Missing Diver - Grand Cayman Sept 21, 2009

[vladimir]

Sorry to ask in this thread, but is there an EPIRB on the market that is depth-rated for diving? Or do you attach to your flag-float? Many times diver's don't use individual reels with flags when diving from a dive-operator's boat or if the boat is anchored to a mooring buoy, etc. Just wondering how you manage the EPIRB. Thanks.

I would also like to know about your EPIRB. I have a personal EPIRB for back country skiing, but it is not depth rated.

Here's a dive canister:

Fastfind Dive Canister

designed to hold this EPIRB:

McMurdo FastFind Max G PLB 406 EPIRB

$824 altogether and a bit heavy to travel with.

 

[vladimir]

Do you understand that you are going to achieve nothing but put people off. Granny scuba being the prime example.

You'd like to suppress a discussion of the risks of scuba for fear of scaring Granny Scuba off? Let me guess--you make your living in the dive industry? Maybe some of the people put off by a discussion like this shouldn't be diving to begin with. Or maybe they shouldn't be diving 3000' deep walls, and a thread like this will alert them to that fact.

For those new divers out there reading this please understand that this is an extremley uncommon event and diving has a brilliant safety record compared to ther sports and activities. Check out the percentages if you don't believe me.

You have a world of wonder waiting down there, people are amazed by the underwater realm everyday worldwide so brush off your sense of adventure and forget all the worries that Jim Lap has put on you mind and go diving. Thats why we all started................right?

So it's wrong to speculate about the circumstances of this man's death, but this cheesy marketing spiel is appropriate?

So how should I know if I have enough skill level to particpate in a certain dive?
How am I supposed to self evaluate my abilties so I can make a decision on what I am qualifed to or not to do?

If the only result of the speculation in this thread is getting Granny to ask these questions, it has been worthwhile, in my opinion.

 

[Drew Sailbum]

wring all the lessons you can from a factless lesson. Nobody in this discussion was involved.

I think it is always best not to assume too much. There is always more information than what makes its way into a newspaper story.

In this instance, a diver was reported missing and was not found by subsequent underwater and surface searches. Very little else is known with any certainty.

 

[bsee65]

wring all the lessons you can from a factless lesson. Nobody in this discussion was involved. Rick you were NOT involved. I was NOT involved. None of us were involved. Do you understand that you are going to achieve nothing but put people off. Granny scuba being the prime example.

For those new divers out there reading this please understand that this is an extremley uncommon event and diving has a brilliant safety record compared to ther sports and activities. Check out the percentages if you don't believe me.

You have a world of wonder waiting down there, people are amazed by the underwater realm everyday worldwide so brush off your sense of adventure and forget all the worries that Jim Lap has put on you mind and go diving. Thats why we all started................right?

You just don't get it. Something about this incident must hit close to home for you in order for you to come out of no where to berate anyone who speculates here. Speculation and analysis are exactly what this entire forum is about. We aren't generating a finding of fact for coroners, insurance companies or families. The facts are important as we have them, but sometimes the only one who can provide them all is no longer with us. Based upon what we typically have, we can often come up with a handful of scenarios to explain the accident. For each scenario, there's usually a lesson or two to be learned. There are a couple mistakes made, or at least bad breaks, that combine to result in tragedy. In way too many of these cases, a tragedy that could have been prevented.

In this case, we don't know what happened to the victim. What we do know is that there wasn't a skilled and attentive buddy at his side to help him reach the surface at the end of the dive. That's a lesson any diver should be able to appreciate. It's possible that there was some medical issue that arose. This is not uncommon among older divers involved in accidents. Read through a few pages of threads here and you'll see this isn't wild speculation. We should all understand that diving isn't the same as floating, and that health and fitness factor into a safe diving experience. Again, whether or not it was a factor in this incident, it could have been and we should consider our health and fitness before getting into the water.

We may not know exactly what happened, but we do have a much better handle on what could have happened than would the typical "person walking down the street." If you want to leave diving safety to fate, then fate will decide. Many of us would rather consider what could go wrong so that we can avoid it, or prepare to recognize and handle it when it does. I doubt there's a single participant here who doesn't support diving. Opening your eyes to the risks shouldn't discourage the conscientious and capable diver. Understanding risks is critical to managing them in dive planning and execution. There's an old adage that experience is what you get right after you need it, and it is certainly true here. Discussing isn't the same as actual experience, but we all hope it will be enough to get someone out of a tight spot down the road.

 

[ScubaSteve]

Its quite clear why you are not a PADI instructor... you wouldn't get any business!............Welcome to Jim Lap Scuba, you may die doing this but i hope you have fun...... way to go Jimbo !!!!

Member Number: 177885, Andrew K. Wilmoth.......in these circumstances the person walking down the street knows as much as you do so why go on about it?

wring all the lessons you can from a factless lesson.................right?

<snicker>

Go stand in the corner . This forum has certain TOS and everybody has conducted themselves within them. If you are not comfortable with those TOS, then ScubaBoard will get along just fine without you. Otherwise, sit back, read some, learn some and learn how to pick your battles better.

 

[LavaSurfer]

If it was managed like the dives I've done with them on previous occasions, the DM takes off and looks for cool stuff, which he points out to whoever managed to keep up with him.

The rest of the group is spread out over hundreds of feet or more, around corners, behind obstructions and generally spread about. There really isn't any "group management" that I've seen.

Terry

Hmmmmm
My kind of dive, tell me about the site, show me the cool stuff, leave me alone, let me do my dive, let me manage my air, let me manage my plan, help me get back on the boat, drive the boat back so I can get a sandwich, give me a new tank and I will set up my own gear.

I am trained, I am responsible, don't lead me around on a leash.

 

[Drew Sailbum]

Perhaps our friend tanks4thedive doesn't realize quite how many people were in some way invovled in this incident, directly or indirectly. It might also be worth the time to look at where the various contributors to this thread live. And...

As publically discussed in various reports there were:
1. Those on the boat from which the diver had made his dive. This includes dive operator staff and guests.
2. Dive shop staff for the dive operator who called in the emergency to 9-1-1.
3. The 9-1-1 staff who took the call and notified authorities.
4. Other boats (with crews and/or guests) in the area involved in the search. Some put divers in the water to continue underwater search.
5. Marine Unit of the Royal Cayman Islands Police.
6. Helicopter pilot and crew who conducted aerial search.
7. Department of Environment boats and staff.
8. RCIP Detectives and Family Support Unit staff who interviewed parties involved.
9. DiveTech personnel who conducted a deep dive to attempt search and recovery.

All of them would have information on some aspect of this incident.

I happen to know a fair bit more than the person walking down the street.

 

[Rick Murchison]

wring all the lessons you can from a factless lesson.

We do it all the time. You do it all the time. Every time you say "What if...?" you're doing that.

Nobody in this discussion was involved.

Nobody at the NTSB is involved in an aircraft crash, either, but they still contemplate what happened, what most likely happened, even what could have happened, and extract lessons to help prevent the same mishap from happening again. Surely you understand the value of this process.

Do you understand that you are going to achieve nothing but put people off.

If we put one person off from doing something fatal, or, as a specific example, in this case, if we cause one person to monitor their depth on a wall who otherwise wouldn't have done so, then we've done some good. Scuba fatalities - especially if there's a "hush-hush" attitude in the industry - is a far greater "put off" than the honest and open discussion of those mishaps within the community; in the long run you'll have more and better business than by sweeping them under the rug.

For those new divers out there reading this please understand that this is an extremley uncommon event and diving has a brilliant safety record compared to other sports and activities.
You have a world of wonder waiting down there, people are amazed by the underwater realm everyday...

True!

...forget all the worries...

Worry comes from fear of the unknown. The whole purpose of examining mishaps is to remove the unknown, lay bare the hazards, and take positive steps to either avoid, eliminate, compensate, or reduce them to an acceptable level of risk. Then you can truly not worry, and truly enjoy the wonderful world of Scuba.
Rick

 

[Web Monkey]

Jim the dive industry is just that, an industry. Dive business owners are out there to make money just like companies who sell cars and big busnisses who sell cigarettes but when a person dies in a car accident or a member of the public dies of lung cancer we don't see people making such a fuss. Sadly this hapens from time to time.

SCUBA can't be 100% safe, however it can certainly be safer. If this means that some Dive Ops go out of business or that the job of the DM becomes surface support, or that the "Diving as Consumer Entertainment" industry collapses, it wouldn't break my heart.

Jim you lose all respect by completley forgetting the subject here. There is a corpse involved in this discussion,

Unless I've missed recent news, at this point there's a missing diver. And since you seem so concerned for the family and friends, I can tell you that they would be:

• Much happier to know that the victim is either dead or alive
• At the top of the list of people who think that the risks should get more publicity and should be controlled better.

you might do well do remember that fact. You state that this is a forum for informing new divers that they may be killed if they attempt to scuba dive. I would dread to think how your courses are run.

Wow, you really wouldn't like mine. I tell my students about the risks of "guided dives", "trust me" dives, DMs that run divers out of air, swim-throughs that exit @ 130'+ and all sorts of other stuff.

For all you know Jim the dive op in question may well have translated that the dive involved may cause death, (i doubt it though), and they probably completed all paperwork and checked logs and experience levels etc. I don't think you have this info so how can you comment on this with such bravado?

Actually, the dive op didn't do anything unexpected and nobody is blaming them for anything outside the usual level of benign neglect. The only thing that's known for sure is that if the diver had a buddy and they both had good buddy skills, at this point, we would have a victim or a survivor or at least know what happened.

Terry

 

[AndrewA]

Worry comes from fear of the unknown. The whole purpose of examining mishaps is to remove the unknown, lay bare the hazards, and take positive steps to either avoid, eliminate, compensate, or reduce them to an acceptable level of risk. Then you can truly not worry, and truly enjoy the wonderful world of Scuba.
Rick

Just to echo what Rich is saying. I have been planning my first trip to the Cayman Islands and have definitely not been put off by this thread (Nor the other similar threads about incidents in the Carribean) What it has done is to make me look more closely at the various dive operations and decide which one to use. It has also made me more aware of the level of self sufficiency I will need to have. This is especially true as I will be going as a "Tourist" without my regular dive buddy.