Officer died in Chesapeake Dive Team training

[Herb-alaska]

DAN's top two dive insurance plans will pay up to $2,500 for gear lost "Resulting from a covered diving accident." No reason why they shouldn't be covered too.

DAN Insurance coverage is not in force when you are Public Safety diving period. I called and checked when I joined our team. It still covers me when i am recreational just not PSD or anything commercial.

 

[markmantei]

DAN Insurance coverage is not in force when you are Public Safety diving period. I called and checked when I joined our team. It still covers me when i am recreational just not PSD or anything commercial.

Still doesn't excuse not ditching gear (it can usually be recovered later anyway). Easy statement to make while dry through, unfortunatly I might make the same choice to avoid ditching until to late, I'd like to think I wouldn't, but who knows?

 

[GrumpyOldGuy]

Perhaps someone "restrung" them the wrong way so they didn't release properly? Is that possible? (I've never seen a rip-cord system work so I don't know how it's restrung.)

I had one, its pretty fool proof.
If you restring it wrong, there is not enough line to close the compartments and the weights fall out - been there, done that.
Now, if you decide to do something like put the weights in the cargo pockets or modify the ripcord, all bets are off.
Obviously with 12 out of 12 systems failing, there is a source of bad information so speculation will do us no good.

 

[DandyDon]

DAN Insurance coverage is not in force when you are Public Safety diving period. I called and checked when I joined our team. It still covers me when i am recreational just not PSD or anything commercial.

Ok, thanks. DAN covers recreational diving, instruction, photography, and some more - but not commercial or PSD diving, so thanks for the correction.

 

[TechDeep]

TechDeep thanks for the link. I watched the two relevant videos.

I find it inexcusable that formalized, comprehensive, functional pre-dive equipment & buddy checks were not a part of the dive team's standard operating procedure. There's plenty of blame to go around. It's clearly a failure in leadership, but such checks are so fundamental that any scuba diver with a basic OW certification should know better.

FWIW, I don't know any active divers who pay to have their BCDs serviced annually by an authorized service technician. In my opinion, it's not necessary. What is necessary is frequent testing of the equipment to ensure that the power inflater will work properly during a dive. At a minimum, it makes sense to do such tests immediately before a dive as part of the pre-dive ritual. That's the right time to test whether there is any inappropriate inflation/deflation/leaking and whether oral inflation works. In addition, tank-securing straps and weight-ditch mechanisms should also be tested.

I have a pretty good idea why the dive team did not test the weight-ditching mechanism on their Zeagle BCDs on the dive in question and before all dives as part of the pre-dive checks. It can take several minutes to re-string the ripcord once it has been fully deployed on a BCD. The video mentioned that 3 months prior to the incident all of the divers on the team had tested their BCD weight-release mechanisms and all functioned appropriately...but after the incident all of the weight-release mechanisms "failed testing" (failure mode was not disclosed). There seems to be some sort of disconnect here. To have all 12 BCD weight-ditch mechanisms fail within a 3 month period is very peculiar. Something ain't right.

It's unclear why the victim didn't just ditch his entire rig at the surface if he was having problems maintaining positive buoyancy.
The report did not mention whether the victim had ample gas supplies. Assuming he did, he should have had plenty of time to extricate himself from the rig.

I wonder whether the victim was properly weighted.

Does anyone know the amount of dive experience a diver needs to join a police department search-and-rescue team? Just curious.


Power inflater assemblies can function fine without servicing for years...or just a few months. It depends on how often they are used, how well they are cleaned/stored, and the kind of water exposure (fresh vs. salt).
They do fail, though. The two most common failure modes I have encountered are:

1. Some minor bubbling/leaking originating from the button.
2. A sticky power inflation button leading to inappropriate inflation.

The appropriate pre-dive checks should reveal the above issues.

Overhauls for a standard power inflater assembly are very straightforward and only require the right tool, a few o-rings, and some lube.

No problem Bubble, glad you were able to see the videos. You just never know when even the slightest bit of information that you gather and store away may actually save your life one day.

As for weight, (and I know the guy reading the news is likely not a diver and the information is not 100% reliable) they said on the news the guy was wearing 40 pounds! In a lake ... are you kidding me? Like I said, they showed his picture, and he appeared to be young and in good physical condition.

The first BC I ever owned was a Zeagle, purchased 20 years ago. I forget the model, but it had the rip cord, and I dove that thing for 15 years, and never tested the weight release, because I figured I had no idea how to re-string it. I admit that was stupid. I guess I just figured if it didn't work, I would ditch my rig, as I had practiced at least twice a season, and of course more often than that after I started working with students. Sure I would never want to drop my rig while at the surface, but given the choice of that or drowning, bye bye rig, I'll be back for you soon ....

This is one of those things that the more you hear, the less sense it makes.

 

[warscout2]

I hate to point blame and the victim, but this was a failure on multiple levels and most of them where ultimately that diver. He chose to dive with a know bad inflator, he also used pour gas management and ran out of air. I look at this and it screams this team needs to rethink the hole way they operate. Why is no one on the team qualified to service the gear. If your department cant afford to run a dive team, then don't half ass it.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

I hate to point blame and the victim, but this was a failure on multiple levels and most of them where ultimately that diver. He chose to dive with a know bad inflator, he also used pour gas management and ran out of air. I look at this and it screams this team needs to rethink the hole way they operate. Why is no one on the team qualified to service the gear. If your department cant afford to run a dive team, then don't half ass it.

There's plenty of blame to go around. All of the mistakes made during the incident point to insufficient/sub-standard training, poor (or an utter lack of) pre-dive gear checks, and a general lack of supervision by the person entrusted with leading the dive team.

FWIW, diving with a non-functional power inflater isn't a big deal so long as oral inflation and the exhaust button works. I don't recall any mention that the victim tested out these things before deciding to go ahead with the dive.

I don't recall reading that the diver ran out of air or was guilty of poor gas management. Where did you read this?

 

[ajduplessis]

Please excuse, but I need to vent!!!

6 pages of nothing and a lot of blame. These threads are useless 90% of the time. Dive shops, operators, instructors, agencies and even family tend to cover up or reluctant to let the truth been know. If this was not the case a lot more real life lessons would be learned, maybe some changes to training and updated procedures would come to light.

Diving industry is getting worse by the day. Divers are overweight, cant swim, smoke, use alcohol, unfit, have no idea about the risks, cant plan dives or gas to name a few. Instructors are getting worse, agencies only do the very basics and money is king (dm 30 dives, instructors less than 60 wtf!!!!) No one cares any more and people die on simple 60ft or less dives.

 

[DandyDon]

Warscout2, I see that you are on a Dive Rescue team in the adjacent city, live where the accident happened. I wonder if you have personal experiences with that police team? At any rate, I'm sure area teams will use this sad accident as a beneficial reminder for a long time.

Please excuse, but I need to vent!!!

6 pages of nothing and a lot of blame. These threads are useless 90% of the time. Dive shops, operators, instructors, agencies and even family tend to cover up or reluctant to let the truth been know. If this was not the case a lot more real life lessons would be learned, maybe some changes to training and updated procedures would come to light.

When I first got interested in the risks and coverups of CO tank gas, I asked my Instructor what he knew - and he told me of a police dive team CO accident that had happened nearby, but only as hushed info. I could never find anything public on it. I doubt that many police dive compressors use CO monitors or divers use CO testers still tho.

Then there was the CO fatality in Central America that got pulled from this forum, settled with agreements to not publicly discuss it, and all I could ever find officially was a drowning on DAN's annual report. I have heard from some family members over the years, on confidential conditions.

There's plenty of blame to go around. All of the mistakes made during the incident point to insufficient/sub-standard training, poor (or an utter lack of) pre-dive gear checks, and a general lack of supervision by the person entrusted with leading the dive team.

FWIW, diving with a non-functional power inflater isn't a big deal so long as oral inflation and the exhaust button works. I don't recall any mention that the victim tested out these things before deciding to go ahead with the dive.

I don't recall reading that the diver ran out of air or was guilty of poor gas management. Where did you read this?

In the original article it was stated that the state dive team was asked to investigate. Even if they keep info from the public, we can hope that they share the knowledge and warnings with other teams as well as correct this one.

 

[warscout2]

There's plenty of blame to go around. All of the mistakes made during the incident point to insufficient/sub-standard training, poor (or an utter lack of) pre-dive gear checks, and a general lack of supervision by the person entrusted with leading the dive team.

FWIW, diving with a non-functional power inflater isn't a big deal so long as oral inflation and the exhaust button works. I don't recall any mention that the victim tested out these things before deciding to go ahead with the dive.

I don't recall reading that the diver ran out of air or was guilty of poor gas management. Where did you read this?

The video of the police chief briefing the media on their findings says the diver was out of air when they sufficed in distress.

The video can be found on the PilotOnline.com: News for Hampton Roads, Va., from The Virginian-Pilotwebsite i just don't know how to link to the video its self.