Lessons to be learned-Death in Palau

[scubatwinned]

Depends what level of screening you are talking about. Some LOB's sit down with the divers at the start of the trip check their cards check their experience, recent dives etc. You cant always be certain just from looking at a card. The weaker divers were then asigned in small groups with a DM for the first few easy dives to assess thier sterenths.
on a boat i sometimes DM on we carry about 28 passengers. We carefully check who has the experience, who we know and share out the potential weaker divers between the DM's. im sure this must be common practice elsewhere, but i have also dive in areas where if you turned up with a OW card and zero dives you could still be thrown into a 40m dive with a similar buddy

Cards can be very deceiving!!!

A few years ago we were diving Brockville Ontario in the St Lawrence a steady current but very very managable one. We were diving the Keystorm, a steel freighter that goes from the bow (8 meters) to the stern (32 meters). A friend of the group whom I dive with was there. I had not met the guy but he is a certified instructor who worked in the Carribean. We get into the engine room which is not all that tight or dark(~28 meters down and ~20 meters vis outside) and he starts to loose it . He could not get the zipper of his bc open to get out his light... One of the girls who was his buddy got him calmed, his light out for him and he was taken out. I think the card that saved the instructor card was an advanced diver!!! We found out later he had never been in a covered overhead situation!!!

 

[Albion]

Blue Corner is one of the best dives you will ever do!!!

seconded, on about our second or third day in palau we came up from i think big drop off and the DM said "jaques cousteau said this is one of the best dives in the world" (possibly somehting different but you get the idea), "but blue corner wasnt discovered when he dived here and we do that tommorow" - this set the scene,

What a dive it was, started slowly dirfting down the wall, a big school of barracudas was hanging about 3m off the wall as we went past them, we then started picking up speed along the wall and it went past the point where you you swim against it, the DM banged his tank and showed us his hook was out and ready, then the up current hit and were swept up the sloping face of reef, and at the top managed to hook in. Cant remember the numbers but there was a **** load of of grey reef and white tips moving backwards and forwards just in front of us. We spent a while there just watching the action (not burning much air either), was checked out by the resident napaloen Wrasse. Then we unhooked and dropped into the quiet area just behind the top of the wall where there are a number of sleeping sharks, from there we swam over and dropped into a channel and were swept along for another 20 minutes finally coming up to our safety stop. Four dives in one, I have done about 500 dives since then but still remember this dive quite clearly.

 

[Matthew]

I tried posting a link to a video, but it wont work

 

[Dragon2115]

After you have looked at them and made a decision to take the risk, you generally have something in mind as a reaction to the potentials. This doesn't mean something might not go wrong, but it should be from a risk that you accepted not one that you ignored.

There's also the risk that you did not anticipate too. But I understand your point and I certainly would approach the situation that way, but some people do trivialize, under estimate, and even ignore the risks sometimes. Those are the ones that will pay the unlitmate price for their mistake unfortunately.

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The current at Blue Corner is a fraction of what it is at Peleliu when the tide is at it's strongest. So one can push it a little more with not having the needed experience and get away with it.(Not saying that this is good) but Peleliu is not so forgiving!!!

The DM on the program also said that the current in the area varies greatly depending on the tide and phase of the moon. My point is simply that based on the description reported we really don't know how manageable the current was on that particular dive.

Some of the other things we don't know are:

What did she tell the DM's her skill level was?
Did she push herself so she wouldn't dissappoint her husband?
Did her husband talk her into something she wasn't ready for thinking that she was?
Did the DM explain the dive and the risks/bailout procedure well enough in the dive briefing?
Was the assessment of the conditions prior to the dive briefing accurate?

I don't think we'll ever know the answers to those questions which would have helped with a better analysis of how to better handle a situation like this. In the end we are responsible for ourselves in this sport. On dives like this one I've got to believe that a diver really isn't diving with a buddy but just happens to be in the same section of ocean as other divers at the time. Therefore if we're going to go to such situations we need to be prepared. Sadly in this case the womans' training failed her because it obviously wasn't ingrained in her enough to take over in an emergency.

 

[AlaskaDiver]

"Ya'll know I went to Palau and Yap for a dive vacation. I was on a Peter Hughes live-aboard in Palau. It was the 2nd day, and there were 17 guests."


I am saddened by the loss of a diver who was in a situation beyond their level of experience. This whole story reeks of the wrong people at the wrong site. Why is the most difficult dive on the second day? Reef hooks?? Dreadful! I went on a Mike Ball liveaboard and the motto was "peace on the reef". Everyone was reminded not to touch or take anything. A reef hook is very damaging to the corals and it takes an experienced individual to use it. I personally have never seen any reason with all the beautiful sites to choose from, they chose this site for the level of experience of the divers.

 

[scububa]

Ah, but what if you're not given "all" of the information to make a "correct" decision?

Well, I was responding to the postulate that one might jump off into a dive because they may never get back there again. I admit that no matter how many things you assess, the posibility of something else happening will always exist (one of the risks we except everytime we hit the water). Training, personal reaction and luck will have much to do with the outcome. If you feel you don't have all of the information, you should decide based on this "risk". I did say 'operators, instructors, and divers'...the operator needs to give "all" the information to the best of their knowledge or they are taking risks, and this type of event, while tragic for the principals, is not generally good for business, either. And we all have been in positions where we hear what we want to hear and ignore things. Diving in a very new environment should include research into what it is like, both pre-trip and during. To not do that is ignoring risks.

 

[erichK]

What did she tell the DM's her skill level was?
Did she push herself so she wouldn't dissappoint her husband?
Did her husband talk her into something she wasn't ready for thinking that she was?
Did the DM explain the dive and the risks/bailout procedure well enough in the dive briefing?
Was the assessment of the conditions prior to the dive briefing accurate? (clipped)

But we do have some strong indications. Please note the last paragraph of the report by the person who administered the heroic lifesaving measures.

" The claim could be made that the dive site was for an expert diver, and there were many novice divers. There were 17 divers in the water, and one divemaster. Panic situations wern't mentioned in the briefing (for instance, I knew that if I didn't hook in the beginning, it wasn't a big deal. I had plenty of air on my back, and it would've been a longer drift dive.) Perhaps the victim felt obligated to remain hooked, or to hook in even though she wasn't comfortable (instead of just aborting the dive) which exacerbated the situation."

Over several decades of interest in this sport, I've watched it become ever more commercialized as ever younger and less fit divers are lured by promises that diving is "safer than driving a car" and endless (often manipulated) vibrant underwater images into signing up for ever shorter and more "canned" and superficial courses, then for aggressively marketted vacations in all kinds of exotic locations.

Sounds like it could have happened to any of the "many novice divers" in very challenging waters after a very inadequate briefing in which "Panic situations weren't mentioned" with only a single overworked divemaster really experienced with this site and with a reef hook to fall back on.

Please look up accounts of what happened with another craft owned by the same operator in Belize, and perhaps also the thread I started by quoting a letter of complaint about a dive, apparently hosted by the same operator, from the instructors' area.

Of course we must all look after ourselves, but we are, at the very least, entitled to a fair warning about the dangers of a particular dive from any operator who is selling us a dive package (rather than just transportation). A responsible operation--and there are many--would actively discourage "novices" from undertaking such a dive. But that would be putting safety before profit.

 

[Palauman]

A reefhook CAN be damaging if you don’t know how to use it. Yes, It WILL be damaging to the corals if you hook onto the corals themselves, that’s why you should hook on a dead part of the reef instead. Reefhooks are very useful in areas (reefcorners) where the current moves all the fish to one side of the reef or corner (normally the side where the current is coming from). If you don’t hook, you’ll see the action for 3 minutes only, and your dive’s over because you’ll find yourself surrounded by blue water. Some divesites are like that, and Peleliu Cut is one of them, in a sense that the current will force all fish to be concentrated in one spot (exactly, the Cut).

 

[scubatwinned]

The DM on the program also said that the current in the area varies greatly depending on the tide and phase of the moon. My point is simply that based on the description reported we really don't know how manageable the current was on that particular dive.
.

I would have to disagree with that 1- the tide charts are known
2- the time of day is known
3- phase of the moon is known
so the currents condition is fairly predictable at the time of the dive.

When I dove this particular dive the DM's did the trip which took about 1 hour (2 dives, land based boats) at least once a week more if customers requested it. The live aboards do the same trips over and over. The DM's know this to be dive with a strong current.

 

[islandguy]

I agree, good training is crucial for safe diving, however no one really knows how they will react in a life threatening situation. Hopefully, excellent training will help us deal better with a panic situation.