Man Dies After Dive on Spiegel Grove

[tparrent]

Speculating here but my guess is that the dive boat was picking up divers who were not hanging onto moorings at the time the troubled diver signalled. With a strong current running, the captain would be hard pressed to leave a group in the water to go to another who may or may not be in serious trouble. Hard to tell from a distance.

Please don't tie off lines from one mooring ball to another! That's a sure fire way to foul the prop on the next boat to come along. One boat per mooring and one mooring per boat please.

 

[MoonWrasse]

Link to the Herald Tribune article and another link to the Reporter story.

The former USS Spiegel Grove is the largest intentionally sunk ship in the world. It has served as an artificial reef in 130 feet of water off Key Largo since its sinking in 2002.

I thought the USS Saratoga was the largest intentionally sunk ship, at 880 feet long and 38,746 tons

 

[StSomewhere]

I thought the USS Saratoga was the largest intentionally sunk ship, at 880 feet long and 38,746 tons

Who knows what goes on in the minds of journalists? The Sun Sentinel website still has the old "roll the Grove" animation where the last frame says it'll be "available for divers and snorkelers"... (shrug)

 

[DandyDon]

This brings up two topics for thought, one of which I will actually provide a possible solution (not just point out the problem)

1. An age old question is whether someone with the risk for a heart attack should dive. I'd imagine the majority of divers might say no way. However, what is the difference between (A) having a heart attack under water and drowning or simply dieing from the heart attack and (B) driving on a road, having a heart attack and veering into the path of an oncoming car or 18 wheeler and dieing (besides the variation in applied pain - slow vs. fast and possible decapitation or being crushed vs. drowning)?

At the end of the day, death is death regardless of whether you die while driving or diving. However on a dive, there are people around who are more readily able to help than in a car accident. On a dive boat, the operator can equip the boat with a mask for CPR to avoid bio-hazard contact. In a crash, how many passers-by carry latex gloves or the jaws of life to assist in a bloody car crash that is riddled with bio-hazard?

I guess the license plate holders that say, "I'd rather be diving" is the answer some may respond with?

I think the physical challenges of diving are a lot more likely to precipitate an attack than day to day activities of most USAmericans with driving a car being low on the list there.

2. The news article about the boat crew not assistig (or not being able to assist) the diver at the surface at the "wrong" mooring ball really makes the dive op look extremely bad and uncaring. I stress this is one possible impression. Did one of the crew attempt to throw a lifeline to the diver? I would have to admit that this is extremely challenging given the overall length of the grove. Could one of the crew members jumped in with a line and swam to the diver against or with any current? What was the current like at the surface? Was it 1 knot, 2 knots, or over 3 knots? Which direction was the current if, any. If the current was toward the boat from the mooring ball, the diver could have drifted towards the boat. If the current was away from the boat, then a crew member could have made it in the water to the diver with little effort. The challenge would be if the current ran perpendicular to the alignment of the boat and the diver. I would imagine a 1 knot current might be doable, 2 knots would be very slow going, if not impossible, and 3 knots would be "not a chance". This is the problem. The dive op now may have a negative impression, regardless of the sea conditions.

The solution that is needed has to reduce the risk of a diver being delayed help, without risk to a would-be rescuer/dive-op crew member and without putting a dive-op and crew member/would-be resuer in the line of fire for scrutiny. One potential solution to reduce this risk is a minor addition to a dive-ops procedures for mooring up to a ball. Simply attaching a messenger / guide line to one mooring ball (or more mooring balls if more than two at the site) and then mooring to the second or final ball might reduce this risk. This would allow an injured/or in-trouble diver to pull his way to the boat or to allow a crew member to pull his way to the diver holding onto any ball.

I realize that the sea conditions around wrecks in the keys sometimes pose problems to finding and mooring to one ball, let alone two or more. But this is just one potential solution that can help without having to pull the boat off of its mooring before other divers are safely back on board.

Even if the boat had two crew members aboard, it is quite likely one of them was in the water diving, as suggested by one article. If the diver's problem occurred down current from the boat, and the ascent was at a mooring ball down current, the captain may not have been able to move the boat to the stricken diver right away.

I was on a boat from a different operator late 2004 when this happened. An injured diver from our boat surfaced at a ball down current from our boat alone, blood frothing from mouth, unconscious, and the captain did not feel he could move our boat with other divers approaching from below. Instead, another closer to the injured diver picked him up and sped him in. He may have spent the night in the hospital.

Speculating here but my guess is that the dive boat was picking up divers who were not hanging onto moorings at the time the troubled diver signalled. With a strong current running, the captain would be hard pressed to leave a group in the water to go to another who may or may not be in serious trouble. Hard to tell from a distance.

Exactly, with other divers in the water and perhaps approaching, or maybe on the drift line, the captain would not want to risk injuring others by moving the boat before retrieving the others.

When I dive Key Largo, I prefer to use an operator who charges more than the shop involved here, but ALWAYS has two crew members on deck - the first mate prepared to swim a line down current as needed. Not many operators take this precaution there, or not to my somewhat varied experiences there.

Please don't tie off lines from one mooring ball to another! That's a sure fire way to foul the prop on the next boat to come along. One boat per mooring and one mooring per boat please.

We had that happen there in Dec, where another Op tied onto a ball down current from us, then swam a line to our ball so their divers could use the same line we were moored on. I still agree it is a poor practice, but many here disagreed with me.

 

[davisdiver]

This is the 4th casuality since the sinking

 

[oceanaddicted]

Guy had a heart attack. Was out with Silent World and totally freaked them out. This is the 3rd death on the Spiegel Grove I'm sorry to say. Only thing good about this is that it was NOT diver error. It's very sad.

 

[DandyDon]

Whether it's been 3 or 4, the wreck is dived more than all the others in the Keys put together. It's not a particularly dangerous wreck anymore now it's upright.

 

[Walter]

Whether it's been 3 or 4, the wreck is dived more than all the others in the Keys put together. It's not a particularly dangerous wreck anymore now it's upright.

Interesting. Where'd you get the numbers?

 

[DandyDon]

Interesting. Where'd you get the numbers?

Could be an exaggeration on my part, but - it certainly seems that way. I've never seen more than 2 boats on the Busch, Eagle, T-Bolt, Bibb or Duane at once - usually just ours when I've been to them, whereas all the balls at the Grove can fill up.

What would be your estimate...? You've certainly been to them more.

 

[Walter]

I have no idea. The Grove is probably the most dived wreck in the Keys, but there are hundreds of wrecks in the Keys that get dived regularly. Did you know there's a wreck on Hens & Chickens? A fun dive.

I would be very surprised if the Grove is dived anywhere nearly as much as your earlier post describes. I suspect you merely misjudged how many other wrecks there are and how often they are dived.