Scuba diver goes missing off Catalina Island

[BMC-9]

Can you think of any other activity in which this kind of information is available to you?

National Consumer Product Safety Commission

 

[BMC-9]

Drifting Dan was almost 12 years ago. To my knowledge - although I know there have been occasional divers left behind and the boats came back to get them no-harm-no-foul - we haven't had a serious diver-left-behind scenario in that time. People tend to get complacent when everything is fine. In fact, there's a good chance that many people who DM today weren't even around when Drifting Dan occurred and don't have that as a reference point.

- Ken

To me: Occasionally means more than rarely happening and less than frequently.

What I was trying to point out is that the appearance of too many people looking the other way is what is projecting out.

I am sure there are many fine dive operations but in the end we are talking about human life and there should be no margin of error for that.

 

[dytis-sm]

I hate to stir the speculation pot currently filled with the idea of the diver being overweighed. I will add another scenario that a lobster hunter would... Laurel was hunting for bugs. Laurel also was known to catch big monster bugs and had a few trophy size bugs in pictures on her FB page. Big bugs are big because they are hiding deep in their holes and from my lobster hunting experiences I often see people digging and crawling into holes in order to reach those big bugs. Two years ago we had the case of Richard Giles who died in this fashion while hunting at Dockweiler.I am suspecting that Laurel was a "crawler" and a lot of things can go wrong while sticking yourself into a large hole. Crawling into holes is another good reason not to wear a BC ;-)

This is another assumption of course but I was surprised that it was not brought up earlier...

 

[Ken Kurtis]

I'm going to be Devil's Advocate here in an attempt to separate a reasonable theory vs wild speculation:

. . . borrows gear that she is not familiar with . . .

How do you know she was not familiar with the gear, let alone what gear she allegedly borrowed?

. . . weight calculation not ideal . . .

How do you know how much weight she was wearing (and how much was it)? Tribes gave a general summary of what a wing and full tank would weight buoyancy-wise but made it clear that it was speculative, not fact-based.

. . . has issue with gear at depth . . .

What issue did she have with her gear at depth and how do you know this? How do you know she didn't have a heart attack? How do you know she wasn't attacked by a shark?

. . . diving solo.

How did diving solo factor in? Absent an OOA situation where a buddy MIGHT have been able to donate air, what would a buddy have done? You can say "Get her to the surface" but are you saying that would have guaranteed her survival?

It would appear that no one on the boat was really paying attention to what she was doing . . .

How do you know this? The botched roll call doesn't mean they weren't watching the water for anyone in trouble while people were diving, it means they didn't do the count right at the end.

Just a theory, but it makes as much sense as anything so far.

Not in my opinion. You made a gazillion assumptions that have zero basis in anything we know (which is minimal at best) and reach a conclusion you're comfortable with.

My goal is really not to single you out or beat you up on this but you are making so many leaps of faith that I think it gets into the realm of fantasy and that's one of the issues I personally have with these threads as people, struggling to make sense of things, start hanging on to assumptions that may not (or may) have actually occurred.

- Ken

 

[ChrisM]

never mind, misread!

But 10 pages later we're still circling around the same drain because no one that knows anything is talking

 

[Dive Time Remaining]

When you have a theory, you have a set of beliefs or principles that might not be proven yet. Does anyone have a good theory for where missing socks go when you do laundry?

A theory is a set of accepted beliefs or organized principles that explain and guide analysis and one of the ways that theory is defined is that it is different from practice, when certain principles are tested. For example, you could be a musician who plays well but who doesn't have a lot of experience with the theory of music. This word is a noun and comes from the Greek theoria, which means "contemplation or speculation."

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I hate to stir the speculation pot currently filled with the idea of the diver being overweighed. I will add another scenario that a lobster hunter would... Laurel was hunting for bugs. Laurel also was known to catch big monster bugs and had a few trophy size bugs in pictures on her FB page. Big bugs are big because they are hiding deep in their holes and from my lobster hunting experiences I often see people digging and crawling into holes in order to reach those big bugs. Two years ago we had the case of Richard Giles who died in this fashion while hunting at Dockweiler.I am suspecting that Laurel was a "crawler" and a lot of things can go wrong while sticking yourself into a large hole. Crawling into holes is another good reason not to wear a BC ;-)

This is another assumption of course but I was surprised that it was not brought up earlier...

If you are crawling into tight holes for bugs, then you just crawl in (with a bc) or take the tank off and lay it on the bottom and really go after it. Either way, I don't think the activity of aggressive lobster hunting would preclude the wearing of the BC AND bugs are heavy, if you want to get them to the surface, you want to have a BC to get them up.
Also, sounds like she dove for bugs a lot. If she often wore no BC, then I would presume we would have heard about it by now.. then again maybe not?

If she normally wore a BC and then forgot her wing and decided to go for it on this particular day AND IF she had no ditchable lead and normally never dove like that (i.e., without a BC), I could envision a lot of scenarios that might arise.

Diving without a BC, pretty much pre-dated my diving, but it should also be mentioned that divers without a BC always had some ditchable lead...right? Non-ditchable lead, heavy plates, even very negative tanks were not commonly used before the BC became popular.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

When you have a theory, you have a set of beliefs or principles that might not be proven yet . . . This word is a noun and comes from the Greek theoria, which means "contemplation or speculation."

But that's "theory" in the abstract. When you try to explain it in terms of facts in the real world, we're really talking more scientific theory which is defined thusly: "A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is traditionally acquired through the scientific method and repeatedly tested and confirmed through observation and experimentation." Theory of relativity, theory of evolution, quantum theory. I think what you describe - beliefs not yet proven - would better be called "speculation."

And there's nothing wrong with that. But you can't leave it there. If you're going to suggest that something happened, then you have to start testing that "theory". Nothing happens in a vacuum. If Thing 1 happened, then Thing 2 would have happened, and Thing 3 would have happened. If 2 and 3 didn't happen, then 1 couldn't have happened.

Too often in these threads, it seems tome that no one's willing to "test" their speculative theories. And when they're challenged, the response is usually "Well it still COULD have happened." In this thread, IMHO, the whole notion of "Well, maybe she surfaced AFTER the boat left" is a good example of that because when you run deco and air consumption numbers, that "theory" doesn't seem to hold up.

(AND TO BE CLEAR, THAT DOESN'T EXCUSE THE DEPARTURE OF THE BOAT. I'M JUST MAKING A POINT ABOUT PEOPLE NOT TESTING THEIR SUPPOSITIONS, LETTING ALONE CONNECTING TWO EVENTS AND DECIDING THEY'RE CAUSATIVE.)

- Ken

 

[Hatul]

I cannot understand why the people who were on the boat and know the info first hand are staying silent. Facts are facts and they're going to come out eventually anyway. When there is a death the accident needs to be analyzed and publicized. The diving community needs to know what went wrong so accidents are not repeated; that's how the sport can be made safer.

 

[scubadada]

All the conjecture regarding her equipment is not helpful, except in the abstract. What equipment was she actually using? Was she wearing a BC, BP&W or not? She was solo, did she have a redundant air source? Many people know the answers to these questions and they would help immensely in improving the quality of this A&I discussion