Tobermory - Diving Fatality

[DI_Guy]

Dacdives...

This was posted in the "accidents & incidents" forum by a SB member "vhs". It answers your question. Its very sad..

Quote: There was a fatality on August 28, 2004 on the Arabia. The diver was 53 years old and at the cement block at the time of the incident. The autospy will be performed Monday. It appears he had a heart attack. Unfortuantely, there was nothing anyone could have done differently. Everyone involved followed their training and worked as a team. The gentleman was part of the Michigan Seasnoopers Dive Club and he will be greatly missed.

 

[estrojenn]

see, this was the first negative i have experience in Toby. we've only been a few times, but we did our advanced cert through divers den a couple of years ago and they were nothing short of fantastic. same with our dives on saturday. but holy crap, sunday morning was enough to cancel out the positives and make me never want to go back!

 

[DiveMistress2]

Not to take another shot at Toby and the shops up there, but there's more than enough reasons for me to never go back there, and the above is but one. I'd much prefer Kingston, Brockville.....heck, just about anywhere but there.

Diving capital my a$$.

Regards.

I'm with ya on this one buddy old pal,

Kingston & Brockville put Toby to shame.

The warmer water, great vis, and of course the great dive shops and charter operators.....

(I hope they know I'm coming up this weekend and I'll be looking for payment....hahaha)

This is the third underwater heart attack I've heard of this year. If the water was choppy why didn't the man call the dive at the surface. It would have been the right thing to do and nobody would have thought any less of him.

This is another sad occurrence.

 

[DacDives3]

we just got back from tobermory this afternoon. this morning about 8:30am we heard from some divers outside of divers den that a guy had died on the Arabia yesterday. these divers were suppose to do the Arabia this morning at 9am and thought the water conditions were too choppy, and im assuming were a bit freaked that someone had died the previous night.

as an aside, i was somewhat taken aback when the woman at divers den (who i have had great experiences with in the past) basically said to the guy 'the conditions are fine. you are getting on that boat'. he was a very experienced diver and said 'im not comfortable doing that dive in these conditions'. she said 'sorry, the charter is booked and you are on it' in a horribly rude way. he was like 'well. i just cancelled the charter'. she told him to **** off?!? he was TOTALLY not being rude at all. she was horrible to him.

since when does a dive shop tell a diver who isnt comfortable with the conditions that he has to dive? we drove around to lighthouse point and it was really choppy.

anyway. i was not impressed. sorry i dont have more info about the fatality. i couldnt find anything on the news, or from the locals in Toby either.

Thank You for the update Estrojenn,
Sorry to hear about the way the other divers were treated.
Nobody has the right to tell a diver that they have to dive...If your not comfortable with a dive or conditions call the dive...no questions asked...That was Very unsafe and unprofessional
I guess that's what happens when safety is pushed aside for the almighty dollar...

 

[DacDives3]

Dacdives...

This was posted in the "accidents & incidents" forum by a SB member "vhs". It answers your question. Its very sad..

Quote: There was a fatality on August 28, 2004 on the Arabia. The diver was 53 years old and at the cement block at the time of the incident. The autospy will be performed Monday. It appears he had a heart attack. Unfortuantely, there was nothing anyone could have done differently. Everyone involved followed their training and worked as a team. The gentleman was part of the Michigan Seasnoopers Dive Club and he will be greatly missed.

Thanks for the info...

 

[Warren_L]

I dove the Arabia through Diver's Den on Friday August 27th, the day before the incident. Conditions were a little choppy going out, nothing too bad though. Viz was about 25' or so, so not the best, and water temps were in the mid-low 40s. We were on the Deep Obsession with Capt. Gary .... I've nothing but good things to say about the whole experience. I find it surprising that DD would treat any of their customers that way....

 

[estrojenn]

I'm with ya on this one buddy old pal,

Kingston & Brockville put Toby to shame.

The warmer water, great vis, and of course the great dive shops and charter operators.....

(I hope they know I'm coming up this weekend and I'll be looking for payment....hahaha)

This is the third underwater heart attack I've heard of this year. If the water was choppy why didn't the man call the dive at the surface. It would have been the right thing to do and nobody would have thought any less of him.

This is another sad occurrence.

the conditions were great on Saturday. not choppy as they were on sunday. my point was that a diver wanted to cancel his dive on the arabia on sunday (following the tragedy) and the dive shop basically said 'no'.

 

[estrojenn]

I dove the Arabia through Diver's Den on Friday August 27th, the day before the incident. Conditions were a little choppy going out, nothing too bad though. Viz was about 25' or so, so not the best, and water temps were in the mid-low 40s. We were on the Deep Obsession with Capt. Gary .... I've nothing but good things to say about the whole experience. I find it surprising that DD would treat any of their customers that way....

We dove with Capt. Gary on Saturday and as I said, it was fantastic. It was the woman in the dive shop that was horrible. I'm writing them a letter today though...as I'm sure the diver who was treated badly will as well.

 

[diverbrian]

We insist on Gary Coulter and the Deep Obsession when we do our annual trip. Having spoken with Gary, if he is very protective of divers specifically on the Arabia and the Forest City. If a customer was nervous about it, I can't see him letting the customer off the boat. His phrase to me was that he has never had a fatality off of one of his boats and he doesn't plan to start now.

Actually if you read other threads on the board, the dive operation has the right to go or not go. If they decide to go and somebody doesn't feel comfortable with it, then the individual will likely sacrifice the deposit or charter fees that they already paid in the interests of safety. And if DD had advertised the Arabia and only one diver wasn't comfortable with it, then the rest of the divers would have likely not been happy. That is fairly standard policy in the business.

This is another case of seeing one version of the story. It would be a little more fair to see both sides of the story before tuning up flamethrowers.

 

[Scuba_Steve]

the conditions were great on Saturday. not choppy as they were on sunday. my point was that a diver wanted to cancel his dive on the arabia on sunday (following the tragedy) and the dive shop basically said 'no'.

I'm assuming the "No" was, 'no' you're not getting your money back, but whether you dive or not is your decision. In that, I must say I agree with the dive shop. Cancelling the day before has a cost involved. Of course, the idea should have put across in a kinder way, evidently.

Steve