairly high proportion of over weight to normal weight in the population of divers who do NOT have fatal accidents for this reason alone. Statistics do not always tell the whole story.

 

[fred3798]

How is "drowning" listed as a cause of death in 33%. What caused the person who is a good swimmer and has air to drown? That's not a very helpful stat and it is so large that it makes all the others less meaningful too. E.g. If 29% of fatalities are due to embolae mightn't that mean that 10 of the 33% drownings were caused by embolae too? Drowning, by itself, is not a meaningful entry.

 

[gypsyjim]

As in: nearly 100% of all deaths are caused by dying?

 

[Mike]

Do you know: does DAN have stats on the proportion of "normal weight" divers, to overweight divers, in the general dive population? Scuba diving is a sport that costs a significant amount of money for gear, and even more for warm water trips, so it is attracting a more "mature" segment of the overall population than it did in the past, in part because of this cost.

I would think that is fairly safe to assume there is also a fairly high proportion of over weight to normal weight in the population of divers who do NOT have fatal accidents for this reason alone. Statistics do not always tell the whole story.

I doubt they would have those statistics since their information is gathered only when their is an accident. You're saying that because divers are obese and out of shape the accidents are going to be with obese and out of shape divers. I don't see how that changes the fact that being healthy is better than being obese.

How is "drowning" listed as a cause of death in 33%. What caused the person who is a good swimmer and has air to drown? That's not a very helpful stat and it is so large that it makes all the others less meaningful too. E.g. If 29% of fatalities are due to embolae mightn't that mean that 10 of the 33% drownings were caused by embolae too? Drowning, by itself, is not a meaningful entry.

I'm not sure, as I don't have in depth knowledge of the survey, but I would assume if an autopsy shows the drowned diver had a heart attack, the death goes into the heart attack column. If the drowned diver had an air embolism the death goes into the air embolism column, if a diver is trapped in a cave and goes OOA it would go in the drowning column.

Regardless - the point of it all is that - 1) many divers are in lousy physical shape taking part in an activity that taxes you physically, 2) the majority of fatalities are medical related

Purpose of my point is -- people don't disappear in 30-50 feet of water due to UFO's grabbing them, or currents pulling them down or sharks eating them, but they appear to have a medical issue and drowned on the way up. If you get to the surface and die with an inflated BCD you're going to be found. If you're not found, it's got to be likely you never made it up the 30-50 feet to the surface in the first place.

 

[ScubaSteve1962]

It depends on how you expect to use it. One dive op reportedly carries that on dives where a problem could lead to less than desirable outcome. While it seems to have utility in some cases, a PLB (Personal Locator Beacon) offers a different option for rescue.

I would expect to use my Nautilis Lifeline to call any boat in the area and give them the name of my dive-boat and GPS location, and use the beacon if on a night dive. Also couldn't a problem on any dive lead to a less than desirable outcome