Cozumel Incident 9/4/11

[Blue Sparkle]

Source re: other divers?

See post #425 in this thread, which references and links to a post from another board. There were other divers in the water, presumably on a more "rec" dive.

Here is an excerpt:

there were other divers with a separate DM using the same boat at a much shallower depth. villa blanca wall is near the new transportador. the other divers were still in the water when these 3 surfaced. the captain, who wanted to leave and get them to the ambulance, had to wait for these other divers to come up as there were no other boats nearby to get them and wait for them to surface. he, as captain, could not abandon his other people either...

 

[WSOPFAN]

Source re: other divers?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Steve: Post 425 1 page back.....update from Gabi

 

[sealkie]

There is a point in that telling that has me thinking. It's how the captain/boat had to stay on site with the injured divers because there were other divers in the water.

I had never thought about this specifically. It seems to be a dilemma. Let's say that a similar instance occurred and the injured diver(s) were not "staff" and had been doing a "normal" dive. Clearly it's not right for a boat to "abandon" other (healthy) divers in the water, and yet it seems so awful to have to delay in getting help for severely injured divers. How is this usually handled?

There really is no choice you have to stay put until all the divers are collected or there is another boat to collect them - what should have happened is the capt should have been banging the ladder like a crazy person to get the divers down back on board.

 

[MMM]

As my brother would say, "holy lick". Other recreational divers in the water. (Wonder what they thought of all this once on the surface?) Diver re-enters water w/o captain's knowledge or permission. I wonder how he was able to follow bubbles for both groups? I'm guessing he couldn't. I've asked this before but haven't heard if this was the first or the second dive. I'm guessing if it was just outside their shop, it was the 2nd but would be interested in a confirmation.

 

[sealkie]

capt hooked up O2 on opal (since she was the worst). then, as captains do, he changed tanks, out of habit.

Really the capt had 3 seriously bent divers on his boat and he was changing tanks ?? .. how about getting on the radio and raising a distress call - or tending to the divers

I guess the boat only had 1 O2 mask .. as divers are supposed to go about in pairs would you not expect they may get bent in pairs ... just a thought

 

[WSOPFAN]

Really the capt had 3 seriously bent divers on his boat and he was changing tanks ?? .. how about getting on the radio and raising a distress call - or tending to the divers

I guess the boat only had 1 O2 mask .. as divers are supposed to go about in pairs would you not expect they may get bent in pairs ... just a thought

I would guess he had no idea how bad they were bent probably thought it was minor.

 

[Jax]

A graph is near impossible because of the variables between each person and in each person themselves. What would narc you one day may provide little or no visible impairment the next. The same with being bent. It's different for every person. That's why it's nothing to mess with. Professionals know this and don't attempt dives that push the limits as far as this one did. 300feet is not as big of a deal to the properly equipped and trained diver but it is still very dangerous. What these people did was was just plain dumb. They were neither properly equipped and I would assime trained because had they been they would have had the right gasses. I just now saw the info about other divers being in the water during their stunt. What if while they were doing their dive one of the other divers had a serious issue and needed medical attention? They would have endangered that diver. The degree of recklessness and disregard for others just gets worse and worse .

Understand your dismay and frustration, Jim.

Just remember, they have been punished by God far worse than man could ever do.

 

[SUMURPHY0300]

It's now up to posting #438 and 44 pages later... this dive accident is caused by bad
planning and execution, period.

The first positing was dated Spt 4, and it was 5 days later on Sept 9, that the true cause of this accident began to come into light. Between Spt 4 and 9, one of the divers involved mislead the public in thinking otherwise, assigning the blame unfairly to the danger of diving in Cozumel.

Since recanting this 'untruth', the reason why the need to lie was portrayed as closing
ranks as loyal friends (see lying, afterall, has a noble cause); while the silence of other dive operators, in so many words, is classified as 'the courtesy in doing business' -- 'Be not the first one to speak ill of your fellow dive operators'. Some suggests maybe insurance is at risk if the truth came out (well, the truth DID came out, and no insurance company is gonna be generous with their checkbook with some accounting of what actually happened ). Then there is the suggestion that if the truth was known, maybe the public will not respond generously when asked to donate to the medical fund. All are valid concerns.

The diving community understands the inherent danger of the sports and accidents do happened. We will always do the best we can to help and support each other. But to look-on and allowed the public to be misled -- now, that's an insult!

I wonder why a message was not posted here in SB or any other appropriate forum advicing the public to withhold judgement and / or speculations until eyewitness information is available? It may take a couple of days, but I'm sure the public understands the sensitive nature in situation such as this. Until that happened, put the word out to dive safely. Why couldn't that be done but instead choose to stay silence, and resort to lying? The result, as I can see from the postings, did nothing but allowed heresays, speculations and other negatives to get ahead of the message.

This is not 'armchair quarter-backing' the event, but lying; casting the blame somewhere else, and / or willfully misleading someone, is never cool. That's what we're taught as kids, and that what we teaches our kids.

 

[fdog]

As more details of this incident come to light, it becomes increasingly apparent this was a perfect storm of bad planning, bad decisions, and bad luck.

...I applaud the way Gabi is coming forward with the truth of the story. It can't be easy to admit you made mistakes on so many levels. This is a learning lesson, indeed.


All the best, James

 

[waterartist]

A graph is near impossible because of the variables between each person and in each person themselves. What would narc you one day may provide little or no visible impairment the next. The same with being bent. It's different for every person. That's why it's nothing to mess with. Professionals know this and don't attempt dives that push the limits as far as this one did. 300feet is not as big of a deal to the properly equipped and trained diver but it is still very dangerous. What these people did was was just plain dumb. They were neither properly equipped and I would assime trained because had they been they would have had the right gasses. I just now saw the info about other divers being in the water during their stunt. What if while they were doing their dive one of the other divers had a serious issue and needed medical attention? They would have endangered that diver. The degree of recklessness and disregard for others just gets worse and worse .

Once knew a lady who dove Coz often. But would get narcosis at 65 or 70 ft. Probably some sort of nuerological problem. Divemasters didn't like having her aboard. Finally her sister became a divemaster whose sole responsibility was first mentioned lady. The divemasters still didn't like to ave her aboard. That was back in the 80's haven't seen her around in many years.