Lost diver in Puget Sound

[lamont]

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.

The San Juan Islands and some of the Canadian sites a pretty popular for vacation diving and a chunk of the fatalities that we have are due to warm water divers getting over their heads in cold water diving. If you don't get vacation diving where you are, you won't see these kinds of fatalities.

All the other fatalities that I can think of which weren't medicals were divers pushing across limits without adequate training or experience. That just happens when you get a big enough population of divers together.

I haven't met anyone around here that would condone attempting to set records to 200 fsw on single Al80s. I don't know where these people are coming from, but I'm positive that it isn't a systemic issue in the area. We can't police divers, so there will always be the possibility of a group of divers getting together and doing stupid stuff on their own...

 

[lamont]

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.

There's 800 ft of ocean within swimming distance of shore. Its gets stupid deep really fast in places...

 

[cerich]

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.

actually your conditions are better vis normally and much colder (me muther lives in Moretons Harbour...)

That being said we are talking about single 80's and doing in the 200 ft depth range on air which while never smart falls into the downright stupid and assine in anything but resort conditions. Even in tropical resorts people die doing this and it's considered stupid.

From what I hear the instructor that was there has "lost" a buddy doing the same thing a couple years back and activly encouraged many of his divers to try this stunt. I personally would like to encourage the authorities to charge him with some form of negligent homicide.

Guys we aren't talking about a "slightly" outside the recommedations here, were talking about on the sharp and bitter edge of the envelope diving without the equipment, training or experience. If indeed this instructor activly encouraged this type of diving then there should be consequences.

I'm very aware that a family is in pain today and it sounds like Chad died a hero, but he should have never been there and certainly never with an Instructor there. A responsible instructor would have done everything in his/her power to stop this dive, not egg it on.

my 2 psi....

 

[Henryville]

There are alot of divers here...

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 combination says alot to me about why there may appear to be a high number of "incidents."

We have cold, dark and currents, but you really do have to get offshore or work at it (like finding kettleholes on the bottom) to get deep. I'm not saying that boat captains are cops around here, but the ones I've dove with know who is new/inexperienced and will cause them to take it a bit more slowly. And the relatively small number of dive boats keeps the numbers down anyway.

I'm not hugely experienced diving North of RI, but my impression is that the shore dives around population centers where there are a lot of divers (i.e. Boston) are pretty shallow, while those South (New York) aren't so interesting and thus don't draw the number of divers that Puget Sound seems to.

 

[rjack321]

There's 800 ft of ocean within swimming distance of shore. Its gets stupid deep really fast in places...

Well yes, but not quite that deep along the Tacoma waterfront as I recall (from the charts).

I'm not trying to say our conditions are worse than your conditions. The year-round diving here has allowed a large industry and population to develop, which does not exist in Maine (for instance). And in a large population of divers there are some pure accidents and there are more dumb ones too.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I haven't met anyone around here that would condone attempting to set records to 200 fsw on single Al80s.

But they're here. This is the second fatality at this site in three years that is due to someone attempting a 200-foot dive on an AL80. Both of them were relatively inexperienced, had no technical training, and were accompanied by an instructor.

I don't know where these people are coming from, but I'm positive that it isn't a systemic issue in the area. We can't police divers, so there will always be the possibility of a group of divers getting together and doing stupid stuff on their own...

For the most part they are coming from a small segment of the overall diving population ... they have something in common, but this ain't the place to have that conversation.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[DivetheRock]

(me muther lives in Moretons Harbour...)

Really? Does she dive? LOL Are you from here originally?

From what I hear the instructor that was there has "lost" a buddy doing the same thing a couple years back and activly encouraged many of his divers to try this stunt.

This is what I meant when I said it gets passed on from one group to the next. Some of these new divers (if they survive long enough) may go on to instruct scuba, and encourage their students to test their boundaries, as their instructor dared them. It becomes an ongoing problem. (I gotta learn how to quote!!!)

 

[Rainer]

(me muther lives in Moretons Harbour...)

Really? Does she dive? LOL Are you from here originally?

From what I hear the instructor that was there has "lost" a buddy doing the same thing a couple years back and activly encouraged many of his divers to try this stunt.

This is what I meant when I said it gets passed on from one group to the next. Some of these new divers (if they survive long enough) may go on to instruct scuba, and encourage their students to test their boundaries, as their instructor dared them. It becomes an ongoing problem. (I gotta learn how to quote!!!)

Easy, hit "quote".

 

[rjack321]

For comparison, some other recent accidents here in the PNW:

A) An OOA at ~100ft principally caused by 1) poor gas planning compounded by 2) a convulted octo sharing arrangement that failed. The diver embolized and died.

B) Another was a diver who turned her air on and then off again, swam out and dumped her BC. Buddies didn't see her immediately and she drowned in 12ft of water with a full tank and weightbelt on.

I'm sure there are more, these are just two of the more recent events preceding this 200ft attempt.

I don't see any common threads over the recent past.

Contrast these Seattle area fatalities with 3 RB deaths in California in the last couple months. I don't think a definitive cause was found for any of those.

 

[rjack321]

Easy, hit "quote".

Or Yellow button with right facing tail