Diver Down Panama City / Mexico Beach

[scuba-pro]

My knowledge of the incident stems only from the one-way conversation that we could hear over the VHF between the coast guard and the said vessel. We could not hear the responses from the boat that the unresponsive diver was brought to only the questions and comments from the Coast Guard. I must say however that I had a lot of concerns from what I heard.

1) The Coast Guard asked several times what the unresponsive divers name was and it seems they either didn't know or could not find it. The coast gurad even prompted them to look through her personal items to see what could be found. This would make me think it was a dive charter?

2) When asked by the coast Guard if this was a dive charter the answer seemed to be No, as the questions from the CG then turned to Personal boat ownership, but later after more poking by the CG it seemed they provided a cororation name of a shop or something.... Seemed odd. Again, I could not hear the answers so I can only tell what I heard the CG ask.

3) During life saving efforts the CG asked if there were medically trained personel on board and the next questions from the CG made me believe the answer was no although it seemed some effort was being made toward FA and CPR. A DM would be a rescue diver with FA/CPR, they are not trained medical personel?

That's most of what I could think of off the top of my head.

For those reading that do not understand the CG and VHF, the CG sector is in Mobile, AL. The incident happened East of Panama City so the range of the boats VHF (LOS +/-) was not such that we could hear it in Pensacola via VHF but the CG has radio towers that allow that. So we only heard one side of the convrsation.

On our boat as we were preparing to dive our thoughts were that there was something fishy about the story being given to the coast guard in regards to the status of the boat as a charter or private vessel, and it seemed to me that the CG was feeling the same thing as they basically asked are you sure this is not a vessel for hire?

Was there no rescue trained personnel.... A DM or rescue diver?

I happen to have been trained by the instructor that was on board and i can tell you that he is a very good instructor and very thorough...another thing i can say is that you are responsible for yourself when you dive and one person cannot watch more than one diver at a time and devote all his or her time to one diver without neglecting others....you do the best you can. It seems to me that some people get half baked training and then forget everything they WERE taught...diving is dangerous if you do not pay attention and all the dive masters in the world cant keep you from dying if you do not pay attention or if you have a medical problem. I can assure you this instructor knows his business, its all he does!!! He's the most experienced diver I know and he was in the medical field at one time...if you are busy trying to save a life it is very hard to talk to the coast guard by the way.