Cozumel Incident 9/4/11

[Ron Lee]

Bugbagger, I have never used this dive op but I suspect that this is a typical language misinterpretation. By that I suspect that they mean dive your tank to normal safe "terminate dive" levels as opposed to come up as a group regardless of how much air you have remaining.

 

[rjchandler]

Your Safety and Convenience is our Commitment
DiveYYouuYntil you are low on air!

yourYou


This is a quote from the website of the company with which these divers were affiliated.

I do not wish to disparage this SCUBA company and understand that many people have fond feelings toward them and their mission to serve SCUBA divers who wished to come to know Cozumel. I understand that this incident has wrought great pain.

Tragically, I think this statement on the website speaks to an error in their mission, judgement, planning, and practice, at least as demonstrated by this incident.

May others learn from them. Pride, ego, bravado, over-confidence, ignorance, carelessness, foolishness- whatever you want to call it, it leads to heartache that is unfathomable.

Never stop learning. Gain experience gradually in conditions and with equipment with which you are trained and familiar. Equip yourself and your entire team for challenges and contingencies that can reasonably be expected to occur even if they have not occurred on previous dives. Do not push the limits of your training, experience, comfort, or equipment. Do not participate with team members who push these limits for themselves. Do not over estimate your ability to overcome that which you have under estimated!​

i think you misunderstand the the website. to me that means they aren't going to put a time limit on my dive.

 

[mlk2724]

As I stated in a previous post on the original thread I was diving with both Heath and Gabi last week 4 days prior to the accident. Both are safe and professional divers. Scubamau does let you dive your dive. During the dive briefing we are told to start the safety stop when we hit 700psi. They usually group their boats by experience levels so the majority of the time we do come up as a group, But some stay in underwater longer than others. Some people burn through air and the divemaster will send them up early to accomodate the divers who are more air conservative. My wife and I are usually the last one's up and the divemaster will stay with us the entire time. I think that the statement on their website is being misinterepreted by some. They are an extremely safe diving operation and try to accomadate all types of divers. And we have dove with 5 other shops before we found them. We have not hesitated once to stop diving with them and will continue to dive with them and support them through this.

 

[Craig66]

BUGGBAGGER I find your post very insulting to a great number of people

Cozumel is famous for long unhurried dives where divers can dive their computers and air usually followed by long beach based surface intervals and that is clearly what that statement refers to but something tells me that you really knew that....

You will not find more than a couple of non cattleboat dive ops that do not offer that same thing and unfortunately language choice on the SM site was not ideal but the suggestion that this is how they operated is ridiculous....

Please also note that even though all who interacted with SM and their crew care very much for and about them I do not believe that we are above admitting that perhaps some careless and bad choices were made with regards to this private non customer based dive. This does not detract from the thousands and thousands of safe dives that SM have provided to their customers (and hopefully will continue to provide)

Craig

 

[Crush]

As I stated in a previous post on the original thread I was diving with both Heath and Gabi last week 4 days prior to the accident. Both are safe and professional divers. Scubamau does let you dive your dive. During the dive briefing we are told to start the safety stop when we hit 700psi. They usually group their boats by experience levels so the majority of the time we do come up as a group, But some stay in underwater longer than others. Some people burn through air and the divemaster will send them up early to accomodate the divers who are more air conservative. My wife and I are usually the last one's up and the divemaster will stay with us the entire time. I think that the statement on their website is being misinterepreted by some. They are an extremely safe diving operation and try to accomadate all types of divers. And we have dove with 5 other shops before we found them. We have not hesitated once to stop diving with them and will continue to dive with them and support them through this.

I have no issue with their website - it is probably administered by the most technologically competent person who may (or may not) yet be legally allowed to drink. The owner may never have viewed the website.

The issue at hand it NOT the safety record or professionalism of the dive shop. We are discussing what their professionals did after-hours and: (1) how it impacts upon the reputation of diving in Cozumel; and (2) the impact of irresponsible diving on young and impressionable divers, especially if those young divers look up to those who are playing Russian roulette.

 

[MMM]

I don't have a problem with the mission statement. In fact, it's a mission statement in what I look for in an op. Not all divers want to be dragged to the surface after 45 minutes of dive time, regardless of how much air they have left.

Your Safety and Convenience is our Commitment
DiveYYouuYntil you are low on air!

yourYou


This is a quote from the website of the company with which these divers were affiliated.

I do not wish to disparage this SCUBA company and understand that many people have fond feelings toward them and their mission to serve SCUBA divers who wished to come to know Cozumel. I understand that this incident has wrought great pain.

Tragically, I think this statement on the website speaks to an error in their mission, judgement, planning, and practice, at least as demonstrated by this incident.

May others learn from them. Pride, ego, bravado, over-confidence, ignorance, carelessness, foolishness- whatever you want to call it, it leads to heartache that is unfathomable.

Never stop learning. Gain experience gradually in conditions and with equipment with which you are trained and familiar. Equip yourself and your entire team for challenges and contingencies that can reasonably be expected to occur even if they have not occurred on previous dives. Do not push the limits of your training, experience, comfort, or equipment. Do not participate with team members who push these limits for themselves. Do not over estimate your ability to overcome that which you have under estimated!​

 

[scubafanatic]

I'll answer this first and then I will be back with a more detailed response.


Bounce dive to 300 fsw. Max depth 350+ for Gabi & Opal. 21% back gas. Single tank each. No deco bottles or support divers. No technical training. I'm guessing that the tanks are either AL80 or AL100 as ScubaMau did not have steel tanks, or that is the answer I got when I inquired when I last dove with them.

No, there was no so-called down-current. It played no role in this incident.

freekin' Kamikazes !!!

 

[avatar]

First off, best wishes to the injured divers.

I've been a climber in a past life and have known several people who climbed hard climbs without ropes. They were not in it for any kind of glory,and they were not reckless. For the most part, they were quiet, almost shy in what they did. I believe they did it because they had something that no amount of time or money could buy, and it was just a part of them.

Look at the really good divemasters,they dive with no weight, except extra weight for their clients, they come up with far more air than anybody else, and I can guarantee they have the rattiest wetsuit on the boat. 3-5 dives a day,5-6 days a week, over X number of years, plus maybe a little genetics thrown in there.These people are accomplished athletes, and they know diving on a level that very few others ever will.

My point being, if these extremely experienced Cozumel DMs were pushing the limits, and knew what they were doing,on their own personal time, then so be it. And regarding the Cozumel diving community closing ranks on this, good, at least there is still some loyalty out there.

 

[BUGBAGGER]

OK. I accept the criticism of my post as I did not write every word as I intended and mistakenly thought that others would understand from my post it's intention. I thought I made my intentions clear but see that emotions have taken folks to a very different place.

Some of you made the good point that the quote from their website might have been a poor translation of what they intended. If so, as written it is an ugly error and a poor statement for a website.

One of you made the statement that you believe that I actually understood what was intended. The tone seemed to me to say that you thought I had a sinister reason to misinterpret or exagerate the statement. I quoted it as it appears. I did not intend to give it a different meaning than what was written. Personally, I think that the idea of "promoting more bottom time than the other guy" is an issue for our industry as it seems to me to be encouraging the idea of getting as much as you possibly can even to the extent of pushing limits. I too appreciate not being limited unreasonably but don't expect to get every last drop every time.

I do recognize that the intention was probably to try to relay that the company wants to allow divers to dive as long as they can (I may assume safely). However, the statement, as quoted, was painfully ironic in the context of this incident. Reading it, when I wanted to learn more about these divers, made a lump form in my throat. The glaring irony, as mistaken as it may have been through poor translation, jumped out at me. I am sorry that I used a quote and worded my post in a manner that appeared to cast doubt on the entire practices of the company with which they were affiliated. I wrote too soon after my own emotional reaction to reading words on their site. I wrote it when I was still emotional, it had made me so very uncomfortable.

At least one person reacted so angrily that you missed my point as you focus on whether or not I missed the point in the quote. However, it is correct that I should not have allowed my post to reflect on the company and all it's parties in general. My comments should have been limited to the actions of the individuals involved. That would, however, include the unidentified Captain of the vessel and other crew if they who knew the plan and were complicite in it by supporting the dive unless they expressed concerns and only remained involved to try to help in the event of foreseeable problems.

Still, if the dive was conducted, as reported by some, as a "bounce" dive to a depth well beyond recreational dive limits without appropriate equipment or gases, it seems without appropriate training ( but I don't know this) and with no reasonable motivation to execute such a dangerous, ill fated dive, I feel it demonstrated poor judgement and carelessness on the part of these divers. At least two of these divers are dive professionals called upon to exercise good judgement and decision making in their profession. We hold other professionals accountable for conduct in their personal time that is not congruent with the standards of their profession why should we not hold dive professionals to that same standard.

Indications from some who knew the professionals involved are that a lack of judgement and disregard for safe diving practices was not the mode of operation when they guided or supervised clients. However, in my experience what dive leaders do on their own time usually becomes known to many of their clients and associates and I feel that it sets an example and demonstrates a lack of respect for safe diving practices in general. It's like saying do as I say, not as I do.

This incident also re-awakens for me strong feelings that I have about how such a dive demonstrates disregard for their own safety and for the feelings of the great many people who obviously care about them. I know people will say it is their right to do as they please but that doesn't make it right. They are suffering greatly for their choices and actions AND so are a great many others.

Again, I hope we can all learn from this. I hope they will recover. I hope those who know and care about the divers will recover, as well. I hope that in their zealous efforts to protect the reputation of the people and the company for which they worked, those who care about these divers will not lose sight of the lessons that we can learn.

I do applaud the friendship, love, and loyalty demonstrated by those who are trying to make sure that analysis of incident does not disparage the reputation of the manner in which these divers apparently conducted guided dives with their clients, the reputation of employees of the company that were not involved, or the reputation of Cozumel as a diving destination.

I still feel that my statement as indicated again below can summarize things that we can learn from this incident.

Pride, ego, bravado, over-confidence, ignorance, carelessness, foolishness- whatever you want to call it, leads to heartache that is unfathomable. (Perhaps I should word this as poorly planned and executed, ill equipped, extremely high risk, out of bounds exploration, that, as conducted in this case, was contra-indicated in relation to almost every accepted safe diving rule, be it recreational or technical, lead to unfathomable heartache.)

Never stop learning. Gain experience gradually in conditions and with equipment with which you are trained and familiar. Equip yourself and your entire team for challenges and contingencies that can reasonably be expected to occur even if they have not occurred on previous dives. Do not push the limits of your training, experience, comfort, or equipment. Do not participate with team members who push these limits for themselves. Do not over estimate your ability to overcome that which you have under estimated!

I joined this thread to learn and to share what I learned. I shared lessons of which I was reminded. I will now step out as it appears that I have touched too many nerves.

 

[DandyDon]

Oh good grief Bugbagger. Calm down. Your profile says you have dived Cozumel, altho I don't know how recently? Some Ops make everyone ascend together, some allow the divers to dive their capabilities, and "Dive until you are low on air!" simply meant the latter - perhaps translated from Spanish by someone who speaks more Spanish than English. You took it the wrong way is all. Chill.

The off-duty dive that is the subject of this discussion is totally different from their business operation. Yeah, one might assume some correlations but just be reasonable ok.