Navarre accident

[Oside Jimc]

IMO the lesson to be learned here is simple:
99.9999999% of the time if you have to ask yourself "Is this dive safe / prudent?" It is probably NOT so go home or find another dive site.

He that turns and walks away, lives to dive another day.

 

[MRXRAY]

3 of the 5 divers in the group made the decision to go back. One of the 3 divers who went back died!

 

[I Dive]

Lessons are relative. An incident that one person can't learn anything from due to their level of experience or knowledge or whatever can provide a lot of lessons to another person. One thing I stress at work is that EVERYTHING is a learning opportunity. It may not always be a learning opportunity for you, but it is for someone. If you can't find a lesson in something, you have not looked hard enough... I say, the more posts in this forum the better.

 

[huntster70]

My condolences to the family. We will learn more at a later time I am sure.
Those of us who dive the Pier know of the environment that exists there and it is a fairly benign dive site. VERY few places to get gear caught on or bumped into by surge while entering and over all the pier is a nice place to dive at.

Anyone within OUR family of divers who is lost to the waves will be missed and we hope to learn more about why we can't dive with her any longer. She was VERY well liked by those who have already posted here.

 

[LIVES4SHARKS]

My thoughts and prayers are with the family. A group of us dived out at the PC jetties on Saturday and I got separated from my team due to low vis and current. It was seconds while clearing my mask that they were gone. I kept my head and followed my reasoning/training to get me back to the Jetties. My team had already surfaced as soon as they couldn't find me and I was happy to see them too. It's easy to get lost/separated out there and I hope we can get some answers. The way I was thrown against the rocks in the surf in the beginning of the dive, it could have been she had received blunt trauma or a number of other scenarios. Again, my prayers are with them.

Carolyn:shark2:

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Why narrow your vision to one particular possible cause? In most instances, we don't get autopsy results or any sort of police report on cause of death. In this case, perhaps we can learn more as we have ScubaBoarders who will have contact with those who might end up knowing the cause.

Regardless, this IS a forum to hypothesize, speculate, and discuss any and all possible causes(and hopefully fixes) to anything that could have been responsible for this event. There is nothing wrong with going down a long list of possibilities, hopefully it will remind someone else to keep a certain item in mind the next time they do this dive or any dive? Only benefits can come of this type of discussion.

Put up a memorial thread in the appropriate forum. There needs to be one so the lost(and friends and family of) can get uninterupted condelences and perhaps even shared memories posted of them.

 

[cmufieldhockey8]

I'm not saying this is related and I'm faulting nobody as I have few details about what happened, but something we may all be reminded of by this is our pre-dive chat. Review what you do when you lose a diver, discuss what the dive plan is, and go dive the plan. Looks like the entire group did a good job of buddying up- instead of a group of 5 if was a group of 2 and a group of 3, making it easier to keep track of everybody.

 

[ReefHound]

One of the things that has always concerned me is group diving (not to be confused with experienced team diving) because often buddy assignments are not clear or not adhered to. Everybody assumes somebody else is watching so and so. It's too easy to get ignored or ignore another. I hate triples for the same reason unless they are regular buddies.

Not saying it was a factor here but the fact remains that three aborted the dive and headed to shore, two reached shore and neither apparently know what happened.

 

[MRXRAY]

The funeral service for the deceased is tomorrow. I will post some details of the event after the funeral and IF some details are released as to a cause of death. Let me just say that it appears she left the group or never started the dive, as she was near the spot where we all submerged. We were under water for 4 minutes having gone through a small trough to about 7 feet and then back up to 3 feet. We all stood up to collect each other and saw one diver still at the entry, her two buddies elected to abort the dive due to surf/surge (One was a new diver and was very uncomfortable). My buddy and I did the dive and I felt the surf and surge was manageable and non-existent at 10 feet and below. When we returned to the surface we had taken off our fins and were walking to shore chatting about the dive and stepped into a trough with a huge rip current going down the beach. It was over my head and less than 15 feet from shore. It caught me off guard and I had to scramble to inflate my BC and get my regulator back in my mouth and my mask on. We learned she had been found in the water near the beach unconscious, she was never revived. A lot of speculation can be made as to what happened from the time I saw her standing in waist deep water to when her buddies could not find her. I may know more when I talk to the family tomorrow.

 

[scuba066]

I was with MrXRay on the Navarre dive. As he said, the surf was a little rough but manageable. I would say the rollers were 2 to 3 feet.
I was suprised by the deep trench so close to shore also. The water was just over my knees, I had my fins off, regulator out, and mask off. I was 15 feet from the sand and "assumed" the dive was over. I took one step and I was in water over my head and sinking. After a "what the hell" moment, i hit my inflater and popped to the surface. As we kicked across the 15 foot channel, we were swept about 50 yards down the beach. I remember watching the pier streak by overhead as i layed on my back and kicked toward shore.
The lesson I re-learned, the dive is not over until you are on "dry" land or safe and secure back on board a boat. At the very least, I should have inlated my bc prior to walking toward shore. And, I should have had my regulator in, or at least had the reg in my hand.