Woman dead - Duck Island, New Hampshire

[Bob DBF]

What is upsetting is that none of this is made public.

You may be confusing press coverage with whether the police and coroner reports are available. SCUBA accidents and deaths, unless by a celeberty or murder, is not enough to keep it on the news.

If the reports are complete, you can probably get them from the appropriate agency for a fee. Sometimes the family requests privacy, in which case you may need to use a freedom of information request. In other words, no one is going to bring you the information because you want it.

Unfortunately, this seems to be prevalent. I sat down with an instructor at a major dive resort in the Caribbean one morning. All we talked about was diving accidents. I could only find reference to one of the many situations discussed. No destination wants to address this. Its obviously bad for both the locale and their diving industry.

In a diving destination the lack of coverage and information is to continue business as usual. In a non-diving destination, it is an overall lack of interest in the subject, except for the initial report of the accident as news. Once the victim is deceased, it is not considered news by the media unless murder is suspected.


It may not be the lack of information, in this case, but the lack of interest by the media. If one wanted to research the information documented by the authorities, it could be done.

 

[divezonescuba]

I cannot say in other cases, but in the case I am familiar with something not quite right occurred with the investigation.

The police searched the deceased’s effects and found some prescription medications. The diving death was then attributed to a medical event without autopsy rather than death by misadventure. That way it was just another medical death instead of a possibly preventable accidental death that required further investigation. In fact, I probably did more of an investigation into the accident than the authorities.

 

[LovestoTravel]

Unfortunately, this seems to be prevalent. I sat down with an instructor at a major dive resort in the Caribbean one morning. All we talked about was diving accidents. I could only find reference to one of the many situations discussed. No destination wants to address this. Its obviously bad for both the locale and their diving industry.

A week later a friend of mine died in a diving accident there. Absolutely zero coverage of his accident either there or anywhere else on the Internet.

If he had either the proper training, equipment, or technique to do the dive he died on, he may not have died. Could anyone have learned from his situation? Absolutely. Has anyone learned from his situation, absolutely not.

You hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, there are far too many that do not want this information made public. And then there are those that make excuses as to why it wasn’t reported or why no legal action was taken.

In this case, the coast guard who investigated were clueless as to what they were looking for.

In fact, one of our friends literally put together a package for them as to what they should be looking for and at....Total lack of training and education in this area.

 

[Kay Dee]

If the instructor only did a quick breath check on his reg, he wouldn't know anything other than his air was "on." That would explain running out of air on decent.

Well a breath check is all well and good, but you can get a breath from a closed cylinder from just the pressure in the line , i.e. hose / first stage (if said cylinder had at least be turned on at some point prior). So thats why we have things called pressure gauges which also should be checked at the same time as the breath check.

As has been said, while there may be reason why he went in with an empty cylinder, there is no excuse!