Lost diver in Puget Sound

[UnderSeaBumbleBee]

Keruxts, it was a collection of folks from scubaboard, singledivers, and an lds that met up at the Devils Fork diving ramp at Lake Jocassee to dive together. Would love to meet up with you to dive at Jocassee sometime in the spring if you are interested. I will PM some info to you.

Anyway as a new diver you can get in some serious trouble trusting the "professionals" without realizing how much trouble to you getting into. You know might you are pressing the limits a little, but you don't think I am playing Russian roulette will 5 out 6 cambers loaded. Had Chad not been a man who thought of others more than himself, we might be hearing about more than one death on this dive. I am so sorry to hear that he got hooked up with a bad instructor who led him astray.

 

[spectrum]

This is sad and compounded by it being so needless. Condolences to all associated.

Picking up to the references to other cold water locales vs. Puget Sound. Lets remember what a "sound" is. I haven't been able to find a concise definition but I understand it to be a body of water such as a bay or inlet that has depths comparable to the open ocean. Here in Maine we have very few common sites that will get you past 80 feet on a shore dive and most are in the 40 foot range. This of course applies to shore diving. Four full sesaons of climates limits the number of divers and the frequency at which we dive in many months. All things considered it's a much thinner community in a region such as this.

I can appreciate the alure of such underwaater terrain in convenient reach on a shore dive. I can also see how it presents to divers oportunities that are way beyond the training of those not technically trained. I think this accident underscores the fact that every diver is responsible for their own preparedness and that includes training and equipment.

Pete

 

[Darnold9999]

re depths off shore, there are places around here where you can throw rocks from shore into 200+ feet.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

re depths off shore, there are places around here where you can throw rocks from shore into 200+ feet.

Thunder Wall, just south of Porteau Cove ... if the train ever derailed as it was passing the wall, it would land in about 220 feet of water. And one part of Stagg Wall up in Sechelt goes down sheer from about 60 feet above the surface to about 240 feet below it ... then continues down in steep ledges about another 400 feet past that.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Uncle Pug]

It drops to 600'+ straight out from the boat launch at Mukilteo though not as a wall but a steep slope. And it is not just inexperienced newbie divers who get themselves into trouble in such places.

Not that one need go deep to see really cool stuff ... but it is super easy access and many new divers dive there in spite of what can be at times high current and low visibility.

In fact many divers have been certified at Mukilteo and other Puget Sound sites that offer divers the opportunity to easily exceed their level of training and/or competence. Perhaps something should be included in classes at these sites warning of the danger that lies down that *slippery* slope.

 

[TSandM]

I did my second two certification dives at the Mukilteo T-dock. On the first one, I got separated from my instructor on descent and ended up on my back all alone on the bottom. Luckily, I was in only 45 feet of water. I didn't understand at the time why my instructor was SO terrified . . . Now I understand that I could easily have gotten dangerously deep if I wandered in the wrong direction.

 

[Uncle Pug]

It would be interesting to have a map of Puget Sound with markers showing the number of divers who have died at each particular location. Probably not something LDSs in the area would want to advertise because many of them are also training sites.

 

[Kayla]

I knew this guys mother.. I just talked to her this morning, and shes not doing well with this. Sending my thoughts and prayers their direction.

 

[mexken]

We dive a wall in Vancouver that goes to 315 and it's at the same beach where 1000's of people are trained to dive each year. The last diver I saw in trouble there was drowning in 6 feet of water, on his back, with twins and his air shut off. An otherwise safe diver that forgot protocal just once. Stuff can happen anywhere, any time. I find it odd that divers refer to their deepest dives as their "personal best" but I too have fallen for the alure of going deep on occasion. We are, as divers, always keenly interested in dive accidents because, I think, we wish to learn from other's problems and avoid them ourselves. A good strategy. Bashing those involved, specifically the Professionals, without first hand knowledge of the details is at best irresponsible. As in most accidents at depth, it is very difficult to determine exactly what happened and impossible to know what the parties involved were thinking. Incidentaly, it is standard procedure to suspend an Instructor after an incident regardless of blame so that he has time to recover emotionaly before being in a position of responsibilty again.Yes, the Pros are hopefully more knowledgable than newer divers but as in teaching a person to drive a car, there is little the instructor can do about how the student chooses to drive thereafter. This fellow did a very brave thing and he will be remembered for it.

 

[diver12345]

I have heard a slightly different version of what happened from a very reputable source. This was actually a divemaster class that was fininshing there last dives.The so called instructor was recently fired or removed from the Tacoma dive shop and had no insurance since being removed from the shops insurance.Also that it was a uncontrolled descent untill they found the bottom.There was never any mention of it being a dive to break someones personal best. If any of the above part is true then not only the instructor should get banned and go to jail but the divemaster canidates as well. Someone lost their life because of someone's negligence.