Catalina Diver died today w/ Instructor

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I have to apologize to everyone. For some reason, I was under the impression that the victim was taking part in an AOW or deep specialty course. I deduced this based on: (1) the "deep sea certification" language in the news report and (2) the info regarding max depth (about 65 fsw).

After re-reading the facts and posts in this thread, I think that it's quite possible that the woman was doing her Basic OW training. If that's true, wouldn't exceeding a depth of 60 fsw be a breach of PADI standards?

That would be a minor violation of the maximum depth limit, but you have to remember that the source of that depth information was the same source as the term "deep sea certification." It could be a case of the reporter asking someone how deep the water was there and writing that reply. It may not mean the diver actually reached that depth.
 
That would be a minor violation of the maximum depth limit, but you have to remember that the source of that depth information was the same source as the term "deep sea certification." It could be a case of the reporter asking someone how deep the water was there and writing that reply. It may not mean the diver actually reached that depth.

I have to apologize to everyone. For some reason, I was under the impression that the victim was taking part in an AOW or deep specialty course. I deduced this based on: (1) the "deep sea certification" language in the news report and (2) the info regarding max depth (about 65 fsw).

After re-reading the facts and posts in this thread, I think that it's quite possible that the woman was doing her Basic OW training. If that's true, wouldn't exceeding a depth of 60 fsw be a breach of PADI standards?

No apologies needed. I was told she was doing the deep portion of AOW.
 
Assuming that the depth was actually 65 feet, and this was Dive 1 of the open water course, then the standard vbiolation would be pretty significant. The max depth for Dive 1 is 40 feet.
 
That would be a minor violation of the maximum depth limit, but you have to remember that the source of that depth information was the same source as the term "deep sea certification." It could be a case of the reporter asking someone how deep the water was there and writing that reply. It may not mean the diver actually reached that depth.
Good point, John. It's amazing how reporters, who base their living on communication, can be so imprecise with terminology and report inaccurate/unverified/misleading details of a story.

Thanks for the clarification on the class standards.
 
No apologies needed. I was told she was doing the deep portion of AOW.
Mike, do you know whether the incident in question occurred as Dive #1 of the AOW class?
 
Assuming that the depth was actually 65 feet, and this was Dive 1 of the open water course, then the standard vbiolation would be pretty significant. The max depth for Dive 1 is 40 feet.

Correct, but we have no indication that would be true. In fact, if it did happen on November 1 (Sunday), it would be unlikely that it was dive # 1 or #2. When OW dives are done on the weekend, they usually do the first two (sometimes 3) on Saturday and then finish on Sunday.

EDIT: If it was the AOW deep dive, then some other dives were almost certainly done on Saturday, and there would be no violation at all.
 
It was not OW, but was an Advanced class. The class dove on Saturday as well, as they were set up right next to my group. I have no idea if any of the Saturday classes were AOW or not, but my guess (and only a guess) it that they were. They were doing Nav at the same time my group was.
 
It's amazing how reporters . . . can be so imprecise with terminology and report inaccurate/unverified/misleading details of a story

That's an interesting comment, as I've been thinking the same thing about many of the well-meaning people posting "facts" about the accident in this thread.

Here's what's been "reported" by posters so far:

1. The woman, was 55, 56, or 37.
2. The accident happened at 25 feet, 65 feet, or deeper than 65 feet.
3. The cause of the accident was embolism, heart attack, equipment failure, panic.
4. They were going up, they were going down.
5. It was a Basic Class, it was an Advanced Open Water Class.
6. It was the first dive of the AOW, it was the third or fourth dive of AOW.

As I'm posting this it's not even 36 hours after the accident. The autopsy has yet to be completed. The gear has yet to be tested. The people charged with investigating this are still gathering information and evidence. Yet everyone here has already come up with the answers.

Could I respectfully request we stop the speculation?

Now, there's nothing wrong with stating what you personally observed. There's nothing wrong with steering the discussion into areas like rapid ascents (which is becoming a very good thread elsewhere), instructors controlling/responding to problems, what to do if you feel uncomfortable underwater, etc., etc. These might all be things we can all learn from and a discussion of which posters in this forum can contribute valuable information and insight.

But things like equipment failure, embolism, and heart attack are generally not observable. Though the comments may be well-meaning, they're just guesses and don't provide a clearer pciture of what may have or have not happened. (And just to be clear, "So-and-so told me . . ." isn't good info either because you may just be relaying bad info.)

Also don't lose sight of the fact that friends and family members of those involved, some of whom may not dive, might be reading this. So don't give them bad information or incorrect details. "I don't know at the moment" is many times a perfectly acceptable (and usually correct) answer.

For what it's worth, here are my impressions so far:
1. AOW class.
2. My GUESS is that it was the second day of training since it was Sunday, but I don't know that for a fact.
3. Diver indicated feeling uncomfortable 10-15 minutes into dive.
4. Was not an out-of-air situation.
5. Instructor was with diver entire time, going up Sujack mooring line.
6. On the ascent, diver got more uncomfortable and signalled so.
7. At some point shortly after that, still on ascent, diver began rapid/panic/bolt to surface.
8. Instructor stayed with diver all the way up.

When you try to understand something like this, the key question - and we may not be able to adequately answer it - is "Why?" Why was the diver uncomfortable? Why did they become more uncomfortable on ascent? Why did they (aka "What happened to cause them to") suddenly take off? If we can answer any or all of the "why" questions, then perhaps we can get some understanding of what happened and learn what we as a community can do to make sure it doesn't happen again.

- Ken
 
Ken, I re-read the posts in this thread and I have a different take on our discussion here. Any factual mistakes were discussed and straightened out. (I'll acknowledge that the moderators may have cleaned things up a bit.) I see no problem with speculation so long as it's clearly stated as speculation and there's a healthy discussion on what can be learned from a given scenario. I haven't read anything in this thread that would qualify as irresponsible/wild speculation. The discussion has touched on the possibilities of a heart condition or panic being involved in the incident. There was some discussion regarding what kind of class the victim was participating in and some details regarding PADI's AOW curricular guidelines.

We all appreciate your generous input in discussing dive incidents here on SB. Thanks for the updated info on this particular incident. I didn't realize that the accident occurred near the wreck of the Sue-Jac. I also didn't know that there's a mooring line on the Sue-Jac (that has to be new because it wasn't there last year). IIRC there's a buoyline marking the SE boundary of the UW park not to far away, too.

Thanks once again for participating in the conversation here. We all look forward to your posts...
 

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