Gilboa Again!!?

[bwerb]

divebuddydale once bubbled...
p.s I shook my head and something was rattling, who should I call?

You're a good sport...I like you!

None of us can comment on the specifics of this incident but to step outside it for a moment...the layout of the quarry has been covered here before. There is a shallow side and a deep side with a wall demarcating the line between them...as I understand it if you want to dive the deep side, you file a dive plan prior to heading over...of course, the diver can always "sneak over".

I just can't accept at any level ANY blame to the owner of the quarry for any of the diver deaths which have been reported or discussed here before. Pilot error or lack of training isn't the fault of the owner.

I understand your point that if an area has a bad record, then perhaps there is something more going on but...if you study the previous accident reports, they have had NOTHING to do with the location, these accidents could have happened at any dive site.

 

[netmage]

Well - the first thing I thought when I read this was "Oh SH$^#T". My brother is out at Gilboa today doing his Drysuit Checkout Dives... And after four frantic calls on his cellphone with no response I got a little worried and called the 'rents to see if they heard anything. (It's their numbers on his sheet as emergency contacts...)

Well he just called me back and gave me the following info, facts may be missing. So here's what I know.

Diver in his late 50's, part of an advanced class doing their deep dive. At about 80ft his regulator starts free-flowing. He switches to his pony bottle. (The particular instructor makes everyone use a pony bottle for deep dives.)

The diver then had some sort of incident, unknown if a convulsion, heart attack, etc... The description was that his eyes rolled back. He came to and dumped his weights and shot to the surface with an instructor chasing him all the way.

Once at the surface it did not look good. They cut off his brand new drysuit and used an external defibrulator. After a few zaps he regained conscousness. He and the Instructor are wisked away to the Hospital. The diver is alive and currently ungoing recompression treatment.

 

[divebuddydale]

bwerb once bubbled...


You're a good sport...I like you!

None of us can comment on the specifics of this incident but to step outside it for a moment...the layout of the quarry has been covered here before. There is a shallow side and a deep side with a wall demarcating the line between them...as I understand it if you want to dive the deep side, you file a dive plan prior to heading over...of course, the diver can always "sneak over".

I just can't accept at any level ANY blame to the owner of the quarry for any of the diver deaths which have been reported or discussed here before. Pilot error or lack of training isn't the fault of the owner.

I understand your point that if an area has a bad record, then perhaps there is something more going on but...if you study the previous accident reports, they have had NOTHING to do with the location, these accidents could have happened at any dive site.

Thanks I like you too ;-) . Here in Ontario we just had a fatality about 2 weeks ago. So the fatality's seem to be piling up. I don't blame the owner of the quarry (I hope it didn't come across that way). I feel whatever makes this a safer hobby, great. By the sounds of other reports here (about the actual incident) it does not sound like it was in any way related to the location. However, when there is a vehicle accident, the street is often shut down to examine the condition of the accident. I think to do that would be wise, that way you can end any specualtion, and possibly solve some problems that may have been overlooked (if any existed, which in this case it does not seem so for this accident).

Dale

 

[Al Mialkovsky]

I hate hearing things like that about guys my age. I'm 57 and while I'm still healthy you just never know. You just never know when the old heart will backfire on you. Hopefully this guy will recover and have some stories to tell.

 

[MikeFerrara]

There is nothing wrong with the Quarry or the way it's run, IMO. There seems to me to be some problems with the way dive training is done. Free flows should not result in rapid ascents. Even if there was a medical issue encolved in this case (and we don't know) there are lots of rapid ascent there that begin with a free flow. Some result in injury and some don't.

I have seen many Advanced classes on the deep side and none of them can dive. What the hell is the sense of doing a deep dive if you haven't learned to do a shallow one well. The simple fact is it works best to master one thing before going on to the next thing that requires you to be good at the first.

IMO, if anything needs to be shut down pending an investigation it's the agencies and/or some of these shops and instructors.

 

[wetman]

Arent free flows taught in class down there? Or is it free flows and other conditions that end up being the issue there?

steve

 

[diverbrian]

I depends on the instructor teaching the class. Our instructors teach free-flows because of where we live. It is statistical probability that it will happen to you. Also the odds go way up at Gilboa quarry. The cold water will freeze your reg. open in a heartbeat at depth.

The danger factors at that quarry (In my experience) are the cold water (roughly 45 degrees on a warm day at depth colder most of the time), and the suprising depth for a body of water it's size. You can be over that wall before you know it.

The cold obviously contributes to the free flows and sometimes the cold slowly numbs your thinking if you aren't used to it. I have seen people over in that temperature water and deep in wetsuits. I won't criticize that, but I have a personal thing about getting cold easily. It is my drysuit for me, thank you very much!

As Mike, our resident instructor, also indicates the training over there isn't always done by instructors with the most experience in the world and students tend to be all over the place. This plays heck with visibility. This is why I stay away from the shallow end (which is "safer") this time of year on weekends. By afternoon, it is just no fun. It is one giant silt cloud over there in those conditions. Our LDS will make students learn to dive properly in shallower water before teaching them deep diving. Not all instructors of Advanced Courses take a good look at their students before taking them to open water. Guess what that can lead to? As I indicated, I get the impression that freeflows are being covered, but students are too overloaded with everything else to listen.

BTW, if the guy had a heart attack, I can't think of much that could be done to prevent this incident. I would bet that the trigger for the heart attack involved the freeflow, but we don't know the story except the one second hand post here. So let's see what develops.....

 

[chrispete]

...and I think that the first incident this month was also caused by heart attack as well. From what I remember without going and looking the thread back up, drowning was the "official" cause of death as determined by the coroner - the drowning was a result of the diver losing consciousness from the heart attack. Neither of these events would be the fault of the dive site (I guess people want things to get to the point of: "what! to dive in this quarry I need to undergo a physical by the on-site doctor?")

 

[CuriousMe]

wetman once bubbled...
Arent free flows taught in class down there? Or is it free flows and other conditions that end up being the issue there?

steve

Aren't free flows part of the standards and taught everywhere?

I certified in St. Thomas....not much reg freezing going on there. But we still went over free flows and had to breathe from our reg while the purge button was continuously pressed.

Peace,
Cathie

 

[wreckchick]

Well, this sure sucks. I wish the gentleman in question a speedy and complete recovery.

A couple of points: first of all, one of the benefits of filing a deep dive plan at Gilboa is that it lists, in no uncertain terms, the hazards of diving in that area and what equipment they require and what they recommend. Mike does a great job of trying to let everyone know the hazards unique to the quarry so they can exercise good judgement in picking a dive plan.

As far as training is concerned, I was taught to breathe off of a freeflowing reg in my OW class. I had a freeflow and had no problem breathing from the reg. The problem is that it isn't covered anywhere what any kind of standard procedure is if a reg goes. My inclination was to get my tank shut down, my buddy had no idea to do that. Other people have suggested that that isn't the correct procedure, one should just ascend on the freeflow. Before my next deep dive, we did brief freeflows, switch to buddy's octo, buddy shut down tank, ascend. Another thing that I was absolutely unprepared for was the loss of visibility, could I have made that situation better? Oh, most definitely, but I just didn't know what to do, I had nothing to fall back on.

Put this scenario in the head of lots of new and new-ish divers; you are diving and all of sudden your air start to rapidly leave your tank and you can't see. No wonder people get a little edgy during a freeflow if they've never seen one before.

On a more on-topic point, is there any reason to think that the pony the guy switched to was holding something besides air? From what I've gleaned here, it seems unlikely that switching from one tank of air to another would cause any reaction what so ever, but a mix other than air might.

Rachel