Yet another golf ball diver dead - Naples, Florida

[DandyDon]

Diver drowns at Naples golf course pond

Collier County Sheriff's Office at the scene of a death investigation at the 1800th block Crestview Way lake in Naples.

www.fox4now.com

NAPLES, Fla. — Collier County Sheriff's Office at the scene of a death investigation at the 1800th block of Crestview Way lake in Naples.

CCSO says the call came in around 1:03 PM Friday.

According to CCSO, the person who died was diving into the lake and did not make it back out.

No further information at this time.

 

[SlugLife]

Unusual for sure. Obviously information is super-limited.

Could be pure coincidence of course. Part of me wonders if there's something about golf-ball diving which attracts people who are likely to be careless, or perhaps even uncertified divers.

 

[CuzzA]

Interest thread title. Isn't every diving death "yet" another diving death.

 

[DandyDon]

Interest thread title. Isn't every diving death "yet" another diving death.

I suppose so. We've seen these ball retrieving contractors post here on SB attempting to recruit divers. It just strikes me as a dangerous solo diving endeavor with little to no support, many hazards, and the contractors will take anyone who will do it.

 

[Divin'Papaw]

All I could find about a local (I live just north of Naples) Scuba fatality last Friday is the following. I first noticed this on the Lee County Public Safety Facebook page. Most likely these various stories and the GoFundMe page relate to the same incident in Naples last Friday 7/22.

May he rest in peace.

Homepage

School News, Recruitment, Celebrity Bio, Gist and Latest News Around the World

www.topinfoguide.com

Accident; Nicholas Wardein died tragic scuba-diving accident -GoFundMe

Nicholas Wardein Accident - Nicholas Wardein died in a tragic scuba diving accident on Friday, July 22. He was the husband of Epiphany Gluten Free Bakery owner Ruth Wardein. He was a loving husband, a

snbc13.com

Memorial Fund Nicholas Wardein, organized by Amanda Plumley

We lost a Wonderful man yesterday Nicholas Wardein in a tragic scuba diving accident on … Amanda Plumley needs your support for Memorial Fund Nicholas Wardein

www.gofundme.com

 

[DandyDon]

His son watched him die. I wonder if he dropped his weights...?

Report: Naples man was searching for golf balls in lake before diving accident

44-year-old Nicholas Wardein was searching for golf balls in an Arrowhead Golf Course lake. According to a police report, Wardein struggled to stay afloat before going missing in the water.

www.fox4now.com

NAPLES, Fla. — An incident report obtained by Fox 4 has revealed the identity of the man who died in a Naples lake on July 22. 44-year-old Nicholas Wardein was a Lee County EMT, a Lee County spokesperson confirmed.

According to the Collier County Sheriff's Office, Wardein was diving in a lake at the Arrowhead Golf Course to retrieve golf balls. Wardein's son told investigators they have done this several times.


The son said they had permission to be in the lake. He told detectives Wardein went into the water with SCUBA gear, including a net to carry the golf balls.

Wardein's son said he later noticed his dad was struggling to stay afloat and was gasping for air. He saw Wardein take off his tank, but was still unable to surface. The incident report states this was possibly due to the weight of the bag of golf balls attached to his weighted belt.

The boy then went into the water, trying to help Wardein. However, when he got to the area where he saw his dad last, he could not find him. That's when he got out of the water and called for help.

First responders arrived and found a SCUBA tank floating about 30 yards out in the water. When fire department divers went into the water, they could not find Wardein. Once more divers got to the scene, they discovered Wardein's body.


Fox 4 has reached out to the Collier County Medical Examiner's Office to see if Wardein's cause of death has been determined.

Lee County provided us with a statement about Wardein's death stating,

Lee County Public Safety is saddened that EMT Nicholas Wardein died unexpectedly Friday while pursuing his hobby during his off-duty hours. EMT Wardein joined Lee County EMS in 2014 and was a committed provider who was loved and respected by his coworkers.

A GoFundMe has been set up to support funeral costs.

 

[boulderjohn]

There has to be more than a bag of golf balls pulling him down as a factor.

I was once swimming along the top deck of the Hydro Atlantic wreck in Florida, a favorite site for fishing. There were plenty of fishing mishaps in the form of lead weights, including 2-pounders, scattered around the wreck. I don't know how many I stuck in my pockets before it occurred to me that I was becoming seriously overweighted. It turned out not to be a problem. I surfaced easily. I don't know what I had in weights, but it had to be a heck of a lot more than even a big bag of golf balls.

If you need to inflate your BCD because you are carrying extra weight, and you are able to do so enough to reach the surface, then you really should not be in too much trouble once you get there. Even if he were seriously overweighted to begin with (which is doubtful if he was experienced with bringing up bags of balls in the past), he should have been able to deal with the extra weight. There has to be something more going on.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I dived for golf balls around Orlando, Florida in 1970, with a professional “ball hawk” named Virginia Taylor (I think, from 50+ years of memory). Anyway, I was the first diver to stay with her all day. All the rest quit after one dive. Depth is not an issue (10 feet or so), but it was zero visibility diving all the way. You find the balls by feel. There are potential entanglement hazards, including both line and fishing line. There are also biological hazards--snakes and alligators. Even buddy diving, you are actually solo diving when in those lakes.

SeaRat

 

[DandyDon]

There has to be more than a bag of golf balls pulling him down as a factor.

From this quote in the last article linked...

Wardein's son said he later noticed his dad was struggling to stay afloat and was gasping for air. He saw Wardein take off his tank, but was still unable to surface. The incident report states this was possibly due to the weight of the bag of golf balls attached to his weighted belt.

It sounds like he wore a weight belt, perhaps so he would have it to hang his bag. We've been told in other golf ball accident threads that experienced divers will overweight so they can stay on the bottom searching for more balls that are money to them. I can't imagine why adding air to his BC wouldn't make him float better, maybe because he was out of air or had pond muck stuck in the inflator, but since he was at the point of "struggling to stay afloat and was gasping for air," my next guess is that panic set in when he removed his tank and I guess BC (the only way to ditch a tank during a dive) even tho those helped him float, but kept his weighted belt and bag, which sunk him faster after ditching flotation aids.

In such an emergency, oral inflation of the BC would help if he couldn't add tank air, and ditching his weight belt would have helped, but it'd be difficult to think in a "struggling...gasping for air" emergency.

I do have a personal hunch that too many divers are drowned in such emergencies by failing to ditch weights, so I practice ditching mine on the first dive of every trip.

 

[johndiver999]

Many (professional) golf ball divers don't wear BC's.
A diver might collect 600 -700 balls on a dive .. about 60-70 lbs.
60 lbs of balls is pretty negative and the bag can easily be snagged on something, plus some mud and debris and leaves etc. get into the bag during the ball stuffing process.
All the golf ball divers I have seen, do not wear fins. Instead, they wear heavy boots (over top of normal dive boots), with ankle weights around them and they also wear enough lead on the BC/harness and weight belt(s) to be able to walk/run/crawl on the bottom. This is around 12-15 lbs negative (before the balls) in order to be heavy enough to run over the bottom in a bent over position with their arms outstretched and hands spread over the bottom. If the diver is not at least that negative, then they can not effectively "run" on the bottom.

Often the visibility precludes seeing the spg, but generally there is time to move up slope to make an exit. It is not a big deal to run 20 ft up slope, stick your head out of the water, see where you are relative to the golf shot and check the air pressure. Generally balls will accumulate along the banks and generally concentrate at the bottom of slopes, where the edge meets the flat bottom. So that is where the search effort is concentrated. Even with bad visibility, the experienced golfball diver can detect this sloping feature and knows which way to turn in order to run up slope and make an exit. Often this edge is close maybe, 10-30 feet from the edge of the pond surface. Obviously this is a gross generalization and some lakes have vertical walls of rock which were cut mechanically when the lake was excavated during the construction of the golf course.

However, sometimes it is worthwhile to work "the middles" which is much more difficult and dangerous. The diver may not be able to read the pressure gauge, may not be able to read a compass (doubtful they have one actually) and there are zero topographic features to provide reference. In addition, it is extremely hard to run a straight course while running blindly over a flat muck bottom and there is very little ability to judge depth changes with any accuracy. The inability to run a straight course is also hindered by the drag and weight of hundreds of balls in a big mesh bag that is clipped off on one side of the diver, always pulling and dragging them to the side.

So.. if a diver were to get lost in the middle it is a challenge. They might have to resort to hand swimming and BC filling to fight like heck to make it to the surface in a negative condition, spin around, see which way shore is and then rapidly and uncontrollable sink back to the bottom (remember wearing ankle weights and snow boots) and try to "remember" which way shore was and then try (once again) to run the proper direction (blindly) to reach the shore before the air runs out.

If a problem develops, it might be essential to be able to ditch the large bag of balls. If the bag is attached with a barrel clip or something, it is not unusual for it to be jammed with sand and debris since it is constantly being drug on the bottom. If it is attached to the harness rather than a weight belt (which should have a quick release buckle), it could go downhill fast.

It is not a trivial endeavor and is done solo.

It is not unusual for construction debris and other dangerous materials to have been disposed of in these ponds. There are lots of things that can go wrong and the divers do not carry a secondary independent air source and I have never seen an octopus being used either, it would be filled with mud and debris anyway after half an hour.

It's not a good recreational activity, even though it superficially sounds like it is shallow, simple and easy. I'm not sure if I understand if he was trespassing (and doing it for fun) or was working as a "professional"?