Missing Diver off of Kahala, Oahu, Hawaii

[k ellis]

Hang on, are you saying that when conditions are so bad that SOPs can't be followed, and it is impossible for a DM to meet the normal level of care, then it is OK to carry on with a diminished level of protection and care, because that's the "reality?"

No what I am saying is actually a small part of a larger problem. First off to be clear there is in my opinion a great deal of liability already in place. There is no reasonable expectation that a divemaster leading a tour can keep track of every single diver and that is the truth. I am stating that its entirely possible as I said earlier there may have been some underlying medical condition and anyone and I repeat anyone who has ever dove in high current will tell you that dependent on the vis (Which was not reported to us until today) its entirely possible a dive master could loose sight for one minute and not truly be his fault as another diver may have diverted his attention for a moment.

Now what I am going to say is as me and you spoke last night I think there is a few unanswered questions or at least were if they have not been answered already. Did first and foremost the Dive Op even ask what qualifications each diver had? If so and any diver in the group not had the appropriate training they should have been turned away for safety. I dont know this divers background so I can not say.

Secondly the decision to go out on a dive rest on the shoulders of the diver himself provided that he is pre informed of the hazardous conditions HOWEVER a dive op should know better then to drop divers in to such heavy conditions. As a Dive Master I would turn down a request to lead potentially vacation divers (As Hawaii does often get) on such a hazardous dive. I would turn it down if I was with the most experienced divers and thats just my personal choice.

Third rest on the information still coming in and a little clouded as to why was there a report of an hour time lapse before help was called. I agreed with the poster earlier on that real life diving requires real life emergency preparedness. Count divers and recount divers. Precount before you leave the dock, precount before entry. Count divers coming up the ladder and count divers on the boat. I personally would recommend head counts one last time before debarkation.

There is a liability potential here and I will restate again what I have stated previously. The news reports ONLY what they are told. The truth is not the same as some one told the news who told me. The news looks for ratings and they get those by making the story sound worse then it is. Dooms day reports if you will. When it comes to light all the details then I will make my personal OPINION of the matter but its not my job to determine fault, guilt or innocence (Part of my job training there)

as for the reality of divemastering its the same as in any line of work. You are paid to lead a group and be responsible for the group as a whole. By paying attention to every divers needs you are going to loose track of the rest of the group even if only for a half a second. Anyone care to repeat the reason divemasters train with real life students? If I recall its so they can experience first hand some of the darndest things divers do on a whim???

 

[divermike1011]

Ellis:

I respect most of your posts, but you stepped in it on this one. Take a look at Oya's first post on this thread. I know him personally, and I know his diving skill. If he says conditions were bad enough he would have scrubbed the dive I have no reason to doubt his reasoning. This being the case if a dive was going to go ahead anyway doing it as a guided dive is way more liability then I'd want if I were DMing. If there was doubt as to whether a DM could track all his divers then they should have changed the plan.

One of the things I think we might want to focus a bit more on now that we've all got to air our opinions of what happened here, is to start looking at if the standard Oahu diving practice of only allowing customers to go on guided dives is a good one. Let's start pulling this issue apart because if this kid's death is going to mean anything to the industry out here it might just be as the spark that gets people to change their SOPs.

Guided dives are a poor choice from a liability perspective. We tend to get truly inexperienced divers out here on Oahu. Since guided dives are a bad idea, how to we improve customer safety and experience without doing them? I'd suggest a careful interview and talk with all potential divers. Ask them about their experience. Help them learn how to plan a safe dive. Rigorously enforce a buddy system. Use something like a DAN tag board to track whether divers are on the boat or in the water. Put a DM in the water, but make sure people are there to understand he's there to point out pretty fish, not as a fail-safe for their own lack of skills or training.

Let's hear some thoughts on how we're going to prevent this in the future, which frankly will require a massive shift in philosophy of diving operators out here.

Michael

 

[k ellis]

Ellis:

I respect most of your posts, but you stepped in it on this one. Take a look at Oya's first post on this thread. I know him personally, and I know his diving skill. If he says conditions were bad enough he would have scrubbed the dive I have no reason to doubt his reasoning. This being the case if a dive was going to go ahead anyway doing it as a guided dive is way more liability then I'd want if I were DMing. If there was doubt as to whether a DM could track all his divers then they should have changed the plan.

One of the things I think we might want to focus a bit more on now that we've all got to air our opinions of what happened here, is to start looking at if the standard Oahu diving practice of only allowing customers to go on guided dives is a good one. Let's start pulling this issue apart because if this kid's death is going to mean anything to the industry out here it might just be as the spark that gets people to change their SOPs.

Guided dives are a poor choice from a liability perspective. We tend to get truly inexperienced divers out here on Oahu. Since guided dives are a bad idea, how to we improve customer safety and experience without doing them? I'd suggest a careful interview and talk with all potential divers. Ask them about their experience. Help them learn how to plan a safe dive. Rigorously enforce a buddy system. Use something like a DAN tag board to track whether divers are on the boat or in the water. Put a DM in the water, but make sure people are there to understand he's there to point out pretty fish, not as a fail-safe for their own lack of skills or training.

Let's hear some thoughts on how we're going to prevent this in the future, which frankly will require a massive shift in philosophy of diving operators out here.

Michael

Well your probably right my not giving full answers and trying to short answer post did not help. Believe it or not though for the most part you just summed up my whole point I was trying to make. With exception to your knowing Oya which I dont have the privledge to say I do. Because I do not know him I would not be able to attest to his judgement and thats not saying hes a great guy or a bad guy its just saying I dont know him. Anyway thank you for the response as you pretty much hit my rationale spot on.

And just to clarify I was stating that in the conditions noted that a divemaster leading a group would not be able to keep track of every single diver and he could loose a diver easily. I really never said it was a good idea to begin with to even attempt to dive. I was just stating once in the water and leading a group it would be impossible to expect a dive master to be 100 percent capable of keeping up with every diver. I agree 100 percent that it should have been either rethought and a new plan made or aborted all together

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

IMHO, A certified diver who agrees to do a guided drift dive has a duty to keep the guide/group in sight. If you don't have an assigned buddy, not staying on the guides shoulder is risky; the greater the distance the greater the risk.

It often seems to me that, along the various subject lines of "guided diving" - half the posts on SB sound like fist-slamming-table demands that "divers don't need babysitters" and the other half practically convict guides of not fulfilling their duty-of-care; without even needing a change of avatar.

It would be interesting to hear some thoughtful speculations as to what "complete" sequence of events could lead to never finding the diver, and only one fin.

 

[divermike1011]

Conditions were typical! I was there, the sea conditions and currents WERE NOT out of the ordinary for this area.

Assuming this is true, does it make it right to splash divers? Are you defending the practice of putting tourist divers into high seas and strong currents as business as usual?

As far as I can tell most people were highly appreciative of your first post (it's good to know the viz, and that the diver was discovered missing almost immediately at the end of the dive). I'm not sure what you're so upset about you. Nothing said in this particular thread is out of the norm for what typically gets posted in A&I threads, and while people, including myself have speculated that the dive operator bears some responsibility, that also isn't out of the norm. Why are you personally so upset? Way I figure it the only people who ought to be personally upset are the vic's family, those diving with him, and anyone the US Attorney chooses to indict if this goes that way. Other then that we're engaging in analysis to figure out how to keep this from happening again.


And yeah, I do trust Oya's judgement, with my life in fact.

Michael

 

[Blue Sparkle]

This incident definitely makes one want to know what happened. Especially since the diver just "disappeared" and may still be alive (one sincerely hopes).

A few people have mentioned that it might have been a medical problem. I'm only speculating on averages here, but given that he was a 28-year-old doctor (resident) that seems less likely than if he were say, a diver in his 50's or beyond. Not that a young doctor couldn't have had a known, unknown, or unusual medical problem, but it just seems less likely than him having some other diving problem to me at this point (<--- this is pure speculation, just going on "averages" in my own mind, and is open to change if we get more facts).

Here is a bit more about the diver (the article includes a photograph of him):

Scuba Diver from NYC Goes Missing | NBC New York

"A New York City doctor who disappeared while scuba diving off east Oahu is believed to be lost at sea, and Honolulu firefighters resumed their search for him Thursday.

The missing man is identified as 28-year-old Matthew Curley.

St. Luke's-Roosevelt confirmed to NBC New York on Thursday that Curley is a third-year post-grad resident in emergency medicine there.

A spokeswoman said he is a "well-liked and well-respected member of the residency team... our thoughts are with his family and loved ones during this difficult time."

Curley was diving with a group of 11 people at a sunken wreck called "Baby Barge" on Monday and was not accounted for when the dive ended in the Waialae-Kahala area.

The U.S. Coast Guard suspended its search Tuesday night, and Honolulu Fire Capt. Terry Seelig says if no new information is found by the end of Thursday, firefighters could also decide to terminate their search effort.

A fin was found in the water Tuesday. Seelig says Island Divers identified it as the same type and size that Curley was using, which prompted rescue divers to concentrate about a mile south-southeast outside the dive site.

Firefighters are also walking along the coastline because the strong swell could have pushed Curley to shore.

Seelig said the fire department has been searching by boat and helicopter about three miles from shore, and divers have been searching an area about two miles along the coast.

Curley graduated from Bucknell University and New York Medical College. A St. Luke's residency site lists his interests as wilderness medicine, baseball, skiing and movies."

 

[zrxdiver]

It WAS NOT high seas and strong currents. It was a TYPICAL day for this area. None of the "tourists" on the boat I was on complained about the conditions. I have tons of dives here on days just like this. You should not believe the news and their sensationalization. The swell was hardly noticable at sea.

I don't know what happened under the water, and neither do you. Speculation adds nothing to this discussion.

 

[Pliny]

After commenting and reading other comments here, I still have a bunch of questions. Can we answer (some of) these? They do overlap a bit.

I don't expect anyone on IDH that day to comment (they will likely be called as witnesses in any litigation regardless of whether the missing diver is found alive, found deceased, or never found).

Finally, before I get to my questions, my thoughts are with the family and I'm still hoping for a good outcome. I was optimistic on Wednesday but I admit it's not looking good now.

1. How bad were the conditions AT THE SITE. We know that offshore waves were 10' trough-to-crest. I find it tough to accept a site estimate of 2-4'. What was the prevailing current (direction and strength) at the surface? At depth?
2. Was the dive conducted using the (standard, AFAICT) Hawaii practice of a DM leading up to 6 divers on a gang dive? I am assuming yes unless someone tells me otherwise. Does anyone have experience with IDH creating or enforcing buddy teams? They (or their staff) do some tech diving and training and may take a different approach than other ops.
3. When could (should) the DM have realized he had a missing diver? I'm guessing the missing diver was accounted for until he ascended, else the dive would have been cut short per the lost buddy protocol.
4. Was the dive plan to send up individual divers as they became LOA? This is another common practice in Hawaii in my experience. If this was a drift dive, how was the pickup coordinated if divers planned to surface individually? Could such a pickup plan be consistent with the conditions?

I see three scenarios leading to the missing diver outcome.

1. The diver was lost from the group before ascent. That would reflect very badly on the DM.

2. The diver lost control of bouyancy in the ascent (perhaps due to current and surge) and had an AGE followed by LOC, and drifted away before anyone noticed.

3. The diver surfaced, was blown off the site, was unable to reach shore, and was not found by the USCG and HFD. That suggests that the signaling and safety gear in a standard rental gear package is inadequate for offshore diving on Oahu, at least on days with less than ideal conditions.

Finally, IANAL, but I wonder about the liability of the dive operator taking groups of divers without defined buddy responsibilities on commercial dive tours led by a DM. It seems to me that (given the divers are usually not solo certified and never solo equipped) at this point the DM is effectively accepting the responsibility and the liability of being everyone's buddy. Since they are a paid professional, they are the one that gets sued, rightly or wrongly. Does this mean that Hawaii dive ops need to stop running gang dives?

 

[cruiser]

Well its apparent your not going to look at the reality of the situation so sorry I cant convince you of the realities of real life dive mastering and how there is no way in the conditions mentioned if accurate a divemaster would be able to watch every diver every second of the dive. I wont continue this particular debate any further as i will focus on the issue at hand and wait for the facts to unravel if we are fortunate enough to ever learn the truth.

On a sidenote guys is the family still popping in? I know they came in earlier in the thread and I was wondering if they have been told anything new or could help with an update.

We obviously have very different expectations on a dive of this type. Knowing the viz as we do now, for a diver to have gotten separated from the group without notice means someone REALLY was inattentive. A divemaster doesn't have to watch the group every second to keep track of the divers, especially if there was another dive master in the water, presumably bringing up the rear. And if the dive masters couldn't fulfill their duty of care because of ocean conditions that day, the dive excursion should have been cancelled. To know that conditions were bad and it would be impossible to keep up with the divers, yet still put divers in the water, was a major fail IMO.

 

[Ayisha]

Rental gear does not have an SMB. Rental gear does not have a whistle. I admit that IDH's rental gear is pretty nice and it is well-maintained, but it does not have an SMB or a whistle.

I've not been to Hawaii since I started Scuba but I get the idea that it's generally a vacation locations with some diving to most and visiting divers will be mostly on rental gear, lacking signaling devices like SMBs, etc.

Just because rental gear doesn't typically come with signalling or other safety devices doesn't mean that a renter can't carry them. I always bring my own gear but last fall on a trip to the Red Sea, due to severe luggage restrictions on multiple inter-Egypt flights, I brought only my personal and safety equipment and rented the rest. I brought my SMB, Scubalert, shears, 2 dive lights, Glo-Toob plus a chemical light just in case. I had arranged in advance the type and size of BCD I would be renting so I knew I had pockets/D-rings to place the gear in/on. The only things I didn't bring were my whistle and slate. After each set of dives, I just had to remember to remove my belongings from the rental gear, and it really wasn't an issue.

The safety equipment that I brought to use with the rental gear took up hardly any space or weight, but it gave me peace of mind.