U.S. diver dies in Cozumel marine park

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

DandyDon

Umbraphile
ScubaBoard Supporter
Messages
53,674
Reaction score
7,856
Location
One kilometer high on the Texas Central Plains
# of dives
500 - 999
Also discussed in the Coz forum: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/cozumel/395024-missing-divers.html

News story - in Spanish: Ahogado turista de EU

Sounds like he left the group of 8, ascended alone, surfaced, then resubmerged, maybe - google translating as it is. Found dead 3 hours and 4 miles away.

Google translation...
COZUMEL, September 2 .- After getting lost for three hours, while diving in front of the reef beach club "Nachi Cocom," Gerald Kish, 54 years old, was found floating, lifeless face of the reef zone "San Francisco", four miles away from where he disappeared. According to information provided by the Cozumel Reefs National Park, a protected area where the tourist diving was of U.S. origin, the legal representative of Del Mar Acuatic, reported the disappearance of a foreigner, at 11:30 am on Friday .
He explained that at the time of being in front of the reef beach club "Nachi Cocom," the staff of the boat "Big Splash" by the company Acuatic Del Mar, was serving eight divers who enjoyed the beauty marine area.
In this sense, about 11:30 am, a sailor who was in the boat noticed that one of the divers, in this case Gerald Kish, came to the surface and then submerge again, so from that then it will not be seen again.
The American left the group to reach the surface, so that about 12:00 pm when all the divers got into the boat, they realized that one of the visitors emerged and it was Gerald Kish.
Since that time the crew of the boat "Big Splash" began the search, without carrying the seven remaining land divers, who were supported by elements of the Military Naval Sector and the harbormaster.
In this sense, after three hours of searching, about 14:30 hours the crew of the boat "Big Splash" lifeless body was found near the reef, "San Francisco."
Before the discovery, the boat staff gave to the authorities, carrying the lifeless body after the United States to land in the vicinity of the reef "San Francisco", which was already prosecutors of Common Jurisdiction
The staff of the Forensic Medical Service (Semefo) of the Attorney General of the State, raised the body and carried it to its facilities to perform the autopsy for, but not before noting that the victim probably died from drowning
 
Very sad. A reinforcing story for buddy pairs staying together ALL the time.
 
Any more info on what happened? I have dived with Del Mar Aquatics many times, and know they must be devastated at the loss of a guest.
Regarding DandyDon's posting of incident reports, I have also had the uncharitable thought that he's a bit morbid to repost all those fatality reports, but having read many of his other posts I know he does so out of concern for dive safety and an interest in learning from incidents.
 
We were on the scene of this accident. Just finished our dive when Big Splash Captain started screaming. Our dive guide was back in the water pretty quickly searching. They would not let me or anyone else on our boat back in water to assist.

I was pretty amazed how quickly our boat captain declared him to be a "dead man" and sped off. That said - we had just finished a rather deep dive and would not really have been in a position to safely search for him. It was all really quite upsetting, especially for a couple of the ladies on our boat.

Here's hoping the next four weeks bring less bad news! It has been a rough week here in COZ!
 
Sad to hear! 54year old holiday diver, I am willing to bet physically unfit for scuba diving. I see it a lot. They dive once or twice during holidays, overweight and seriously unfit. Very easy to put additional strain on your body and even easier to separate from the group or buddy (that’s if he had one). Our thoughts are with family/friends.

RIP
 
Although the fatality occurred while diving, there is really no way to know if the victim would still be alive had he not been diving. He could just as easily had the heart attack on land and still not survived it. We will never know, but we do know is that this will now be counted as another "diving accident".

Sad for his family and friends either way. Hopefully he got in some good diving in his last days, and was doing something he loved when he passed.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

Back
Top Bottom