MikeFerrara:
They almost killed him twice. Once when they left him and a second time by reporting him missing from the wrong spot.
The descent and the ascent are probably the most important times to be alert to your buddies. I know it's rarely taught but it's true.
Everybody write "I will stay with my buddy on descent and ascent" 150 times on the board.
A host of problems. First, diving in a threesome.
Second, like you said Mike, not staying together during the descent. Of course, in a threesome, that can be even more difficult.
Third, leaving the descent line in the first place. The victim reported that he tried to "follow their bubbles." They should have all been on the descent line together. Of course, the victim was in a quandry since he felt he was supposed to stay with his assigned buddies. Textbook case of where assigned buddies were worse than no buddies would have been.
Fourth, no lost buddy procedure followed by the victim's dive team.
Fifth, not swimming AGAINST/INTO the current, from the descent line, for an anchored boat in a current. That concept does not often get taught properly. For drift diving, swim with the current. For anchored boat diving, swim against the current.
Sixth, the whistle did not attract any attention. Maybe we are all kidding ourselves with our whistles attached to our B/Cs. Maybe we really need those air-powered horns instead, that I see advertised in Rodales!
Seventh, the victim's buddies did not report him missing. Apparently they did not take the buddy assignment seriously. Sounds like they did not care where the missing diver was. Sad state of affairs.
The clencher of course is that the D/M did not discover the victim missing either. The kicker is that the D/M recorded the victim as having re-entered the water at the next dive site, even though that was not possible. Career-ending move.
Counting divers being recovered, and counting divers disembarking, would have gone a long way as a back-up procedure to the verbal roll call, which did not work in this case. A written sign-off with initials for every recovered diver, as has been discussed, would go a long way toward preventing something like this as well.
Thank God for the Boy Scouts. It was also no small miracle that their sailing ship was diverted by the fog bank to the site of the victim.
There could be a fairly interesting lawsuit that comes out of this whole matter. I guess it all depends if the victim can forgive and forget, or prefers monetary damages for pain and suffering instead. The newspaper article documents a fair amount of pain and suffering. California like any other major populous state is a very litigious society. Wonder if the waiver will have any effect?
