Inspiration death number 18?

[Lisa3]

Confirmation of this year's second fatality? Or is this another one?

I have been working in Brunei and Australia for the last month and while in Brunei this last week heard of a German tourist who died on a Inspiration on 22 April 2003. The body had not been recovered at that time. He was apparently diving solo, with a group of OC divers in water 50-120 ft in depth. I have no other details at the moment.

 

[madmole]

To the best of my knowledge none of the now 3 RB deaths this year have been confirmed.

Normally The Inspiration lists are pretty good and come clean straight away if their is an incident. Martin normally puts an announcement out.

In all 3 of these cases everyone is just repeating the same rumours and heresay and asking "is this true". They will be on my site asap if confirmed

As for the earlier Hawaii incident. A death did take place as stated, but no confirmed evidence that he was on a rebreather let alone an Inspiration. Solo diving again!!!

 

[Twomixdiver]

The person who perished on April 24, 2003 was on Draeger Dolphin rebreather with 40 cu. ft. bailout bottle. His name was Alec Aboitiz of Manila


He was in a group of persons also on rebreathers. He was left alone when his group finished their safety stop.

He was found a several of hours later, in the same place where they left him, entagled in his still attached reefhook with no gas in either his rebreather or bailout. There was evidence that he way trying to disentangle himself.


He was 40 years old and left behind a wife with 3 kids.

 

[madmole]

Thanks Twomix

Solo diving claims another!!

And what happend to his knife??

 

[caveseeker7]

My thought, too, Madmole. Make that knifes, backup needed for solo dives.
Irresponsible, either to go solo without the right equipment, or to leave a diver behind. :upset: And people will mark it off as another RB death ...
although it might be a fin death. He was wearing fins, right?
Thanks 2mix

 

[Twomixdiver]

Reports indicate that he was able to use his knife for one or two cuts.

He drowned at about 7 meters or 21 feet. The weather top-side was flat and calm.


What a waste.

By the way.... what do you mean by a "fin" death?

 

[madmole]

Fins are dangerous!!!! all diver fatalities accured when the diver was wearing fins!!!!!

Its those jet fins, accident waiting to happen, should have worn force fins (yellow ones)!!!!

 

[dugandiving]

I don't know if you could put the death down to
solo diving, or the jerks he was diving with. If he was found two hours later in the same spot where they left him, what on earth were they doing during the two hours while he drowned. Common sense would tell anyone to go looking for a missing diver way before two hours had elapsed, and the last spot a person was seen would be the first place you would look. The draeger setup that was described has about a two hour duration, and presumably they were all more or less at the end of the dive when they last saw him. It would have been clear that he did not have two hours of gas left. Going on just what has been described, the deceased diver would have been better off with a knife or two, and not the clowns that swam off and left him.

 

[fins wake]

I do understand Diver Mole's frustration. It seems as if everytime a diver dies on a rebreather, whether semi-closed or closed-circuit, the rumours start spreading that it's the good old YBOD. People then jump the bandwagon, stating how "there seems to be an awful lot of deaths on that particular unit" and the snowball rolls on from there.

Later - sometimes quite quickly - the truth slips out. E.g. it's often not an Inspiration at all, in fact not even a CCR but a SCR ... (or in extreme cases perhaps not even a rebreather at all but OC) ... I've seen lots of examples of this throughout the years on many different fora ...

Would it be too much to ask for people to refrain from commenting on a piece of equipment they often know nothing about until all the facts are out? This goes for most other things in the diving world ... are the rules different, just because the equipment is British-made and not US-made? :boom:

As for Diver Mole's perceived lack of focus on OC deaths, I share his view. I've seen little mention of the two recent Goya deaths on fora worldwide. And nothing at all outside of Sweden on the Swedish diver who died on OC in the Gothenburg area last week (hit by a the dive boat propeller). Ibidem for the diver who died at Scapa Flow the other week and the female diver on the Rainbow Warrior last month ... etc etc.

 

[Twomixdiver]

I've been a dive professional (non-instructor) for the past three (3) years in the Philippines. I can only speak authoritatively above diving here.

There are three (3) known deaths on rebreathers for the past three (3) years .


In all cases their rebreather equipment was found to be faultless. In all cases the victims were solo-diving.


In my personal opinion solo-diving is an unnecessary risk.