TSandM: Missing Diver in Clallam County, WA

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There is a hard bottom there. I don't know what they were using but I'm sure it couldn't easily be exceeded. There is variation in the bottom away from the wall but there is no shear drop off.

She is also well aware of CO2 loading.
 
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This was the first paragraph of Lynne's penultimate post on Scubaboard:
The warm, happy, euphoric narc is pretty rare in cold, dark water. What is far more common, at least here in the PNW, is free-floating anxiety and tunnel vision -- lack of situational awareness. One of the things my husband does with the deep dive for his AOW class is to tell the students they are to log their depth and pressure at five minute intervals through the dive. Funny, at about 80 feet or so, most of them start forgetting to do it . . . That's narcosis, and can end up with severe anxiety when somebody realizes they are much deeper than they want to be with the amount of gas they have left, just as you did.
 
What gas were they using? 32%? If caught in a down current what is the potential depth she could have been carried to in that particular site?

If, as a surface swimmer, you get caught in a rip current, you should not fight the current directly. You will lose that way.

Speculation: She saw the team separation and started to work against it. Hard. As her depth increased, so did narcosis effects exacerbated by the exertion and the excess CO2 it generated. Narcosis caused a narrow focus on a single objective that blinded her to other dangers. We know she was a big advocate of team diving. Focused on reuniting with the team, she unknowingly obviates the dangerous over exertion for a 61 year old heart. She fails to recognize that now the immediacy has shifted away from getting back to your team, to controlling your heart rate and your depth. At this point the immediacy should be to ascend, hopefully without getting arterial gas embolism. The incident spiral is already fully engaged and she may not be aware of it.

I have enormous respect for her. It is not easy to write the above speculation. But it is my interpretation of what she would have like us to be doing now. My speculation can well be the furthest thing away from what really happened. But I believe it was her wish that we explore plausible scenarios and try to learn from them.

Unlikely that Lynne would get so focused as to lose sight of priorities. Besides being a trained ER doc, it was her nature to "checklist" everything. If she was conscious, she was mentally categorizing alternatives. Whether she could physically implement them is another matter.

Have no idea if this had anything to do with it, but Lynne had a chronic issue with vertigo whenever she got into a mid-water situation ... I once watched her fall to the bottom of a wall and just lay there, eyes closed, till it passed. This may or may not have occurred under those circumstances, but I guarantee you that she would never have stopped thinking, calmly and rationally, about what she should do about it.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)
 
"The Coast Guard is searching for a 61-year-old woman who went missing Tuesday while diving near Cape Flattery in Clallam County.

Lynn Flaherty was diving with her husband off Duncan Rock Tuesday morning when something went wrong and she didn't return to the surface, according to Coast Guard officials.

Flaherty, who is an experienced diver and was wearing a dry suit, was supposed to resurface with her husband at 11:15 a.m., but she didn't make it.

Coast Guard search crews from Station Neah Bay and Air Station Port Angeles arrived at 11:35 a.m. and immediately began searching for Flaherty.

"We responded quickly and had crews on scene within 10 minutes of receiving the call," Coast Guard command duty officer Eric Cookson said in a news release. "We are saturating the search area, and we are hopeful of a successful outcome."

Crews aboard a 47-foot Motor Life Boat and a MH-65 Dolphin helicopter are also on scene, and the Washington Department of Emergency Management is dispatching dive team from Kitsap County to assist in the search." -Komo News


The current water temperature is 57 degrees, and the air temperature is 60 degrees. Searchers have 10 miles of visibility, according to the Coast Guard.


Thoughts are with her husband and family.
Response within 10 minutes, my hat is off to the Coast Guard & rescue teams. What is the current status of the search?

My hope is with you all.
 
Unlikely that Lynne would get so focused as to lose sight of priorities. Besides being a trained ER doc, it was her nature to "checklist" everything. If she was conscious, she was mentally categorizing alternatives. Whether she could physically implement them is another matter.... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Thanks Bob. I'm thinking the same thing as I'm familiar with her training but I'd completely forgot about the past vertigo issues. I'm still hoping and praying for a rescue but damn this looks bad.
 
If I'm not mistaken the diveable area around Duncan Rock is about 20 metres deep but you don't need to go far before the bottom is about 100 metres deep. There is also a canyon nearby that I believe is a little over a km deep.

Blue bathymetry contours in meters.

duncan-rock.jpg
 
Hoping against hope that this turns out well. What an incredibly nice person and a fine diver.
 
Oh no. I just heard. All we can do is hope and wait. We may hear good news--she is so dedicated and efficient with everything.
 
Search continues for missing diver near Neah Bay

August 26th, 2015 - 11:50am

(Neah Bay) -- The Coast Guard is continuing its search for Lynn Flaherty, a diver reported missing off Duncan Rock near Cape Flattery.

The Coast Guard has searched more than 290 square miles and 1,028 miles of trackline as of 9 a.m.

Flaherty, a 61 year-old woman who was last known to be wearing a dry suit, is reported to be experienced with more than 21-hundred dives and is equipped with a personal locator beacon, VHF-FM radio and a dive buoy.

Coast Guard crews have completed more than 10 search patterns with assets including an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter from Air Station Port Angeles, a 47-foot Motor Life Boat, a 29-foot Response Boat-Small II from Station Neah Bay and the Coast Guard Cutter Swordfish.

A Canadian Coast Guard helicopter crew also assisted in the search overnight.

Currently searching are crews aboard a Dolphin helicopter, an M-L-B and the Swordfish.

The search began at about 11:25 a.m., Tuesday.

Weather conditions in the search area are reported to be 4-foot swells with a water temperature of 57 degrees, air temperature of 58 degrees and 10 miles of visibility.
KONP / Local News / Search continues for missing diver near Neah Bay
 
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