over weighting death

[TheRedHead]

gflseb, I'm sure it is disheartening to read public comments about your friend's diving accident. But divers discuss diving accidents and always seek to understand the circumstances of the accident so others may learn.

I don't see the corollary with The Last Dive. We know the Rouses died diving deep air which led to a series of mistakes. We don't know what happened in the case of your friend who panicked at the surface on what should have been an easy dive. Our condolences.

 

[johnnyseko]

This entire post is sad...

...but true.

It brought up an important topic IMO and a new thread was started regarding diving with children.

 

[sohnje]

As this is supposed to be the forum that other divers may learn from others misfortune, I would first like to state that I unfortunately learned that there is no such thing as a "easy dive". Each dive, whether deep,techinical, or shallow poses the same risks. I have read the previous comments and I know there are some who would like to boast their confidence in diving skills and agency training, but not matter what level of confidence or skill, sometimes accidents do occur. Unfortunatley, this accident occured with experienced divers who had excellent training and past experienced even on the same reefs. Emergency assist procedures where followed not only by this diver but also the two boys involved and it still did not stop this accident from occuring. But as with many other reports, the specifics are never correct with the newspapers and this accident as is appears is too simple to have occured, but it did.
Panic was a major factor in this situation and it occurred in someone who never had experienced it before. Until a person experiences such a situation, then you can never truly say how you will react. This being said, I still cant say enough about training, training and training until you begin to respond under any type of stressful situation, even though under these circumstances, it didn't appear to help. It is still easy to play the "woulda, coulda and shoulda" game but again, sometimes things go wrong under the best of cirumstances and the worst thing believable can happen. I apologize for those who wanted to hear a more technical answer, or who believe that there had to be more. The unsettled fact is that within two minutes of the initial dive, I lost a friend of many years.

 

[Missdirected]

ftroest: You said you would be here. I have thought of you daily. I will send a pm.

 

[TheRedHead]

Each dive, whether deep,techinical, or shallow poses the same risks.
.

Geez, I hate these kind of statements. Some dives are riskier than others. Diving the U-869 and Molasses Reef aren't even comparable. You need a bigger toolbox to make the riskier dives less risky. Not the same at all. :shakehead

 

[sohnje]

I made the same statements in the past, experience just taught me different. Risk is a perception. It's like stating that driving a 18 wheeler is less riskier than a car car as it's more technical to drive and requires advanced training. But the incidents of accidents for cars and rigs are statistically then same.

 

[johnnyseko]

As this is supposed to be the forum that other divers may learn from others misfortune, I would first like to state that I unfortunately learned that there is no such thing as a "easy dive".

Thank you for your post. This thread has taken many turns and covered many topics as we tried to figure out how/why. I am certain many have reflected and learned from this accident.

So sorry for your loss.

Thoughts are with you, the children, friends and family.

 

[TheRedHead]

I made the same statements in the past, experience just taught me different. Risk is a perception. It's like stating that driving a 18 wheeler is less riskier than a car car as it's more technical to drive and requires advanced training. But the incidents of accidents for cars and rigs are statistically then same.

I disagree. Risk is real and quantifiable. If you look at the incidents of diving accidents, the number of technical and cave divers have significantly more accidents than the recreational diver. You can do everything right and still get bent. There is no room for mistakes, there is no CESA option, every problem has to be solved at depth. The training is much more difficult and you don't get a c-card simply by paying the price of the course. You are doing a disservice to those who have trained to make the riskier dives by stating that the risk is the same.

You should look at a tech diving charter release and you'll see the words DIE numerous times. You have to agree that you could DIE making the dive and initial it in several places.

The incident at Molasses Reef was tragic and I'm very sorry to hear of the death of any diver.

 

[The Chairman]

I disagree. Risk is real and quantifiable.

This is true. It's great that 99.99% of all dives on Molasses Reef are without incident. But as with all risk, someone falls into that 0.01% category. There is often no fairness associated with it and there certainly seems to be no rhyme. Sohnje was there. He knows intimately the conditions, the training and the incident. I would ask that rather than argue the details or even his conclusions, that we try to LEARN from his first hand experience. Take a moment and understand what he has written and realise that for once in this thread, we have the horse that was there.

Sohnje, I can't begin to understand the pain that you have gone through. If there is anything I or the staff here can do to help you please ask. Thanks for sharing these intimate details with us. I hope you find it cathartic to express them and we will understand if there are times where you can't speak. Via con Dios.

 

[TSandM]

TRH, I think what sohnje is trying to say is that any time you are in the water, you could drown. And that's as true in a pool as at 300 feet inside of a wreck. Yes, the number of ways things can go sideways is greater in the latter situation, but if you don't cope with issues calmly and correctly, you will be just as dead in the pool. We tend to forget this. A diver died very recently in Seattle, apparently having slipped off some rocks into very shallow water at the beginning of a dive. (And when I say very shallow, I'm talking ten feet or less.) Anything that goes over your head is potentially lethal, and panic, even on the surface, is a bad combination with water.