Yukon tangent thread

[mdb]

Roll calls are very relevant to this particular accident.

No one really, at least not yet, knows the actual facts. What most divers, except the pedantic, are seeking is what really happened, what can we learn, how can this accident and the lessons learned help prevent a similar occurrence.

 

[The Brandon]

To give out-of-towners more info about the Yukon dive site, it's not a wreck that's several miles out in the middle of the ocean. It's within sight of land. Mission Beach is about a half mile to the east (I would imagine it's swimmable if one were forced to do it).

Wrong. More like almost 2 miles. With an average of 3-4' swells and sometimes strong current depending on tides.

Captain Brandon

 

[cruiser]

The discussion of the roll call really has nothing to do with this accident.

The roll call just would have alerted the boat earlier that they had a fatality to deal with, not in any way prevented it.

We can have a discussion about it being best practices or something for boats to do this and all the bad things that might go wrong if its not done, but it does not have any bearing on *this* accident. That whole roll call debate should, IMO, get split off into a different thread, since its just a tangential hijack.

This guy drowned on the bottom. Roll calls are completely irrelevant to the accident.

Lamont--

At this point, I'm not convinced that a roll call couldn't have saved this diver. He may have already been dead on the bottom, but from what I've read, that's not really known at this time, unless you know more?

 

[boulderjohn]

I think the roll call issue could be very relevant.

Hypothetically, a missing diver could be in some kind of stress that would allow for a successful rescue if the search were conducted in time. If a boat leaves a dive site without realizing anyone is missing, then I think that pretty much guarantees a search will not be conducted in time to effect a rescue.

 

[Adobo]

A roll call may or may not be relevant. At best though, you are talking about heroic efforts with zero room for error needed to save a diver's life. You are talking about discovering a diver is missing, gearing up a rescue team, bringing enough of the correct type of resources, searching and finding the diver - all of this done before the distressed diver expires. At best.

I dunno about the rest of you but I don't personally like the odds attached with heroic/desperate efforts.

I'm not sure we are inching any further along in bettering diver practices if our conclusion from this tragedy is that the boat should have done a roll call. Maybe it's just me but my preference would be to find all the mis-steps that took place that led this diver to be in distress in the first place. Let's see if we can bring those things to light and see if we can prevent them from being repeated.

 

[Jax]

That's the problem, Adobo, we don't know anything except that he was found on the bottom. As for the individual that said, "his tank was empty", he did not attribute a source to that statement so the statement is suspect. We know the guy was last seen 'looking at something in the sand next to the wreck' because a news story said so - again, suspect.

 

[Gunrock]

I feel like I'm pouring fuel on a fire but I can't resist...Lamont nailed it. The Yukon dive site has been described in detail. Even the better-than-average diver is only going to make an 80 cubic foot tank last for so long at these depths and in water that's in the 50s. And even those "God's Gift to Scuba" types who brag about their own bottom times will have to concede that there is nothing in the description of this diver's experience, certifications, or actions that suggest an ability to sip air at some extraordinarily low rate.
Another diver already posted regarding his own 26-minute dive, and that's not an atypical range for the average Yukon diver.
Although I'll concede there are things we'll never know for certain in this case, the most likely conclusion is that he never made it to the surface. Sorry to say but even in a best case scenario with the boat staying on site and doing a roll call, once enough time passed for the crew to realize there was a problem it would have been too late. At that point a diver on an 80 would almost surely be out of air already. The time to realize an emergency, don gear, and descend to the wreck would have exceeded the window of several minutes where this diver might have been saved, to say nothing of searching the Yukon's 366' length as well as the surrounding sand if the rescuer did not drop right on top of the missing diver.
Maybe there's some small chance that a person could stay down longer than anyone else (perhaps the last one to enter the water), and longer than the time required for the boat crew to pull in the swim step, untie from the mooring line, and get underway, THEN have an OOA emergency, and then surface without getting noticed by the departing boat, only to slip beneath the surface again, perhaps having suffered an AGE...we can propose "what-ifs" until we're all blue in the face -- but the most likely scenario is an OOA situation at depth and the diver never surfaced.

To those who say, "But since the boat left, we'll never know for certain! Perhaps a life could have been saved!" I don't disagree, and I suspect the crew of the Humboldt would not disagree either.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

A roll call may or may not be relevant. At best though, you are talking about heroic efforts with zero room for error needed to save a diver's life. You are talking about discovering a diver is missing, gearing up a rescue team, bringing enough of the correct type of resources, searching and finding the diver - all of this done before the distressed diver expires. At best.

The roll call, while disturbing if it really wasn't done in some form (tank count, whatever) is a red herring.

You've really hit the nail on the head with the problems here. Not only does everything have to work perfectly, it all has to be completed within 4-6 minutes of the diver having stopped breathing. The odds are that breathing will have stopped before the roll call is completed and probably even before it is realized that someone is missing and bubbles can't be seen.

I was having this discussion with one of the L.A. boat captains last night and he asked me if I knew of any case where a diver who was missing underwater and was sucessfully rescued. I don't know of any case anecdotally, nor have any of the roughly 35 cases that I've done with the LA County Coroner since 2003 involved this. Generally if a diver is determined to be missing and then they are found on the bottom by rescuers, they are beyond saving at the time they're discovered.

The only times we have anything close is when the diver actually makes it to the surface (unknown in this case but seems unlikely based on what's been said so far - downloadable computer, if there is one, should give a better picture) and is spotted. The diver stays on the surface and is rescued, or is seen sinking back down and the response is almost immediate and within that 4-6 minute window. But even then, there's no guarantee.

There's no saying in this case what would have happened had the victim ditched his weightbelt and floated to the surface, even if he was at that point unconscious and not breathing. But rescue from the surface gives you a better shot than hoping to find someone quickly on the bottom and then trying to rescue.

- Ken

 

[Adobo]

That's the problem, Adobo, we don't know anything except that he was found on the bottom. As for the individual that said, "his tank was empty", he did not attribute a source to that statement so the statement is suspect. We know the guy was last seen 'looking at something in the sand next to the wreck' because a news story said so - again, suspect.

We rarely know the full extent of the facts regarding incidents like these. While some things we will never know - like the entire full sequence of events from the beginning of the dive to the time that the diver perished, there are some key pieces of information that can be gathered. Things like:
- Dive team - did the diver set out with buddies or did he set out solo? If he set out with buddies, why did he wind up by himself with no one noticing?
- Equipment - how was this diver configured? Was he configured properly for the type of dive he was executing?
- What kind of gas was in his tanks?
- What was the end state of his equipment? Was there anything malfunctioning? Did he have any gas left?
- I'm sure there are other useful bits of information that can be collected.

Based on this information, we can at least discuss the compatibility of the diver's approach with the dive he was to undertake.

The thing with the roll call is that again, its very hard to imagine how even a timely roll call could have saved this diver's life. And really, fixating on the roll call as a main issue distracts from examining the things that could have made a difference.

 

[Jax]

:rtfm: You didn't read the thread, did you?

Don't bother to ask about what type gas he was breathing -- that opened a HUGE can o' worms! :snicker: (removed before now)