Key West fatality - Florida

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DandyDon

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Miami Herald
A man died Tuesday after scuba diving near a wreck off the Florida Keys, police said. The man, who was not identified, was reported missing at about 4 p.m. while diving near Joe's Tug, a wreck that sits seven miles southeast of Key West, said Adam Linhardt, spokesman for the Monroe County Sheriff's Office.
 
A man died Tuesday after scuba diving near a wreck off the Florida Keys, police said.

The man, who was not identified, was reported missing at about 4 p.m. while diving near Joe’s Tug, a wreck that sits seven miles southeast of Key West, said Adam Linhardt, spokesman for the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office.

About one hour later, the diver was found on top of the water, Linhardt said.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers began CPR and took him to the Stock Island Yacht Club and Marina where paramedics were waiting.

“The diver was pronounced dead shortly thereafter,” Linhardt said.


The man had been diving with two other people off a private 45-foot catamaran called the Free Bird. The two other divers surfaced but could not find him.

Joe’s Tug is a sunken 75-foot, steel-hulled shrimp boat in 65 feet of water. The sheriff’s office dive team assisted FWC in the search.

This story will be updated.
 
Joe's Tug is a sunken 60' tug boat which lies in ~60 feet of water. I dived/taught on it many times in the early 90's before hurricane Georges trashed it. It was a very easy and fun dive which always had several resident critters. Even when it still had its superstructure, it was no more difficult than the average reef dive in the area.
 
Hearsay alert. . . I have a friend/ fellow instructor who works for a local dive op who was personally involved with the search and recovery. He relates that the reporting on this is grossly inaccurate. The site is incorrect as are the details of the search and recovery. And the Freebird was the vessel in my friend's described incident so there were not two incidents yesterday in Key West, to be clear. Hearsay from another eyewitness is that the captain of the Freebird referenced Joe's Tug more than once on the VHF, probably a source of the confusion.
 
Most recent sheriff office update reported 71 year old casualty found on the Vandy, not Joe’s.
 
MCSO - Florida Keys
17 hours ago
UPDATE: The diver was found by good Sam commercial divers at the Vandenberg wreck and brought to the surface to the FWC. The reporting parties in this case told the U.S. Coast Guard they were on Joe's Tug, which created some confusion.
 
God Bless him he was still diving at 71! A real shame he was probably loving life!
 
Sheriff: Indiana man dies while diving in Florida Keys
(Note: I do not correct spelling in quotes.)
KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) — A 71-year-old Indiana man has died while diving in the waters off of the Florida Keys, officials said.

The body of Timothy Lee Jayne of Indianapolis, Indiana, was found Tuesday afternooon by a group of good Samaritan commercial divers. They were assiting in the search after Jayne went missing while diving from a private rental catamaran off Key West, the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

The sheriff’s office said investitgators don’t know what led to Jayne’s issue in the water.

The divers brought his body to the surface, where he was put onto a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission boat and taken to a marina. They administered CPR, but he was pronounced dead just before 5:30 p.m., officials said.

Autopsy results were pending on Wednesday.
 
The "good Samaritan commercial divers" were actually a local dive charter that pulled its divers from the water to go assist with the search. Kudos to them for assisting and ultimately locating the deceased.
 

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