Spiegel Incident

[dwhthediver]

If Matthew's mom is still out there, I hope we can get some answers here. I think that these answers would remove a lot of the speculation and allow a much more accurate assessment of what caused the injury. Admittedly, we may have given her enough already to arrive at some answers and there's no reason she needs to give us all the specifics.

Information that would still be interesting for discussion:

1. How long were they on or around the bottom before dad left?
2. Was dad actively fishing as well, or just hanging and watching his sons play around?
3. What were dad's turn pressure and ascent profile?
4. What were the twins' pressure when dad turned?
5. How often were they checking their pressure levels?
6. How long after dad left did they remain before starting ascent?
7. If there were no gas issues, what was their original ascent plan?
8. While thay have made many dives together, had they been to the Spiegel Grove before?
9. How about other dives at this depth?
10. How many dives had they done since getting the 119s? Any other deep dives?

Answers to these questions would help, but I have to agree with the general consensus of a significant missed deco obligation, I have used AL80's to 130 ft, and even with 28% nitrox ran low on time way before running low on gas, so I really see a failure to plan, or if planned, failure to dive the plan. I just did the Spiegel Grove a week and a half ago, and even with 2 computers, the dive was planned on the tables and we knew the turn time and abided with it. My prayers go out to the family and I will continue to pray for Matthew to make a recovery that allows him to give testimony to our amazing God and the grace of his love for this child of his. Sandie, if you are following this thread, I will bring this up to the other divers at Orland Park CRC and we will all pray for Matthew.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

OK, let's try to get back on track.

And so,there really is no point in going forward with this until we know the answers to a couple of questions that have been asked several times.

• What plans, of any, did they have for decompression?
• What was their total bottom time?

Who cares what plans they had? If they had a valid plan they did not follow it.

They were diving deep spearfishing with no redundancy (pony bottle) and the guy ran out of air while deep. The guy went into a panic, lost cotrol of his bouyancy and shot directly to the surface. Somebody can easily get bent shooting up from 135 ft even if they are below the no-deco limit, so most of the discussion and speculation about the deco status is not all that important.

However, I admit, if they started with full tanks and spent any percentage of their time near the bottom we know they were in deco, but it doesn't really matter, we still learn nothing from the accident.

What can we learn from this accident? Not much, we already know that you should have some redundancy while spearing at those depths, that if you can afford a boat you can afford to bring oxygen, that you should watch your freaking spg, and you just can't afford to loose control of your bouyancy on ascent from a deep dive. We also know it is bordering on reckless to dive from an unattended boat in deep water in the ocean far from shore in areas where there are currents.

Even if they did all this stupid stuff, if they had just brought a pony bottle, the guy would probably not have gone into panic when he ran out on the bottom, he probably would have controlled his bouyancy, he probably would have been able to make some stops and if they had oxygen on board, any effects of an abbreviated deco would likely be much less severe. what a bummer.

 

[bsee65]

Who cares what plans they had? If they had a valid plan they did not follow it.

They were diving deep spearfishing with no redundancy (pony bottle) and the guy ran out of air while deep. The guy went into a panic, lost cotrol of his bouyancy and shot directly to the surface. Somebody can easily get bent shooting up from 135 ft even if they are below the no-deco limit, so most of the discussion and speculation about the deco status is not all that important.

I don't believe that's a fair assessment of the accident based upon the reports. He neither ran out of gas, nor did he shoot straight to the surface from 135fsw. Please don't twist or exaggerate the facts in order to make your point, because it does just the opposite.

 

[idocsteve]

I don't believe that's a fair assessment of the accident based upon the reports. He neither ran out of gas, nor did he shoot straight to the surface from 135fsw. Please don't twist or exaggerate the facts in order to make your point, because it does just the opposite.

I would say you're 1 for 2 on your analysis of Dumpster's post...and you missed a third.

Based on the reports from one or more witnesses

1- He did not run out of gas, so that's an accurate criticism of Dumpster's post.
2- He did shoot straight to the surface. As opposed to making a detour or making a stop somewhere on the way up. I guess the word "shoot" is open to debate, but he did make a rapid and unbroken direct ascent to the surface so "shoot" works for me.
3- The guy ignored his skills and training and it's probably safe to speculate that he was at least "moderately anxious" but it's not fair to say that he "went into a panic"

 

[Rick Murchison]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

Thread closed - too much off topic stuff to be of use. If anyone has any really eye-opening or useful information to add, PM me with it and if it needs to go here, I'll post it for you.

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