Dive accident in Guam
- Thread starter DiverGirl1972
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I love reports like this one :
"Rescue crews have not confirmed whether she is deceased, however, the time she has spent below the surface makes her chances of survival low........................................................................................
As of 6 p.m., Yunhwa Lee, the missing diver, had been underwater for more than seven hours. She had a tank with enough air for 45 to 60 minutes. "
"Rescue crews have not confirmed whether she is deceased, however, the time she has spent below the surface makes her chances of survival low........................................................................................
As of 6 p.m., Yunhwa Lee, the missing diver, had been underwater for more than seven hours. She had a tank with enough air for 45 to 60 minutes. "
clownfishsydney
Contributor
Sad to hear. This is a very easy dive, little current from my experience.
And found at 300 feet
Depending on the day. The mooring buoy gets pulled underwater by ripping current on a bunch of days. It was not under water two days ago though, the current has been wicked recently, in general. Like pulling the mask off the face strong. And Blue Hole has enough surge at times even at the top of the hole at 60 feet to pop divers in and out of the hole with each passing wave. So not very 'easy' in any sense of the word I use it, at least on some days. Always diveable, but always worthy of the utmost respect, since conditions on small islands like Guam are really fickle.*
Every dive is 'easy' in that we have scuba on when we are underwater, and every dive is an occasion to have a fatality in that we have scuba on, and we are in the ocean. Any dive that has easy access to 300 foot depths, though, is not 'easy' in the normal sense of the word. Nor is any dive that can have mask removing current, and can have surge that slings divers around in 20-30 foot swings at 60 feet depths.
We get paid to brief and guide to minimize danger, but when one diver in a group of five takes off, like she did, the guide is left with a choice on what to do. It does not help to be in the tropics on the working side because most people think that warm and clear makes the ocean 'safe'.
I have had divers try go for the bottom, narced out of their brains, and not even recall anything afterwards on the boat. I have thus far caught all my guys, but this is not the first time, nor will it be the last that Blue Hole kills a diver.
The guide does this for a living. Still waiting to hear of the full blowback, and we are all still thinking about what we could have/should have/ would have done. I lived though my story, as did my diver, but who knows if that was just plain luck. I would love to put it down to my skill and experience, but sometimes fate just favors us on certain days.
* Fun fact: this place is also used to do intro dives often, which is kind of interesting.
I know a Korean family that might disagree with that assessment, sadly
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It was an easy dive the day I was there, but easy dives can kill you just as easily as challenging dives. RIP.
Body of Blue Hole diver recovered.
--Prince Hapedailug, a diving instructor and part of another tour agency's group aboard, was in the water when Lee was last seen. Hapedailug said he was at a depth of about 140 feet when he saw Lee farther below at about 200 feet. He said he could see another instructor signaling for her to come back up. "He was banging his tank to get her attention to come up," he said. "She started swimming outward instead of coming back in." He said he started to follow her out until he could no longer see her. "I was following her bubbles until I didn't see the bubbles anymore," he said.--
Narcosis, perhaps.
--Prince Hapedailug, a diving instructor and part of another tour agency's group aboard, was in the water when Lee was last seen. Hapedailug said he was at a depth of about 140 feet when he saw Lee farther below at about 200 feet. He said he could see another instructor signaling for her to come back up. "He was banging his tank to get her attention to come up," he said. "She started swimming outward instead of coming back in." He said he started to follow her out until he could no longer see her. "I was following her bubbles until I didn't see the bubbles anymore," he said.--
Narcosis, perhaps.
The hole itself is in shallow top 60' but you have to get to 120' to make it out the bottom, or in the bottom if you swim from the outside. I am looking for a good online map to lay out what the dive feels like, but I cannot find one, so bear with the explanation. There are two basic ways to do the actual hole itself, dropping from the top of the shelf straight into the hole and shooting out to open ocean at depth, or working down the outside face, and shooting up into the hole from the outside.
I don't dive it with customers the way the guys were diving it that day (down the chute), because going down the hole and out is the least interesting way to do the dive, and also the hardest to control customers on. You can have one dude dropping like a stone leaving you in the situation the guide was in, where guides have to make a call on whether to protect themselves and their other divers and leave the sinker to work things out. That is the call the guide in this case made, and it is a note on how narced average divers get that the other four customers in the original group of 5, including the lost diver's 'husband', were basically unaware that the diver had gone missing until they got shallow again.
Both the guide in charge, and the guide from the other company quoted in the paper say they processed what she, the lost diver, was doing when she was actually doing it, but I have to wonder how much narcosis affected their own judgment and perceptions. I've caught my divers doing the same thing she seemed to have done a few times, just blindly swimming for the bottom as mentioned above. But I have dived the hole top to bottom in all kinds of gear from free diving it to tech diving it. Whether or not that is why I was able to stop my runaway divers, or whether I have just been lucky, is a question with no answer.
And it is just a fact that most divers, or even guides for that matter, don't control their buoyancy tight enough to actually just scrape out of the bottom of the hole, and fail to stay within the recreational limits, both on max depth and also on deco obligations, so narcosis is even more likely to factor in. As the quote you printed pointed out, even that guide from another company was at 140', and no one on any of the teams was diving any kind of technical/redundant gear. Even experienced divers can accidentally drift down to 150-160' if they are zoned into shooting up at the hole. And none of them ever seem to remember doing so IME.
One insidious aspect of narcosis in clear water is that clear water tends to make people discount danger. And Blue Hole is clear enough to see the boat on the surface from basically anywhere inside the hole (down to about 260 feet, when the bottom of the hole starts edging out). Of course, at 260 on air, no one can remember whether they did see the boat or not, but the very few trimix divers who do the dive can see the surface pretty clearly from all the way down to the 'wreck' at 300 feet, though the layout of the hole and slope mostly hides the view of the boat on the surface from the bottom. But there is still plenty of light down at 300 to see everything. So that gets tricky too, because there is simply no sensation of 'depth', from 60' down to 300'.
So no question narcosis is a/the factor at Blue Hole, not just in this incident, but probably in all the other near misses and other deaths that happen at Blue Hole.
Because it is "champagne clear", people just don't treat it like it is deep or dangerous. Both commenters in this thread, and the people quoted in the article reflect that idea that clear equals safe and easy. At least fro the people that die there, it is not safe and easy.
I don't dive it with customers the way the guys were diving it that day (down the chute), because going down the hole and out is the least interesting way to do the dive, and also the hardest to control customers on. You can have one dude dropping like a stone leaving you in the situation the guide was in, where guides have to make a call on whether to protect themselves and their other divers and leave the sinker to work things out. That is the call the guide in this case made, and it is a note on how narced average divers get that the other four customers in the original group of 5, including the lost diver's 'husband', were basically unaware that the diver had gone missing until they got shallow again.
Both the guide in charge, and the guide from the other company quoted in the paper say they processed what she, the lost diver, was doing when she was actually doing it, but I have to wonder how much narcosis affected their own judgment and perceptions. I've caught my divers doing the same thing she seemed to have done a few times, just blindly swimming for the bottom as mentioned above. But I have dived the hole top to bottom in all kinds of gear from free diving it to tech diving it. Whether or not that is why I was able to stop my runaway divers, or whether I have just been lucky, is a question with no answer.
And it is just a fact that most divers, or even guides for that matter, don't control their buoyancy tight enough to actually just scrape out of the bottom of the hole, and fail to stay within the recreational limits, both on max depth and also on deco obligations, so narcosis is even more likely to factor in. As the quote you printed pointed out, even that guide from another company was at 140', and no one on any of the teams was diving any kind of technical/redundant gear. Even experienced divers can accidentally drift down to 150-160' if they are zoned into shooting up at the hole. And none of them ever seem to remember doing so IME.
One insidious aspect of narcosis in clear water is that clear water tends to make people discount danger. And Blue Hole is clear enough to see the boat on the surface from basically anywhere inside the hole (down to about 260 feet, when the bottom of the hole starts edging out). Of course, at 260 on air, no one can remember whether they did see the boat or not, but the very few trimix divers who do the dive can see the surface pretty clearly from all the way down to the 'wreck' at 300 feet, though the layout of the hole and slope mostly hides the view of the boat on the surface from the bottom. But there is still plenty of light down at 300 to see everything. So that gets tricky too, because there is simply no sensation of 'depth', from 60' down to 300'.
So no question narcosis is a/the factor at Blue Hole, not just in this incident, but probably in all the other near misses and other deaths that happen at Blue Hole.
Because it is "champagne clear", people just don't treat it like it is deep or dangerous. Both commenters in this thread, and the people quoted in the article reflect that idea that clear equals safe and easy. At least fro the people that die there, it is not safe and easy.
DiverGuam thanks for the insights into the dive site and the various conditions that may have been at play. Tragic circumstances to remind us that we ay be able to minimize dangers but we can never make Scuba totally SAFE.
I can't imagine how hard it would be to be following bubbles suspecting someone is narc'd, not be able to reach them and the implications of "not being able to see the bubbles anymore". The following diver did all he could, I hope he finds comfort and peace in that knowledge in spite of the outcome.
My "take away" from this accident is a reminder to Know your limits including how you react to Narcosis, plan your dive accordingly and stay with the plan. Narcosis is insidious.
I can't imagine how hard it would be to be following bubbles suspecting someone is narc'd, not be able to reach them and the implications of "not being able to see the bubbles anymore". The following diver did all he could, I hope he finds comfort and peace in that knowledge in spite of the outcome.
My "take away" from this accident is a reminder to Know your limits including how you react to Narcosis, plan your dive accordingly and stay with the plan. Narcosis is insidious.
We had a friend get disturbingly deep because he was watching a bunch of mantas. Story from a friend; I was on the boat but not in this group.
The diver just didn't realize how he was sinking below his buddy more and more and more, nor did he notice how far he'd followed the mantas down, let alone how long he'd been down at that depth watching them and using unusual amount of gas to be there (luckily in a relaxed and happy state of mind). Everyone else was stuck with trying to get his attention and hoping he would friggin' look up already. The situation was getting pretty tense when luckily one of our scooter groups came past, saw the situation and one of the exceptionally experienced guys swung down to send the diver back up to the rest of the group (who were fairly deep too and not willing to go further down). He and his buddy spent the entire 2nd 1/2 of the dive signicicantly more shallow to balance out the gas consumption and build back a safety margin on his deco time.
Ever looked at something (usually someone) longer than you meant to or should have? Had a friend shove you and whisper "don't stare!" or "down boy!"? You just don't realize what you don't realize at the time. You need to make sure you do not make that mistake underwater.
The diver just didn't realize how he was sinking below his buddy more and more and more, nor did he notice how far he'd followed the mantas down, let alone how long he'd been down at that depth watching them and using unusual amount of gas to be there (luckily in a relaxed and happy state of mind). Everyone else was stuck with trying to get his attention and hoping he would friggin' look up already. The situation was getting pretty tense when luckily one of our scooter groups came past, saw the situation and one of the exceptionally experienced guys swung down to send the diver back up to the rest of the group (who were fairly deep too and not willing to go further down). He and his buddy spent the entire 2nd 1/2 of the dive signicicantly more shallow to balance out the gas consumption and build back a safety margin on his deco time.
Ever looked at something (usually someone) longer than you meant to or should have? Had a friend shove you and whisper "don't stare!" or "down boy!"? You just don't realize what you don't realize at the time. You need to make sure you do not make that mistake underwater.
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