Incident in West Palm Beach - May 18

[templeton]

I was diving WPB yesterday with Little Deeper. During our surface interval following the first afternoon dive we received an urgent radio request from another nearby operator to retrieve their remaining divers as they rushed back to shore with a medical emergency.

Of course we rushed to the scene to pluck three very grateful divers from the water. Once on board the three - the dive leader, and two experienced divers related to us the obviously disconcerting felling they had of surfacing only to watch their boat leave them behind, but happily they were not in the water that long. The others on their charter were apparently a class doing their open water certification dives. The conditions were less ideal than usual, with limited visibility and stronger currents than I've normally experienced around the area, but who knows if that could have contributed?

Obviously something went wrong. The scuttlebutt back in the marina when we returned was that it was a younger man, he was at the hospital, and the prognosis was not positive. Beyond what happened on my own boat, everything else is hearsay, so I apologize if anything turns out to factual errors.

I'm hoping for the best. Does anyone have any further confirmed information as to what happened, and if the person is okay?

---------- Post added May 19th, 2013 at 12:46 PM ----------

Sorry Admins, please feel free to move this thread to the "Accidents and Incidents" section...

 

[MrChen]

That would have sucked watching the boat take off. What would the Capt have done if no other boat was near by. Hopefully picked up all the divers, else there would be 4 divers in trouble rather than one.

Was this after your first or second dive and did you guys call it a day or continue diving?

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk 2

 

[uncfnp]

It was a diver off Deep Obsession. Apparantly he surfaced but quit breathing. I was on Narcosis at the time.

From WPEC-TV CBS12


Man Unresponsive Rushed To St. Mary's After Diving
RIVIERA BEACH – A man who was part of a diving team and came to South Florida from Georgia was rushed to the hospital after coming up from diving.
This all happening around 4:30 Saturday at the Riviera Beach Marina on a boat named Deep Obsession.
A dive instructor who was on board tells CBS 12 they were open water diving about three miles out into the ocean when the man in his 50's or 60's went down for about thirty minutes. They say he pulled himself out of the water and onto the boat and that’s when crew members said he started turning blue. A member of the dive team started CPR.
The Coast Guard, Rivera Beach police and fire rescue teams all arrived on scene and also performed CPR for about 10-15 minutes.
He was then taken to St. Mary's. No word on his condition.
A dive team described the man as being heavy set and complaining of being somewhat nervous before going on the dive.
They said the whole incident has left them rattled saying it was just supposed to be a weekend trip that took a scary turn.

 

[PatW]

The dive boats in south Florida tend to look after each other. If someone comes up and goes into cardiac arrest, the faster they get to a hospital, the better. Sitting out in the water for awhile is not a big deal for most divers. The captain will get on the radio and try to get another boat to go pick up his remaining divers. Personally, I think someone else's life trumps my having to wait in the water for another 10 or 20 minutes.

 

[MrChen]

The dive boats in south Florida tend to look after each other. If someone comes up and goes into cardiac arrest, the faster they get to a hospital, the better. Sitting out in the water for awhile is not a big deal for most divers. The captain will get on the radio and try to get another boat to go pick up his remaining divers. Personally, I think someone else's life trumps my having to wait in the water for another 10 or 20 minutes.

Definitely. I'm just curious as to the protocol. If I came up and my boat was gone, I'll have to assume someone is coming and as long as that happens, all is good. Otherwise you have additional casualties.

 

[iamrushman]

glad to see south florida dive operators helping each others out when it comes to floating divers.......hope all works out for the victim.

 

[Sevenrider860]

In my experience it is usually part of the boat briefing. They describe what the recall signal will be if they have to leave the area for a medical emergency. Everybody should surface, stick together as a group and wait for another vessel to pick us up. I am sure it is disconcerting to surface and not see a boat, but it is something you are informed could occur.

 

[templeton]

That would have sucked watching the boat take off. What would the Capt have done if no other boat was near by. Hopefully picked up all the divers, else there would be 4 divers in trouble rather than one.

Was this after your first or second dive and did you guys call it a day or continue diving?

It was just prior to our second dive of the afternoon, and after picking the three divers up we continued with the dive as planned. Two of those we picked up were also from Georgia, so I assume they were part of the same group as the victim.

I would hope that the other Captain wouldn't have left his divers without being sure they would be taken care of. Their dive site was within visual range of where we were, so it was easy to know where they would be. Once he could see we were on our way, he made a beeline for shore at full throttle, which would have been at the same time his divers were surfacing. The seas weren't especially high and dive leader had deployed a safety sausage in addition to having the dive flag, so they were fairly simple to spot. Had they not have had that stuff, it might have been a bit trickier. As it was they really weren't in any danger, but it must have been a long minute or two for them between seeing their boat take off until figuring out they hadn't been abandoned.

Anyway, I haven't been able to find anything further on the man who went to the hospital. I hope the outcome was positive...

 

[peterbj7]

In my experience it is usually part of the boat briefing. They describe what the recall signal will be if they have to leave the area for a medical emergency. Everybody should surface, stick together as a group and wait for another vessel to pick us up. I am sure it is disconcerting to surface and not see a boat, but it is something you are informed could occur.

I don't think I've ever heard it as part of a boat briefing.

As an operator I've wanted to do this, but couldn't as I couldn't positively raise any other boats, and as it was a drift dive I couldn't be sure where the divers would surface. A diver had surfaced early on in the dive and clearly appeared distressed though there was nothing obviously physically wrong with him. He wanted to go back to shore but in the circumstances I couldn't leave station to take him. I've often been on (advanced) dives when had the occasion arisen the boat could not have left to go to shore, and there were no other boats in the vicinity. In the first world the skipper could call for a coastguard helicopter, but that's generally not an option in the third world. Emphasises the point that divers have to be responsible for their own health and actions.

 

[dshorwich]

In my experience it is usually part of the boat briefing. They describe what the recall signal will be if they have to leave the area for a medical emergency. Everybody should surface, stick together as a group and wait for another vessel to pick us up. I am sure it is disconcerting to surface and not see a boat, but it is something you are informed could occur.

I don't think I've ever heard it as part of a boat briefing.

The boats in Monterey, Calif. generally include this as part of their briefing. See this thread for an example of how it works in practice:

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/ac...61-boat-dive-incident-monterey-1-19-13-a.html