UK: Missing diver swims to shore

[DandyDon]

Missing diver's epic swim to safety (From Dorset Echo)

A MISSING diver was found alive and well shortly before a massive air and sea rescue operation was called off.

The diver managed to defy the odds by swimming for four hours to shore after becoming separated from his boat.

He stumbled ashore and made his way to the top of the cliff where he managed to alert the emergency services.

A major rescue operation was launched after he disappeared off the coast close to the Lulworth Banks off Ringstead yesterday afternoon.

Portland Coastguard received an emergency call at 4pm and tasked the search and rescue helicopter, Weymouth all-weather and inshore lifeboats and Dorset Police’s inflatable rib craft to scour the area for the missing man.

Local boats in the area also answered a call to join in the hunt.

A spokesman for the coastguard said: “We received a call at 4pm of a missing male diver in Weymouth Bay and we got the helicopter, two lifeboats and police rib and various other local boats on scene.

“It is believed that a couple of people had gone scalloping, it wasn’t a dive boat he was with.”

The man is believed to have been wearing full scuba diving gear.

Coastguards were close to calling off the search when the man was found on the coast near Ringstead shortly before 8pm.

A spokesman for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said: “In all the time I have been doing this job I have never heard of a missing diver swimming ashore from that far out to sea.

“He is believed to be safe and well but I don’t have any further information at the moment.”

Charter boat skipper Paul Whittall who joined in search said: “It is absolutely amazing. He must have swum at least a mile and a half and I have never come across anything like it. It is great news.”

Mr Whittall was bringing a party of anglers back to Weymouth on his boat Offshore Rebel when he heard a call from a boat reporting a missing diver.

He said that he followed the tide line from the diver’s last know position about a mile and a half south of White Nothe on the western edge of the Lulworth Banks. It is a well known are for scallop diving.

He added: “We were involved in a search with lifeboats and other vessels.

“We were on our way back from fishing in mid-Channel when I heard the call from the dive boat. Several boats heard it and offered assistance. Portland Coastguard upgraded it to a mayday.

“Divers send up surface marker buoys to show their position. I think he sent his last one up about 4pm.

Mr Whittall said that the conditions were tricky with a force 4 from the South West.

He added: “The sea was a bit lumpy which makes it difficult to spot people.

“There were half a dozen boats out here including the two lifeboats and a research vessel has just joined us. It’s the code of the sea. You help if you can.”

One Lulworth fisherman, who did not wish to be named, said that he believed the boat and the missing diver were from Poole.

He said that scallop divers normally hang onto a marker buoy underwater before surfacing to decompress.

He said: “Something must have happened and he drifted with the tide away. Sometimes when that happens if divers swim straight north and across the tide and if they are fit, they will make it to the coast.

“The team is from Poole and they are well versed in what they do, they aren’t amateurs, they know exactly what they’re doing.”

 

[koozemani]

Glad to hear of a happy ending.

 

[DennisW]

I did the mile swim with my scouts about 12 years ago. I could easily do the mile and a half with fins and a wetsuit.

Glad the guy is ok though.

 

[freewillie]

Even more reason to get one of those new Nautilus GPS radios. Little pricey, but what's your life worth?!!

 

[CuNanoTube]

Damn, 1.5 miles in dive gear. That would be a very tough swim. At about 1/2 a mile I would probably have dumped my tank. Anyways, I have swam (close to shore, on a flat lake) about 500m in dive gear. That was not an easy swim. Good to hear he made it back.

 

[CuNanoTube]

I did the mile swim with my scouts about 12 years ago. I could easily do the mile and a half with fins and a wetsuit.

Glad the guy is ok though.

Wetsuit in the north atlantic? Not a chance. He would have been diving in at least a 7mm probably a dry suit. Plus full dive gear greatly increases drag compared to just a wetsuit.

 

[DandyDon]

Wetsuit in the north atlantic? Not a chance. He would have been diving in at least a 7mm probably a dry suit. Plus full dive gear greatly increases drag compared to just a wetsuit.

A 7mm would be a wetsuit. He might have dived in a dry, but those Brits are kinda used to cold water as it's all they got. At least your river there warms up. Thousand Islands is nice in the summer.

I think if I had to swim that far, I'd lose my kit, keep the mask and fins, rely on the wetsuit for flotation if I got tired. When my grandkids insist on playing in lake water, I gear up in my snorkel gear and inflatable vest. We lose a lot of Texans every year to lake swimming.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I'm really happy that he was able to swim ashore. I would have made the same attempt, and hopefully been successful too. In the US Navy we had to swim 1500 yards in full scuba (no wet suit though) underwater in a compass swim. So it is not so difficult if you are in pretty good shape. Concerning the wet suit in the North Sea, I'm still a wet suit (1/4 inch, about 15 years old--I'm about to get a new one), and dive it in Oregon in the winter. It is definitely possible.

SeaRat

 

[AfterDark]

I wonder if he had a snorkel?

 

[DandyDon]

I wonder if he had a snorkel?

Or wished he had. I do carry a folded one in case I ever face a swim.