Yukon tangent thread

[Blackwood]

Is there a lot to see above 30 feet on that dive?

Depends on the viz, but usually just mooring lines and the occasional jellyfish.

 

[Bubbletrubble]

Unless he spent the bulk of the dive above 30 feet, there's very little chance that he had more than 60 minutes of gas in his Al80. We know he was puttering around at 100+ in the sand for awhile, so that makes hour-long dives on an Al80 very unlikely. I'll bet money that the dive boat was still at the dive site when he was draining his tanks.

@lamont: Do we know how long the victim spent at the bottom?
I agree that an hour-long dive on an AL80 is unlikely...but it's still possible.
We have no idea what this guy's gas consumption rate was.

Assuming he wasn't doing a free ascent at hovering at 15 feet while he drained his tanks down for 45 minutes, he would have also been spotted by someone on the line as the rest of the divers were ascending.

You are assuming that he ascended along the line. I have been on several Yukon dive trips where divers came up the wrong line or did a free ascent (for various reasons).

Really, there's no way to twist and turn the facts into a situation where missing the head count could have changed the outcome, without coming up with some ridiculous speculation. The root cause is simply that he ran out of gas.

More assumptions. How have you ruled out a primary medical cause (heart attack, pulmonary issue, stroke, etc.)? These are not "ridiculous speculations" in my book.

 

[Jax]

The area that they found him was at the signaling mast. If that was the last place they had seen his bubbles that's where I would start looking. Time to get a tank on, since if I was diving already had my drysuit on. Get to the bottom of 100'. To the signaling mast. Let's day 3 minutes. Now insert your snappy comment here.

:huh: How do you know this? Source, please.

 

[Blow.Fish]

:huh: How do you know this? Source, please.

"Lifeguard dive team members found him about 25 - 30 yards on the west side of the vessel midship" said San Diego Lifeguard Lt. Nick Lerma.

Source: Diver Dies Off Mission Beach | NBC San Diego

I'm guessing the signaling mast is approx midship and protrudes away from deck out toward sand ? Can someone confirm ?

 

[Ken Kurtis]

B
I have ranted here before about "wild speculation" and how it (1) derails a thread, (2) doesn't really provide useful information to understanding the accident, and (3) might be inflicting some more pain on family members who may be reading some of these posts.

With that as preamble (and not thinking anything will change but it makes me feel better to know that I at least tried) . . .

Please provide the evidence that you have that he did not make it to the surface, struggle, or have a heart attack at the surface. Find no dive boat there to assist. And sink to the bottom.

IMHO, this is a reckless statement. There's NO evidence/comment that's been made yet to even remotely suggest that this might have happened so what "proof" do you want to see? (And remember, you can't prove a negative.)

Why not just assert that alien scuba divers from another planet attacked him underwater and then swam back to the mothership to escape detection? There's no proof of that either but you can't prove it DIDN'T happen (out of view of everyone and leaving no evidence behind).

Discussion's one thing. Possible scenarios that fit the known facts are one thing. But specualtion should at least be labelled exactly that (if you can't resist the urge to avoid it all together) and just making stuff up should be avoided altogether.

End of rant. (Should the HTML code be "[/RANT]"??)

- Ken

 

[Hetland]

Refer to my previous post where I noticed my "friend" not "dive buddy" since we were both solo was overdue and I brought him another tank. This kept him from having an incident like this. No need to get into a recovery. I noticed that he was probably going to run out of gas he had 35 minutes of obligation and about 10 minutes of air left. At worst if I didn't jump in he could have had a chamber ride, probably not death. But it still saved him from a bit of trouble.

Yes, tell us again how you ascended from a 100ft dive, detected a perceived problem, and then descended back to 100fsw with a fresh tank to resupply your friend who apparently believed that 100fsw was a good place for a 35 minute decompression stop. Did you do this on your original AL80, or did you change out tanks for yourself too. What mix were you breathing? Didn't you have a deco obligation too, or did you bounce down, switch out regulators and do a rapid ascent???

Well, in defense of DM Dave, if it were me lying at the bottom of the ocean, dead or not, I hope the boat doesn't leave without at least noticing that I'm not on the boat.

If you're dead, you probably won't feel too bad about it.

 

[divemaster dave]

:huh: How do you know this? Source, please.

Radio coms. I was nearby remember. Close enough to see the action. The news reports gave a hint and said midship. Also for those of you who don't know the Yukon has 4 mooring points (stern, signaling mast, forward guns, bow). Yes sometimes they break off or are ripped off by vessels transiting the area but they are quickly replaced by the 3 dive charters in town.

The rescuers descended the signaling mast mooring and recovered the body very, very quickly.

 

[lamont]

@lamont: Do we know how long the victim spent at the bottom?
I agree that an hour-long dive on an AL80 is unlikely...but it's still possible.
We have no idea what this guy's gas consumption rate was.

Even with a rate of 0.30 CF/min he's still dead before the boat leaves, still dead before anyone can get to him.

You are assuming that he ascended along the line. I have been on several Yukon dive trips where divers came up the wrong line or did a free ascent (for various reasons).

To get the kind of outcome you are looking for he would have needed to spend considerable time on a non-square profile, which means floating around at 30 feet or less. If he was on the line he would have been seen. Which means that you've got a hypothetical diver in midwater floating around off the line at 30 feet for times on the order of 30 mins while he slowly drains his tanks and the boat leaves. I seriously doubt it.

You are also getting to point where if he's doing an Al80 dive for 2 hours floating in midwater, its kind of up to him to point out to the boat that he's going to be doing something like that. Most boats I've been on the divers and the captain come to an agreement about maximum dive time of about 60-80 minutes. Some boats will mandate a maximum time of 60 minutes.

More assumptions. How have you ruled out a primary medical cause (heart attack, pulmonary issue, stroke, etc.)? These are not "ridiculous speculations" in my book.

Empty tanks. Generally people who go into cardiac arrest stop breathing.

 

[Jax]

Radio coms. I was nearby remember. Close enough to see the action. The news reports gave a hint and said midship. Also for those of you who don't know the Yukon has 4 mooring points (stern, signaling mast, forward guns, bow). Yes sometimes they break off or are ripped off by vessels transiting the area but they are quickly replaced by the 3 dive charters in town.

The rescuers descended the signaling mast mooring and recovered the body very, very quickly.

So it's speculation that you are touting as fact.

 

[Thalassamania]

...

Empty tanks. Generally people who go into cardiac arrest stop breathing.

If belly down, then heart attack, then regulator falls out of the mouth, then freeflow: freeflow can empty a tank also ... even postmortem.

I've seen it a number of times.