Cozumel Incident 9/4/11

[Jax]

There is a fine line between customer and friend. Someone was paying for that boat.

IF there were other divers on the boat and they were also doing a dive past recreation limits I am not surprised they are keeping quiet. But IF this is the case it goes someway to explaining why the decision was made to return to the water - if they knew that other divers potentially had a long deco obligation and could not surface. I`m sorry no matter how much of a habit it is and how fast they are I just don`t buy that a captain with 3 badly bent divers would be changing tanks but I do buy that he could have been in an impossible situation and could not really stop anyone returning to the water

Selkie, please "buy it" that the Cap'n changed tanks. In times of high stress and danger, people will automatically execute what they have [trained in and ] done. That is why the military drills and drills and drills. We count on this auto-response to keep the soldiers safe.

 

[DiverG]

It is not an unconfirmed story it came from Gabi's mouth yesterday. What we don't know is if they were customers or doing a pleasure dive like these 3. The post did say they were diving shallow on the wall.

I know about other divers on the boat diving. I don't recall seeing anything from Gabi about them doing a deep dive.

 

[sealkie]

Ever since I've broadened my diving horizons, I have been mentally prepared to be 'left behind', due to a possible emergency. I have faith that another boat would be along to provide support, maybe just a rope line if they couldn't take us aboard, but at least we'd be informed and understand what's happening while we wait for a pickup.

Question: Why couldn't the Cap'n abandon his other divers to get these three ashore?

No matter what you can not leave divers in the water without boat cover - what if another diver surfaced with an issue -

How would anyone know the boat was coming back and to just wait ?

How long are you going to wait on the surface certain that someone would come back .. until you have drifted past the end of the island and out to open ocean

Where would another boat know to look for the abandoned divers ?

who would inform you what was going on ?

 

[WSOPFAN]

I know about other divers on the boat diving. I don't recall seeing anything from Gabo about them doing a deep dive.

Gotcha .....page 43 Post 425

 

[gypsyjim]

Captain sounds like he was in a 'damned if you do/damned if you don't' situation.

Some of the sites we dived this last Feb were well south of most of the resorts, which was why I was usually last one on the schedule for pick up at Fiesta Americana, AND on a few of the dives there was a pretty impressive off shore current running as we ended our dive. Surfacing from one of those dives, and finding no boat on the horizon at all would have not been a comfortable situation.

Such could have been the decision the captain had to face. Race to get victims to medical attention they desperately needed, and leave his other charges adrift with no idea what was occurring, or any chance of them being quickly recovered by another vessel, or stay, putting Opal on O2, and recovering his charges before evacuating the victims.

He chose the latter, it seems, but if it had been the former, I am sure there would also now be a SB thread about the horrid lack of safety concerns, in his abandoning divers at sea.

 

[DiverG]

Gotcha .....page 43 Post 425

At a much shallower depth. I take that to mean recreational limits.

 

[BTravlin]

Correct, and thank you. I was referring to cicopo's question as to why we have not heard from the other team of deep divers on the boat. I can't imagine they will be in a big hurry to comment, for what seems to me to be obvious reasons. They'll have little to add since Gabi has been so forthcoming, and, I would think, not be in a hurry to advertise their involvment.

If there was indeed another group of divers on the boat, they might be silent because they aren't members of SB. I dive Coz regularly and the majority of divers I talk with are unfamiliar with SB strange as that may seem.

 

[Jax]

No matter what you can not leave divers in the water without boat cover - what if another diver surfaced with an issue -

How would anyone know the boat was coming back and to just wait ?

How long are you going to wait on the surface certain that someone would come back .. until you have drifted past the end of the island and out to open ocean

Where would another boat know to look for the abandoned divers ?

who would inform you what was going on ?

In San Carlos, we go out to Seal Island, a fast boat's hour away. When there was a medical emergency, the boat revved engine 3 times (recall), and then took off. When the divers surfaced, they saw another boat coming. The DM jumped in to group them away as the boat anchored, and explained the emergency, and that they would board this boat. There was yet another boat standing by, and the 'gone' boat had radioed a list of names.

Rumor had it there was one disgruntled 'left-behind' diver, but the other divers adjusted his attitude.

 

[Laurie S.]

Yes, that's what we do in San Carlos, but divers do have the option of being at the island and not floating in a boat channel. I still wonder why there apparently wasn't a distress call sent out by the captain for another boat to assist.

 

[mstevens]

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.

It does answer some of the points I made much earlier in the thread about the captain's role here.

Frankly, it had not occurred to me that a shop owner and DM would do such a dive from a boat that was also tending other divers.

It won't be a popular opinion, but making this dive when there were other divers on the boat needlessly endangered those other divers and is one more sign of inappropriate decision-making throughout this unfortunate incident. If the captain had done the right thing for the injured divers, it would have meant abandoning the other group of divers who apparently didn't make any reckless decisions.

It increasingly appears that the captain may have chosen the better of two bad options by not abandoning his other divers, but he should never have been put in that position.

If someone on a dive gets injured and the boat leaves me and my buddies in the water to get them to treatment, I'm perfectly fine with that - we've got SMB's and can float as long as needed. Besides, there are usually enough boats in the water that I expect eventually to get picked up. There's really no way for a captain to know this about me, though, and for some divers leaving them could be very dangerous.