Lost diver in Puget Sound

[NJMike]

One thing nice about getting older is realizing you don't have to do those younger things anymore...

But I got confused reading the thread...who drowned...Chad, John or the guy on all fours at the bottom?

 

[mwhities]

My condolences to the young person and their family.

"Personal bests" are so pathetic. This was a senseless and completely preventable death.

My personal best is 14 DIVES! I WILL beat that again several times over!

Michael

 

[DivetheRock]

Side note: Is it just me, or does there seem to be quite a few incidents/fatalities involving divers in the Puget Sound area? I may be jumping to conclusions, but perhaps this "personal best thing" has become an epidemic, if the question I asked can be confirmed. Perhaps it begins with the more experienced divers talking about beating personal records, then this bravado spreads to the new divers. Very unfortunate, in any case.

 

[Henryville]

Found this on a local board ...


This breaks my heart. Chad was a good man ... just young and "invulnerable". Him and his friends were out to break a "personal best" depth record.

The fifth diver on this little adventure is a NAUI instructor. He should've known better than take two new divers on a dive to over 200 feet ... and on AL80's. If it were up to me, whatever his credentials, he'd never teach again.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Not to prejudge fault or assign blame, but given the "duty of care" that could be argued in ths situation, the inevitable lawsuit just might take care of that...

 

[rjack321]

Not to prejudge fault or assign blame, but given the "duty of care" that could be argued in ths situation, the inevitable lawsuit just might take care of that...

We can only hope.

 

[rjack321]

Side note: Is it just me, or does there seem to be quite a few incidents/fatalities involving divers in the Puget Sound area?

There are alot of divers here. The water is cold 48-54F. Gloves are fat and clumsy. Visibility is (relatively) bad, 8 to 25 ft at the very most. It is dark at depths. Narcosis comes on (relative to warmer clearer waters) fast. Currents can really rip. You can get really deep on shore dives, without a boat captain around to kinda weed out those who don't belong.

Lots of intro divers are using AL80s but have high consumptions due to the cold, dark, and currents. That leaves little gas/time to address any problems at depth. OOA is a serious serious event and has been leading to a couple of AGEs over the past year or so.

The technical community is growing and some who don't know better think they can emulate the deeper dives where all these issues start to really come into play simultaneously. I don't think there are any more accidents here per diver than anywhere else though.

 

[Sasquatch]

It sounds like Chad tried to help a fellow diver in distress, to his credit. How the situation came to be, or how it should have been avoided, is a lesson for all of us.

The thought still bouncing around my brain pan is this one: What is the huge allure with breaking personal best records? I understand the recklessness of youth. I was very reckless myself at times but I thought of ways that my recklessness could put me down for good. Now, like an earlier poster said, every dive I make is breaking another record. The pure joy of breathing underwater, seeing critters, after dive drinkies, funny dive buddies...what more, than doing it for the next thirty years, is there?

 

[John C. Ratliff]

It sounds like Chad tried to help a fellow diver in distress, to his credit. How the situation came to be, or how it should have been avoided, is a lesson for all of us.

The thought still bouncing around my brain pan is this one: What is the huge allure with breaking personal best records? I understand the recklessness of youth. I was very reckless myself at times but I thought of ways that my recklessness could put me down for good. Now, like an earlier poster said, every dive I make is breaking another record. The pure joy of breathing underwater, seeing critters, after dive drinkies, funny dive buddies...what more, than doing it for the next thirty years, is there?

Sasquatch has it right--diving should not be about records, but about seeing what's there, enjoying being weightless, swimming amoungst some of the most unique diving environments in the world (Puget Sound), and seeing the unique critters that live there.

Records, or personal bests, are a misconception of what diving is about. Some of this I lay on the TV programs, and the other media which promote diving. I've dived for over 40 years, and my deepest dives were to about 200 feet, and there are only two of those dives. One was in the USAF, and we ended up aborting when we did not find the bottom looking for a helicopter lost near an island in the Ryuku Islands; and the other was in Warm Mineral Springs while working with an underwater archeological project, with fixed hose-lines for decompression and O2 decompression from 20 feet to the surface. Diving doesn't have to be deep to be interesting.

John

 

[DivetheRock]

rjack321, you described pretty much every cold water dive location all over North America, including where I live and dive. Not to be argumentative with you, but I haven't heard of a single publicized diver incident in our area since 2 years ago, and that was a female diver who suffered a brain hemorrhage unrelated to diving itself, it just happened to occur while she was u/w. I think this is an easy way of passing it off as something it isn't. I'm thinking it's an area specific problem, and not due to the conditions - you train for and adapt to your particular dive location and conditions.
I can imagine an area that is perhaps difficult to "conquer", and having that reputation among divers, and then each diver (especially the new or foolhearty) tries to push the limits to see if they'll be succesful, only with tragic consequences. Sad, really.
P.S. rjack321, what did you mean by "OOA is a serious event and has been leading to a couple AGEs..."? I know what an AGE is, but what is an OOA?

 

[rjack321]

rjack321, you described pretty much every cold water dive location all over North America, including where I live and dive. Not to be argumentative with you, but I haven't heard of a single publicized diver incident in our area since 2 years ago, and that was a female diver who suffered a brain hemorrhage unrelated to diving itself, it just happened to occur while she was u/w. I think this is an easy way of passing it off as something it isn't. I'm thinking it's an area specific problem, and not due to the conditions - you train for and adapt to your particular dive location and conditions.
I can imagine an area that is perhaps difficult to "conquer", and having that reputation among divers, and then each diver (especially the new or foolhearty) tries to push the limits to see if they'll be succesful, only with tragic consequences. Sad, really.
P.S. rjack321, what did you mean by "OOA is a serious event and has been leading to a couple AGEs..."? I know what an AGE is, but what is an OOA?

OOA = Out of air

To some extent this is just like any other cold water location, yes. Although some of other places are pretty hard to get really deep really fast. Like NY/NJ, you're way way offshore before you're at 200ft. Ditto for Maine.

There's 300+ft of ocean within swimming distance of shore here.