San Diego Dive Fatality 9-29-09

[jridg]

I've been debating saying what I am about to say as this operator was still in business, but now that they are no longer....

I was a DM on their boats for two months in the fall of 2008. I was brought in by a very good and upstanding DM who was basically running the operation on his own. He was a relatively new DM, but a hard-working and caring young man.

After the operator nearly sank one boat and ran another aground, this young man decided that, in good conscience, he could no longer work for these folks as the boats were, in his opinion, not safe to operate. I followed him very shortly thereafter as I agreed with his perceptions.

From what I can tell, from the time we left, the operation went very quickly down hill and basically became worse than ever. We all really expected something like this to happen eventually - unfortunately it did happen. It's a terrible tragedy. There were some solid people working for the company while I was there. But from what I can tell, they all departed soon after I did. I did not personally know the DM involved with this incident. I don't even know if he was a DM, but the reality is that this operation, in my opinion, really was an accident waiting to happen.

Bottom line is that we must all make due diligence when choosing an operator to dive with. This board is a superb resource for that and many other matters. The fact that this operator is now, finally, gone, is certainly a part of this story. As was said, this is a continuation of the learning process brought out by this very sad event.

 

[Leejnd]

Oddly enough, in these last posts and especially the ones that got deleted I learned a whole lot that I can apply to my own diving. I have always been a bit careful about the quality of the operator I use when I am going to a new area, but these posts have opened my eyes ever so much wider about the potential lack of quality in the people running a dive operation. These posts clearly confirmed what had earlier been a lot of pure speculation.

I didn't have a chance to get on here yesterday to clarify what I meant in my post. So please allow me to do so today.

I have no problem whatsoever with any of the posts talking about the practices and ultimate fate of the dive op involved in this incident. Absolutely, that is an essential part of the story.

What I objected to was the post from Gottadive going into details about the sale of equipment, who one should call, and issuing warnings about liens and legal entanglements. That, to me, seemed over-the-line and beyond the scope of what we should be discussing in here.

I've followed this thread from the beginning. If all that I've read about that dive op is true, I say good riddance, and I thank everyone who actually knew something about them for sharing their knowledge. But what I DON'T want to see is a bunch of arguments and sniping in here about selling off their equipment and crap like that. That has nothing whatsoever to do with this incident, and people involved in the dismantling of this company should talk to each other directly, not here.

That's all I meant. I do appreciate all of the info that those "in the know" about this dive op have posted.

 

[Ann Marie]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

I've moved the posts that advertised DCI closing into a thread where that is already being discussed. Please go to this thread to follow that discussion.
Thanks.
San Diego Dive Connection Closing Doors

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[K_girl]

Gottadive.com is no longer affiliated with Dive Connections Inc. in any way shape or form. The partnership eroded between the partners and Gottadive.com is now completely separate from the company DCI.

In relationship to this incident, the pertinent information would be who provided the dive mastering on the trip - was it gottadive or DCI? Since DCI employment/job information linked to gottadive, I would assume that it was a gottadive employee who was dive mastering the day of this incident.

 

[fisheater]

Dang. This might become Hollywood material.

 

[diversteve]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

Thread re-opened

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[jridg]

I recently was able to speak with a person who was present during this incident. The items I am going to post below are, as far as I know, factual with regard to this incident.

Set up:

1. DM was NOT current nor insured. Apparently his most recent currency had expired four years previously. I use the term 'DM' as this person apparently had been through the class, but was not up to date. In my mind, this does not qualify a person to be a Divemaster. In order to do that, one must stay current and be insured.

2. DM was NOT dressed to get into the water in case of a diver in distress. Apparently this person was wearing shorts and a t-shirt and completely unprepared to enter the water in case of emergency. It is common practice among all other San Diego charters to at least have the DM in a wetsuit at 'half-mast' and have mask and fins in a quickly obtainable position.

3. Diver surfaced, noticed the distance to the boat, and re-submirged to swim under the kelp canopy.

4. Diver became entangled while submirged and re-surfaced and signaled for assistance (waving arms). While attempting to free himself, he was hit in the face by a wave and possibly ingested some water. At this point he entered what I would call full-blown panic mode. Calling for help and ditching his mask and reg. During this time, DM was relatively unresponsive - once encouraged to help, DM entered the water.

5. DM entered the water with NO GEAR! He was pulling the tag line and float, which was entangled on the boat and took some time to untangle. DM was, at this point, completely unprepared to render assistance as he had no flotation to speak of and no mask or fins.

6. DM reached diver approximately 4 minutes after diver surfaced and signaled for help. During this time, CAPTAIN was unsure of what to do and only called lifeguards AFTER diver sank.

7. DM and another diver were attempting to assist distressed diver when DM unbuckled Distressed diver's BC. DM made no effort to ditch weight belt. (In my opnion, DM at this point was either panicking or on the verge of panick himself).

8. Distressed diver sank to the bottom where he was found within an hour by SD lifeguards. Lifguards were on-scene VERY quickly following distress call (as is typical for these amazing folks).

9. When Distressed diver sank, persons on the boat were frantically attempting to locate O2 bottle. Once located, it was discovered that there was no mask with the bottle. (Basic safety check 101).

10. DM was not current, and therefore NOT insured.

11. Dive Operation was apparently NOT insured. Dive Operation was in the process of being evicted from their dock space.

(note - None of the three divers in this group were asked for their C-cards prior to boarding)

So, what can we learn from this accident?

- Well, if the people involved had known about scubaboard, they could have checked with all of us prior to booking the trip. They discovered scubaboard AFTER this incident. There was a lot of experience and knowledge with this operator here on the board. This is no fault of anyone, but if you can, DO RESEARCH on the dive operator prior to booking.

- Ask to see proof of insurance and certification - sure, this is unusual, but should be 100% available if requested.

- If something seems amiss, it probably is (DM not dressing out for dives). This is an experience thing, but if you expect it and it doesn't happen, ask why.

- Drills! Drills! Drills! Practice ditching weights on occasion - do this in shallow water on a beach dive, do this in the pool, wherever and whenever you can. It really can save your life!

- Panic can happen to ANYONE! The distressed diver in this incident was the most experienced in the group. He was also a Public Safety Officer, trained to deal with difficult situations. I'll say it again, Panic can happen to ANYONE! The panic cycle can be interrupted by rapid and appropriate repsonse, but with delayed and unqualified/unrepared response as in this case we get the unfortunate result we see here.

This is a sad case. This diver should not have perished. Proper preparation and trianing on the part of the company involved would have easily prevented this death. Sure, the diver could have also been more prepared, and yes, we are all responsible for our own safety, but in this case, the diver made it back to the surface and asked for help - that help was insufficient to the case (and it should have been more than sufficient to the case as this situation is NOT all that unusual in kelp diving in San Diego).

I want to express my thanks to the person involved who provided the details. We had it mostly right up to now, this really has just closed the loop and allowed us to confirm what we thought we knew as well as correct at least one item that was incorrect.

Dive safe!

 

[bill22]

Hi Jim,
Thanks for taking the time to write this. I know it took some time to do. I agree with everything you said. It seems obvious from your post that the dive operator was totally unprepared to deal with emergencies

Very good points about practice. Even when someone has had the training, if they don't occasionally exercise the skills they learned, they can freeze up or forget when under stress (something as simple as entering the water with gear is emphasized much sooner than DM during our training as scuba divers).

I believe another key in this situation would have been being mentally prepared. It doesn't sound as if anyone had given much thought to what they would do if something happened. Someone who is in a position where they may have to react in an emergency should be mentally prepared to do so. Part of this is thinking about the things that can go wrong ahead of time and what steps you would take to mitigate those (being prepared to enter the water, move the boat, contact the emergency personnel, etc).

Yes, a very sad situation

 

[boulderjohn]

1. DM was NOT current nor insured. Apparently his most recent currency had expired four years previously. I use the term 'DM' as this person apparently had been through the class, but was not up to date. In my mind, this does not qualify a person to be a Divemaster. In order to do that, one must stay current and be insured.


5. DM entered the water with NO GEAR! He was pulling the tag line and float, which was entangled on the boat and took some time to untangle. DM was, at this point, completely unprepared to render assistance as he had no flotation to speak of and no mask or fins.

7. DM and another diver were attempting to assist distressed diver when DM unbuckled Distressed diver's BC. DM made no effort to ditch weight belt.

Hi Jim,

... (something as simple as entering the water with gear is emphasized much sooner than DM during our training as scuba divers).
(

I can only speak for PADI's training in this regard:

Establishing a diver's buoyancy as the very first step in dealing with an emergency on the surface is stressed in Open Water Knowledge Review #3.

Divers practice ways to establish buoyancy in a panicked diver in the Rescue Diver course.

Divers practice entering the water with buoyancy and swim devices in Rescue Diver.​

You should not need any DM training at all to have effected this rescue.

 

[bill22]

Another example of very simple things that should have been done. I'm not sure why someone responding in this situation, would "unbuckle" the bcd instead of the weight belt. Seems exactly backwards

Entanglement was mentioned so was the DM thinking to drop the BCD to take care of the entanglement issue and under the stress of the situation forgot to drop the weight belt first? This is assuming that there was a weight belt and the BCD was not weight integrated. However if that were the case the distressed diver should have been positive due to his exposure protection once separated from everything.

Complacency can happen to all of us. It's an easy trap to fall into. If it reaches a high enough level it becomes an accident waiting to happen. It's a thing that I'm sure that the persons involved in the attempted rescue still think about. It has to be a pretty tough thing to live with, knowing that you could have saved someone and failed

Hindsight is always 20/20.