Scuba diver goes missing off Catalina Island

[mdb]

Boat left, next stop court. Expert witness on both sides. Biggest loss is a good woman known by many
and now gone. RIP Laurel. Hope some good change comes from this loss.

 

[Hatul]

This is indeed tragic. She has not been found yet.

I am not trying to diminish the responsibility of any dive operation but...divers do have a responsibility to dive...responsibly. Diving alone...out of sequence with the rest of the divers...no BCD...maybe aggressive diving... can all add up to tragedy for the diver, and the boat.

I've been on the Sundiver Express a lot. They have ALWAYS run a top notch, safe operation when I've been on board. At the same time, I have witnessed several divers diving poorly (poor habits, poor pre-dive checks, no real dive plan, etc) on this boat and MOST boats I've been on.

Divers need to be responsible for themselves.

Where the right gear. Have a way to stay afloat when you are done diving. I always count on the boat NOT being there as a worse case situation. I carry a large SMB and, if diving away from shore (oil rigs) I carry a small, waterproof, VHF radio. Currents change rapidly in SoCal and you may not surface near the boat.

Do the right thing. I personally never jump off a boat until I see that I have been accounted for. When I get back on, I ensure I'm properly accounted for...it's my but on the line after all.

I hope we can find her. Her family needs to know.

Godspeed Laurel

Can I ask you where you got the info that she dove with no BCD? The photos of Laurel diving on her Facebook page show her diving in a wetsuit and wearing a Deep Sea Supply backplate and wing.

 

[Hatul]

Try to hang with me for a second Ken. Here's another question for you: Did Sundiver do a verbal roll call before they left Ship Rock...not to be confused with the one they did at Yellowtail Point before the came back.

When I dove on the Sundiver Express the routine was for the DM to call out the diver's first name and wait for acknowledgment to check off the name. However if her name was not on the list she would not be noticed. If so I wonder how they noticed she was missing when the boat left for the second site.

 

[Ellipsis]

Plain and simple - this is the story of a dive op being too relaxed. Blurred lines between crew, passenger, DM, deckhand, instructor, helper-person, etc. Not everyone's names make it onto the roster. DMs not watching the water the whole time or being allowed to go free dive or do a fun dive once everyone's off the boat. Too sloppy and now it's come back to bite them in the a**.....again.

 

[diverrex]

I do know Ken. I have dived with him personally. I've dived with his Reefseekers boat trips and I got a NAUI AOW from him as an instructor. So maybe I am biased and you will disregard my opinion. Ken has done a tremendous amount of good for diving in So Cal and has been very important in his role as diving analyst for the county coroner in diving accidents. He has always been helpful in relaying diving accident information. In this particular instance he has not defended the boat leaving the diver. He has just been making the point, as many of us believe, that Laurel likely never surfaced once she went under and as bad as it is that the boat left, that likely did not have any direct role in the fatality. I'll also accept that by the boat leaving there is some chance that had something to do with the fatality (though I don't personally believe so but am open to that possibility). Unfortunately none of us will really know what happened unless they recover her body and find a dive computer that can still provide her dive profile. Anything else are educated guesses. I'm not at all defending the boat. I think it's unforgiveable that a diver was left behind, particularly after drifting Dan I thought all So Cal boats had learned their lesson and tightened up roll call procedures. Makes me appreciate boats like the Peace that have regular long term crew that are true professionals. They do a serious role call. Most other boats do also.

 

[Ellipsis]

To summarily conclude that the boat leaving had nothing to do with her death is ignorance.

 

[keithbt]

I have heard that there was no DM on board that day. Can anyone verify?

 

[Ken Kurtis]

Thanks for the kind words Rex.

I am truly fascinated by the number of people who joined ScubaBoard just today, who have added nothing to the discussion but are convinced that I'm biased, wrong, and whatever. And they all post anonymously to boot so there's no way to understand what their agenda is or what their biases are. If I was the paranoid type, I'd almost think it was a co-ordinated effort to try to discredit me, but for the life of me, I can't understand why my opinions would be such a threat to them.

If you don't like what I say, say why. If you've got another theory, post it with the reasoning. Not everyone's going to agree. But we were actually having some interesting back-and-forths until the bulls came int our china shop. It'd be nice if we could get back to that.

- Ken

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I'm sick of hearing about how she possibly might have died by not using a BC. We don't know that she wasn't using a BC, if she got in trouble at depth we don't know if it had anything to do whatsoever with equipment. She might have surfaced, we don't know. She might have surfaced after the boat left and then was carried away, we don't know. She also could have expired mid water with a BC and drifted away in the current, we don't know. She could have expired mid water with no BC and was carried away, we don't know.
I'm sick of all this speculation that somehow that she "might" have died because she didn't have a BC, and how dangerous that is. How the hell would you know? were you there to see how she was weighted? her skill level and how she dived, she was no slouch she was a fighter, or even to see what gear she had at all?

I read an independent news report that she was suffering some physical issues and one of the things she was afflicted with was fibromyalgia (sp), and diving was one of her self therapies. However we have no evidence that that had anything to do with anything.
All I know is a friend of mine is missing and presumed dead, and it sucks!

If anything a question *could* be raised about the benefits of buddy diving in this case. But nothing has been said about her having a buddy. Unfortunately in this case...possibly, and in the case of many Socal bug divers, buddies are not always the norm. However even with a buddy, she still could have had some sort of physical issue at depth.

 

[BMC-9]

Ken, I have no hidden agenda. I always post anonymously on public forums due to the sensitive nature of my job. I keep my personal life and professional life separate. I have 30 plus years as a researcher. The topic of whether or not the boat leaving played any part in the death of a diver struck close to heart.
As divers, we can do everything in our power to make sure our equipment is functioning properly, that we dive within our limits and we follow our training. But if the people we rely on to get us back to shore do not do their job, someone could die. And absent definitive proof i.e. either the diver's body or dive computer we cannot determine with 100% certainty either way that the boat leaving did or did not play any part in her death.