Shocky
Registered
Probably all you will hear from the ME is death by drowning.
Wes Skiles death - July 21, 2010
- Thread starter BlueWaterDiving
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Cruisin Home
Contributor
That would not be a very fitting epitaph for such a talented pioneer. Wes, i hope you are not looking down at this good buddy.
Don't expect a lot from the "authorities" -- My wife was killed in a car accident just about a year ago and the "official reports" are not ready yet. Keep in mind, she was not a famous person nor was there any mystery as to what really happened. I am shocked that something like this can take that long, but my attorneys assure me they see it all the time.
It takes fame on the order of Michael Jackson or Anna-Nicole Smith for the "authorities" to line up to the media with all the answers. Anna-Nicole proves that in Florida, things can move rather quickly when "inquiring minds want to know" -----
Wes' death is very sad for all of us... I routinely dive the same area where he died and it is one of the "easier" dives in Palm Beach County. For someone of his experience to get in trouble at this location, there had to have been some catastrophic equipment failure -- I agreee with all the O2 speculation, can't imagine what other than O2 toxicity could take out an extremely experienced diver at 70' -- I've done a handful of free ascents from similar depth in the past 25 years.... never came close to drowning. That or something like a stroke or heart attack -- but I suspect that if it were natural causes, we'd have heard something by now.
My attorneys also tell me that when they expect lawsuits to fly (as in my wife's case), the reports tend to take forever because they want to get it right. If equipment was at issue with Wes, we can surely expect the lawsuits to fly.... and IF this IS the case, I hope NatGeo digs into their deep pockets and helps along.....
My best to his family and friends......
It takes fame on the order of Michael Jackson or Anna-Nicole Smith for the "authorities" to line up to the media with all the answers. Anna-Nicole proves that in Florida, things can move rather quickly when "inquiring minds want to know" -----
Wes' death is very sad for all of us... I routinely dive the same area where he died and it is one of the "easier" dives in Palm Beach County. For someone of his experience to get in trouble at this location, there had to have been some catastrophic equipment failure -- I agreee with all the O2 speculation, can't imagine what other than O2 toxicity could take out an extremely experienced diver at 70' -- I've done a handful of free ascents from similar depth in the past 25 years.... never came close to drowning. That or something like a stroke or heart attack -- but I suspect that if it were natural causes, we'd have heard something by now.
My attorneys also tell me that when they expect lawsuits to fly (as in my wife's case), the reports tend to take forever because they want to get it right. If equipment was at issue with Wes, we can surely expect the lawsuits to fly.... and IF this IS the case, I hope NatGeo digs into their deep pockets and helps along.....
My best to his family and friends......
Cruisin Home
Contributor
DND
I suspect you are right, probably some equip issues coupled with legal fears. Sorry about your wife.
I suspect you are right, probably some equip issues coupled with legal fears. Sorry about your wife.
Vipa
Registered
Everyone seems to be avoiding the big white elephant in the room! Wes was in his fifties and was certainly carrying a little extra padding, irrespective of his level of fitness, at that age strange s**t has a tendency to just 'happen.' I have personally experienced blacking out (only once in my life and thankfully not underwater) simply from jumping up too fast from a horizontal position and going straight for a pee... Found out later that this is quite a common thing in men as it can cause a catastrophic drop in blood pressure and black out is fast to follow. It would only take a very brief loss of conciousness, which, on dry land would be brushed off as insignificant, to kill underwater, even something such as plaque build up causing narrowing of the carotid artery (quite feasible at Wes' age) which manifests itself in brief restriction to blood flow when a sufferer looks up too quickly, temporarily starving the brain of oxygen and usually causing diziness, add some exertion to that and who knows!!!
Anything could have gone wrong but we won't know until the reports are out. I read that they had already checked out the equipment and it was working fine so that would therefore lean more towards Wes' body failing somehow.
RIP anyway, you will be missed and, as they always say, at least you died doing what you lived for while you still had all your marbles!
DND.... Very sorry for your sad loss.
Anything could have gone wrong but we won't know until the reports are out. I read that they had already checked out the equipment and it was working fine so that would therefore lean more towards Wes' body failing somehow.
RIP anyway, you will be missed and, as they always say, at least you died doing what you lived for while you still had all your marbles!
DND.... Very sorry for your sad loss.
It's unlikely that this will be an equipment issue related to the manufacturer. If there was a problem with O2 sensors (for example) it's probably because they were past their service life, which is an end user issue, not a manufacturing defect. I would be surprised to hear of an issue that is actually worthy of a lawsuit (not to say one couldn't be brought regardless).
ucfdiver
Contributor
The Skiles family doesn't strike me as the type to bring a lawsuit on like this. Not even sure why anyone would suggest it. Lamar (owner of Dive Rite, who makes the unit he used on this dive) heard about his death and immediately drove back to FL non stop. They were friends and I just don't see that happening.
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