St. Petersburg woman disappears while lobster fishing in Florida Keys

[bsee65]

This is the Accidents and Incidents thread. Frankly, some of the speculation I am reading here is just plain disturbing. This is not really the place for wild speculation. It is to discuss the actual known facts of an accident.

Clearly there is more information needed in this tragedy; hopefully there will be an inquest so all the facts can come out.

There are a lot of unanswered questions:

• Was anyone involved in this dive certified?
• Had the hookah system been serviced recently?
• Were these divers using any equipment besides the hookah system and weight belts?

I would be interested to know if the two adults who were diving left two children on the boat alone without anyone to operate the boat in case of an emergency. That in itself would raise serious questions in my mind.

Was the wind blowing the exhaust into the hookah system's intake?

Were there other boats nearby? Were there any witnesses?

Twenty feed of depth doesn't sound like much, but twenty feet of depth with lousy visibility can be very dangerous to someone inexperienced. What was the visibility, the water temperature?

Hunting bugs can be exhausting, what was the physical condition of the victim prior to the dive as well as during the dive?

Nothing I am writing should be viewed as speculative. I am merely suggesting questions that need to be asked. If we get some or all of those answers, we may begin to draw a more complete picture of what happened.

Jeff

There's evidence to support a lack of skills on the part of the husband, he had to surface to clear his mask. There's evidence to support a lack of experience on the victim's part just from reading the description of events. The description suggests that she wasn't intending to dive, so it's very possible that the gear that she was using wasn't fit specifically to her.

There's nothing wrong with speculation. Speculation multiplies the value we get from these threads. We can consider the multiple mistakes or misfortunes that could have occurred, and how they could have been avoided or dealt with for a more positive result. It's okay if we throw out some ideas. My view is that these threads are here to learn so that we can avoid or be prepared for situations we could run into down the road to improve our chances. We aren't the inquest to report to the families or determine legal responsibility. I do think it's irresponsible to speculate and call it truth in this venue.

If more facts are learned, we may move closer to confidence in a particular theory. That will serve anyone out there who insists on knowing what really happened.

 

[jace4655]

I am new here and just wanted to take a moment to clear up a few issues that i know about this tragedy. First, i feel i need to explain that i have never dived before in my life and doubt i ever will (fear of whats in the water), but i do have some details of this accident.

The paper that was quoted here was incorrect about the distance that she surfaced from the boat. It was not 50' it was 10' and also from what i understand the visibility was around 4'. Yes, she was new to diving and had never done it before, her husband i believe has dived before, but to what extent i am not sure of. They were down there with her husbands boss and his family on his boat. I know one person asked if they left their girls up in the boat by themselves and this was not the case.

I have heard on this thread that some people are shocked that a person would go out and use this system with no experience, but i myself know of people with no diving experience who think this is safe and have bought this system to go spear fishing. I even have to admit i had no idea that this could be a situation that could take my life. So many times we look at things that seems like it is safe and do not realize until something like this happens that if not properly trained....this could be dangerous.

 

[jridg]

Great information - helps a great deal - I am worried that people are buying these systems without training and just going out and using them. Sure, there is training offered, but I don't feel like it's being required. With scuba, you won't (usually) be able to get tanks filled without a certification card. With surface supplied systems, you just need to buy the gear and go........scary.

 

[TheScubaBOB]

Isn't it amazing that these Hooka systems operate at depths of up to 60ft and people think they are safer than Scuba simply because you can breathe a tank down but hooka is endless air supply.

Since when is OOA the biggest danger of Scuba? For me the biggest danger is the pressure difference and that i exactly the same for Scuba & Hooka.

 

[Glock Diver]

I think the most fantastic part of this story is they had 4' of visibility in the KEYS... where was that, and why would you go lobstering in 4' of viz?

 

[DandyDon]

I think the most fantastic part of this story is they had 4' of visibility in the KEYS... where was that, and why would you go lobstering in 4' of viz?

I believe they were north of Big Pine Key. As that's Bay Side, maybe it can get murky? I've never been lobstering so can't say to the rest?