In August of 1989 my neighbor, good friend of 10 years & dive buddy Ernie & I decided to do a beach dive off of White Horse Beach in Manonemt Mass. I was 42 yrs old at the time & Ernie had just turned 50. We had been diving this area for many years for lobster & felt very comfortable there. It was low tide & typically our dive ended up being in 40’ or less at their deepest. We followed our normal routine of suiting up on the beach, tossing our "bug bags" & masks into our inner tubes (with round laundry baskets tied beneath & dive flags affixed to them) we had devised to make the leisurely surface swim out to the area where we would descend, about 1/2 mile from shore.
The dive was totally routine & at one point Ernie tapped me on the shoulder to point to a golf ball in his bug bag that he had picked up off the bottom.....amazed to find one out this far from the beach!
I must confess that Ernie & I had made so many dives together, felt so confidant in each other's dive ability & the fact that we didn't want to be fighting over the same lobsters that we tended to follow the "Same Ocean" buddy diving technique. (For those not familiar with that technique it states that as long as you & your buddy are in the same ocean...at the same time...you are buddy diving!<G>)
Anyway, Ernie always towed his float behind him while I, always a little paranoid about getting tangled in the float's line, tended to anchor mine where we first headed down. About 30 minutes into the dive I surfaced to spot Ernie's float & noticed that he was about 75 yards farther out to sea..…..& headed out. He never used a compass so I swam over to his float & followed the line down to him where I pointed to my compass & pointed to the direction of the beach recommending that we start to head back in. Ernie nodded his head & we started back in.
As usual, we met at my anchored float & started to swim back to the beach. We usually threw our bug bags (now filled with lobster & seaweed) into the inner tube for the swim back. This time, as my bag was only partially filled & I had quite a bit of air left, I decided to continue lobstering on the way in while Ernie swam in on the surface on his float. By now we were in roughly 20' of water & I could see Ernie swimming leisurely in on his float as I continued lobstering on the bottom. After probably 5 minutes or so I had lost sight of Ernie & headed up for the surface. When I surfaced (expecting to see Ernie on his float.... swimming in) I was about 50 yards behind him & could barely make out his empty tube with a black object floating next to it. I swam over, expecting to find him looking down at something while snorkeling on the surface, but instead found Ernie floating on his back, mask gone, unblinking eyes wide open & unconscious! (For a split second I thought he may be joking around but that was something neither one of us ever did while diving) This whole scene probably took place in seconds but things seemed to happen in slow motion.......As things began to solidify in my mind that this was really happening, I noticed that while he was floating on his back, both his nose & mouth where under slightly so I raised him up in the water, tried to perform mouth-to-mouth & started to swim him back to shore. (Years ago I had taken a Red Cross life saving program & was trying to remember the correct things to do)
The swim in took me about 15-20 minutes during which I would stop regulary & again try mouth-to-mouth ...to no avail. (If any diver has ever tried doing mouth-to-mouth, for real, in the open ocean, without being trained as a rescue diver, you know how difficult it is!)
Anyway, I headed for a bunch of rocks off to the south side off White Horse Beach as the closest exit from the sea. By this time, someone (who must have been watching our ordeal from a house overlooking the scene or from the beach) had called the police who, along with EMT’s were already on the beach waiting for us to make it in. When we finally made it to the rocks, a small aluminum runabout (evidently flagged down & sent over to us by the police) came crashing into the rocks to drag Ernie & I out of the water & speed us back to the beach, to the waiting EMT’s.
The EMT’s worked on Ernie for about 5 minutes on the beach (shocking him & trying anything they could to revive, again to no avail. They transported us both to Jordan Hospital where, after a few more desperate attempts to revive him, Ernie was pronounced dead.
The dive was totally routine & at one point Ernie tapped me on the shoulder to point to a golf ball in his bug bag that he had picked up off the bottom.....amazed to find one out this far from the beach!
I must confess that Ernie & I had made so many dives together, felt so confidant in each other's dive ability & the fact that we didn't want to be fighting over the same lobsters that we tended to follow the "Same Ocean" buddy diving technique. (For those not familiar with that technique it states that as long as you & your buddy are in the same ocean...at the same time...you are buddy diving!<G>)
Anyway, Ernie always towed his float behind him while I, always a little paranoid about getting tangled in the float's line, tended to anchor mine where we first headed down. About 30 minutes into the dive I surfaced to spot Ernie's float & noticed that he was about 75 yards farther out to sea..…..& headed out. He never used a compass so I swam over to his float & followed the line down to him where I pointed to my compass & pointed to the direction of the beach recommending that we start to head back in. Ernie nodded his head & we started back in.
As usual, we met at my anchored float & started to swim back to the beach. We usually threw our bug bags (now filled with lobster & seaweed) into the inner tube for the swim back. This time, as my bag was only partially filled & I had quite a bit of air left, I decided to continue lobstering on the way in while Ernie swam in on the surface on his float. By now we were in roughly 20' of water & I could see Ernie swimming leisurely in on his float as I continued lobstering on the bottom. After probably 5 minutes or so I had lost sight of Ernie & headed up for the surface. When I surfaced (expecting to see Ernie on his float.... swimming in) I was about 50 yards behind him & could barely make out his empty tube with a black object floating next to it. I swam over, expecting to find him looking down at something while snorkeling on the surface, but instead found Ernie floating on his back, mask gone, unblinking eyes wide open & unconscious! (For a split second I thought he may be joking around but that was something neither one of us ever did while diving) This whole scene probably took place in seconds but things seemed to happen in slow motion.......As things began to solidify in my mind that this was really happening, I noticed that while he was floating on his back, both his nose & mouth where under slightly so I raised him up in the water, tried to perform mouth-to-mouth & started to swim him back to shore. (Years ago I had taken a Red Cross life saving program & was trying to remember the correct things to do)
The swim in took me about 15-20 minutes during which I would stop regulary & again try mouth-to-mouth ...to no avail. (If any diver has ever tried doing mouth-to-mouth, for real, in the open ocean, without being trained as a rescue diver, you know how difficult it is!)
Anyway, I headed for a bunch of rocks off to the south side off White Horse Beach as the closest exit from the sea. By this time, someone (who must have been watching our ordeal from a house overlooking the scene or from the beach) had called the police who, along with EMT’s were already on the beach waiting for us to make it in. When we finally made it to the rocks, a small aluminum runabout (evidently flagged down & sent over to us by the police) came crashing into the rocks to drag Ernie & I out of the water & speed us back to the beach, to the waiting EMT’s.
The EMT’s worked on Ernie for about 5 minutes on the beach (shocking him & trying anything they could to revive, again to no avail. They transported us both to Jordan Hospital where, after a few more desperate attempts to revive him, Ernie was pronounced dead.
