USS Mohawk diver missing - Florida

[DandyDon]

Either way, in such cases, people who are rendered unconscious or dead in the water by either a coronary event or an air embolism will not be able to release their weights. Since the topic of the thread is the tragic passing of this specific individual, I don't think it is appropriate to discuss his failure to release weights as if it were a poor decision unless there is clear evidence that he was in a position to make that decision.

It's not like he just vanished...
"On the third dive, Kneen said, the man surfaced yelling for help and then went under."

Anyone yelling for help on the surfaced should already have dumped weights, don't you think...??

 

[Wookie]

Either way, in such cases, people who are rendered unconscious or dead in the water by either a coronary event or an air embolism will not be able to release their weights. Since the topic of the thread is the tragic passing of this specific individual, I don't think it is appropriate to discuss his failure to release weights as if it were a poor decision unless there is clear evidence that he was in a position to make that decision.

I get it. You took offense at my earlier post, thinking I was blaming the victim.

Some folks find offense wherever they look. It seems to be the new American way, to be offended.

Sadly, we will likely never know if he (like Rusty Mason, who ran out of air and died, 15 feet from the surface in front of witnesses, and sank back down without ever releasing his weight belt) just plain didn't release his weights, or if there was a mitigating factor that he didn't release his weights. I guess since there are eyewitnesses to both kinds, either could be the case.

I think we're in A&I, where we put forth all plausible scenarios.

 

[boulderjohn]

It's not like he just vanished...
"On the third dive, Kneen said, the man surfaced yelling for help and then went under."

Anyone yelling for help on the surfaced should already have dumped weights, don't you think...??

Why? He got to the surface OK, so he did not need to drop weights to ascend.

If he got to the surface in pain and then immediately succumbed to whatever caused his problem, he would probably start sinking immediately.

 

[DandyDon]

Why? He got to the surface OK, so he did not need to drop weights to ascend.

If he got to the surface in pain and then immediately succumbed to whatever caused his problem, he would probably start sinking immediately.

It's on my emergency plan: If I ever feel the personal need to yell for help, I'm ditching so that I won't sink.

 

[Hintermann]

If I have to hurry to the surface, an automatic reaction would be to inflate the BCD once near the top. On the one and only occasion that I panicked - a cold water dive in poor visibility as an absolute newbie - I was instinctively reaching for the inflator button when John, the instructor, gently stopped me. looked me in the eye, shook his head and squeezed my arm reassuringly. The panic dropped out of me like a cloak and we had a great 45-min dive.

I feel that most divers reaching the surface would instinctively inflate their BCDs to stay afloat. They might or might not have dropped their weights earlier but if they have reached the surface without doing so, IMO the first reaction would be to inflate the BCD. Then they might consider dropping weights for further buoyancy.

IMO, dropping weights in a hurry is necessary if reaching the surface is imperative but inflating the BCD is ideal for staying on the surface.

 

[Wookie]

Rusty Mason was a working diver for NOAA in 2008. He and a buddy were looking for a place to install a mooring to perform a coral remediation on Riley's Hump, in the Dry Tortugas.

Rusty's buddy was a brand new diver, Rusty had thousands of dives. The depth was deep, though not extreme, 90 feet of so. Rusty's buddy at some point in the dive looked at his SPG and informed Rusty that he was low on air, and he was heading up to the boat, where there was a hang bottle at 15 feet. The buddy got to the bottle as air ran out, so he was on the hang bottle doing a safety stop and Rusty was still on the bottom. Rusty also ran low on air and made a swimming ascent. Rusty was wearing a weight belt as well as his tool belt. The buddy watched Rusty take a final exhale some distance below him, and sink back to the bottom. There was nothing the buddy could do, he was out of transportable gas. Rusty never ditched his weights or his tool belt. Had he, he would have continued to the surface buoyantly.

All scenarios happen. I have no blame for Rusty, he wasn't thinking about weights at the time. He may never have run out of gas before, so he may not be thinking about it, but thinking about getting to air. It was certainly a crappy situation, all around.

 

[NOOBIEDIVER]

This gentleman was a friend of mine....RIP JF

From NewsPress...

Acontingent of divers from the Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission have recovered the body of a diver who went missing in the Gulf of Mexico Saturday.
A FWC spokesman, Officer Stuart Spoede, said divers from a large FWC boat out of Collier County found the body of the diver near the Pegasus, a 110-foot former ocean tug sunk to form an artificial reef. The Pegasus is about 100-feet from the U.S.S. Mohawk, a former Navy cutter also sunk to form an artificial reef.
He added that the Lee County Medical Examiner's Office would now be examining the body to determine a cause of death before identification would be made.

 

[smokin3000gt]

From NBC-2 (nbc-2.com)

LEE COUNTY, FL -We're hearing from the family of a local scuba diver whomysteriously died in the gulf last weekend.
Jerry Francis' sister and niece sat down exclusively with us.
Francis' family said he was a diver with at least 50 dives under his belt, which makes some new information they shared that much more bizarre.
Francis' niece Jamie Warren said: "It was a Lee County officer and somebody from the Coast Guard. They said that it was turned off. The tank was in the off mode, meaning that he wasn't getting any air."
It's an unsettling detail of her uncle's death that Jamie Warren can't make sense of.
"How did it get turned off? Was it turned off before? Turned off in the water? Who turned it off?" Jamie Warren asked.
Three days ago sheriff's divers found Jerry Francis' body.
On Wednesday closure for his family remains in the hands of the US Coast Guard, which is the lead investigator into his death.
His sister Anne Warren said: "They say that's under investigation, that's under investigation. So I get absolutely no closure or any response."
"You're out in the water yelling for help and nobody's helping you. There has to be some accountability? Who was on that boat?" asked Anne Warren.
They have so many questions about their loved one's final moments so far out at sea - it seems impossible to plan for their final goodbyes.
"I just wish he was here. I thought we would grow old together," said Anne Warren.
Francis' family said initially they thought he might have had a heart attack because they say he had diabetes and high blood pressure.
But after finding out about the air tank allegedly being off, they're suspicious.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

So he jumped in with his regulator pressurized and his tank off?

What was the pressure in the tank? What depth (and time) did he attain on his last dive?

It must be terrible for the family to get bits and pieces of information and not have the knowledge to demand answers to the simple questions that may be very revealing of the situation.

I remember being interviewed by a homicide investigator immediately after a death and being amazed at how ignorant he was about the situation. He asked irrelevant questions and never came up with the important ones..

 

[Bob DBF]

Francis' niece Jamie Warren said: "It was a Lee County officer and somebody from the Coast Guard. They said that it was turned off. The tank was in the off mode, meaning that he wasn't getting any air."
It's an unsettling detail of her uncle's death that Jamie Warren can't make sense of.
"How did it get turned off? Was it turned off before? Turned off in the water? Who turned it off?" Jamie Warren asked.

As much as I would like to say it never happened to me....
I did it to me, and now I make sure the SPG says zero if I close the valve and walk away from my rig, then insure twice it is open before I drop.


Bob