Man in diving gear found dead on Fort Lauderdale beach

[HowardE]

getting an official report is way unlikely, too, howarde.

are those ever posted? (this is a sincere question.)

I'll keep an eye out...

On a side note ... here's part of the report from the Sun Sentinel.

The man was diving by himself and his gear indicated he had a full tank of oxygen, said Division Chief Lois Bowman with Fort Lauderdale Fire-Rescue. She said the man was from New Hampshire and appeared to be in his late 40s to early 50s.

Good thing he had a full tank of oxygen.

 

[Tom725]

Good thing he had a full tank of oxygen.

Shows you cannot rely on the regular preess.

 

[djanni]

I can't believe you guy's are making lite of this man's death and all the speculation about what killed him.

Show some respect for Chist sake.

 

[WahooWolfe]

Don, where do you get the disrepectful attitude you refer to? Seems very concerned and trying to make sense of the situation to me. Seems to me if you can learn from someone else's mistakes, or advance a safety procedure, that's a good thing.

 

[DandyDon]

I can't believe you guy's are making lite of this man's death and all the speculation about what killed him.

Show some respect for Chist sake.

I think all of the joking was aimed at the poor reporting done on the story. It is a bit much for my personal taste, too, but no one is joking about the deceased here.

We do care for each diver's misfortune, especially for the ones we lose. And we do try to learn from their possible mistakes. Perhaps official sources will announce more, or maybe a personal friend of the deceased will come on to tell us more.

 

[Doc]

[Yeah Don, I think that was about it- that and initiating debate over an issue where we don't have all the facts. You wouldn't counsel that, would you?]

Chist was in the Jedi Council.

Or one of the Muppets.

Cheezits Key Rights, I dunno- I got no savoir ferez, myself.

 

[drdiver1952]

Different strokes, different folks. Sad thing for most anybody to die. We're all going to die some day.... Well, let's not go there.

Well, I don't mind saying it, I'm sadder when divers die, with a full tank of oxygen or air, doesn't matter. Because we have more fun than just about anybody I know. That guy coulda been my buddy one day.

 

[Rick Murchison]

I certainly wasn't being flippant. There's a very short list of things that can cause a diver to die with a full tank. One of those is a failure to turn on the air before entering the water coupled with an inability to then reach the valve and turn the air on when the diver realizes he/she needs to do so. Almost every year there is one, sometimes two fatalities from this, and this could be one. The other likely event would be a CVA (heart attack) or stroke. There aren't many other possibilities, and at this point we don't know. Indeed, the authorities aren't likely to let us know.
In the meantime, there are two probable lessons to be learned from this unfortunate mishap - make sure you can operate your own valve(s) and keep yourself in decent shape. Could well be that neither of these apply here - but the mishap as reported brings those two to mind and as they claim lives every year their associated lessons are worth saying.
Rick

 

[JRScuba]

Condolences to the family.... I've got a few ideas of what caused this though given that its about a 100 yard walk through soft sand there and with it being mid-80's and him in full gear and approximate age range..... I'm not going to speculate, anyone with a med-background can figure this out.

Condolences to the Family.

I have to agree on the above. I went out on Datura beach one night. The tide was out and the surf was rolling in. Keep in mind I'm way beyond 50. Got about 100 feet from the beach, water was up to my knees since it was low tide. It was a struggle for me to get that far in the soft sand. The waves were hitting me making the walk tough. A wave knocked me over and was unable to get back onto my feet in the soft sand. Fortunately I had my air on, my regulator in my mouth, my buddy trying to help me up and a beach walker also came out to assist me.

I consider my self quite lucky and learned a great deal from the experience. Having all the right safety things in place it is a blessing to be here writing this.

There is no speculation on Cbulla's Post. It happpened to me and this is just to support his post.

Something to consider. The sad part is the diver is the only one that really knows what happened.

I know that the Dive Community is very saddened when were lose one our own.

My codolences again to the family and they are
in my prayers, as I sure we are all doing.

Joe

 

[DandyDon]

The released the name of the deceased, changed his state, still talking about Oxygen thank...

Dead man in diving gear ID'd by Fort Lauderdale police

sun-sentinel.com
Posted November 16 2005, 1:40 PM EST


FORT LAUDERDALE -- Police on Wednesday identified the scuba diver found dead on the beach in his diving gear a day earlier as Gregory Boyce, 44, of Rumford, Rhode Island.

Witnesses in the 2800 block of North A1A spotted the man floating in the water around 1:25 p.m., said Detective Katherine Collins, spokeswoman for the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. They fished the man from the water and attempted to perform CPR, she said. When paramedics arrived, they pronounced the man dead.

The man was diving by himself and his gear indicated he had a full tank of oxygen, said Division Chief Lois Bowman with Fort Lauderdale Fire-Rescue.

Collins said there were no obvious signs of foul play and the Broward Medical Examiner's Office on Wednesday determined the cause of death was drowning.