Bahamas: Missing Female Diver

[promocop]

what the hell happenned? Scary stuff. NN?

[Cave Diver]

I agree completely. The story doesn't add up without additional details.

There are several questions left unanswered from the brief blurb, if the following statement is accurate, I can't even begin to imagine the thoughts and feelings of the husband if he witnessed this happening. My thoughts are with him especially.

At approximately 10:45 am, a female diver was observed descending the wall, which drops from a 35' reef depth to an estimated 6,000'. A dive master retained by the diver/husband attempted to stop her descent at approximately 100', and was seen pushing the DM away and continuing her descent.

[Cave Diver]

I think at the next shop meeting I'm going to bring this question to the table. Whil leading a dive, to what extent should we go to rescue a diver? I'm not talking just let someone go off and do something crazy, but in this case, if I was the instructor at 170ft, what would the dive operator expect of me, what would I expect of myself and what do our customers expect from us?

I've been on boats before where they clearly tell us, if we start to swim down the wall, the DM will only be able to follow us so far/long before they have to give up for their own saftey.

I think it was CDNScubaMoose that posted about doing something similar with some DM candidates.

[DandyDon]

I'm not much of a diver, and I have screwed up big time at times, but still, some thots - altho I'm here more to learn...

Another thing to think about is at what point, as a DM or Instructor, do you consider your saftey above that of the certified diver you're leading? Rescue turns to Recovery very quickly and without the proper gear on site a rescue may not have been possible.

How long in to the dive did the accident take place? This is an important aspect to determine how much gas the diver in question may have had. That leads to the question, how long did it take the instructor to reach 170ft. That leads to, what is the likelyhood that the rescue had turned in to a recovery.

Nope, I don't think the second Pro had a chance, seeing only bubbles below from 170. I've known some go deeper on 80s, but I wouldn't ask anyone to.

The DM had a change at 100 ft tho, based on the info at hand, but missed that one. A fumble? That was do or don't time, and don't won.

I agree completely. The story doesn't add up without additional details. A divemaster should be able to release the diver, get behind them, grab the valve, inflate their own Bc, kick like hell and haul a disoriented diver from 100 (or 200) up to 50 feet or so and then make another attempt to gently convince the diver to ascend.

I used to see some dive guides use a backpack and no BC and it always scared me because I felt that they lacked the reserve bouyancy to physically haul someone up from the depths in an emergency.

Yep. Or I think so. I don't think a petite would DM would wear a BD with a lot of lift, but one would hope enough to bring up a narced diver. May have to drop some lead...??

That's a good point that was brought up recently in the other accident thread. I believe it was Thal that mentioned the value in a diver having a personal limit, decided before hand that they felt comfortable with when helping another diver. It's not a decision you want to make under stress.

Yes & No. It's good to train, think, discuss, think, plan on what ifs - but sometime you do the best you can in the instant you gotta do it, and hope it was a good play.

[ScubaSteve]

I will preempt this question stating that I have only done a quick search, but that quick search only turned up articles on a missing diver in the Bahamas from CDNN. I do not trust what CDNN puts into print so I am asking if anybody out there has infomration out there that can at least be confirmed from a source other than CDNN. I am not saying this incident is not true, I am just saying that before I get too caught up in a heated debate, I would like to know that at least some form of "semi-respectable" news agency has run the story (and obviously FTR CDNN is not even close to semi-respectable).

Thanks to anyone who is able to share confirming links.

[pilot fish]

Is it possible that the female dive master was just intimidated by flailing diver and was too afraid of having her own reg pulled out of her mouth so did not attempt to get behind her to grab her tank value? is it fair to say that a hired Dm should be able to go that one extra step?

I'm not rescue trained but I know a tiny bit of it, having been told by rescue divers and READING IT ON THIS BOARD. Perhaps the DM approach was incorrect from the start? Instead of approaching the diver from the front, that you are trying to rescue, you go directly to the rear of the diver and just grab the tank? Was the DM in fact a certified DM, or was she a DG?

[TheScubaBOB]

So now we're gonna dump on the DM because she "allowed" the missing diver to push her away?

We don't know what happened there. What if....

The DM was trying to get to her weights or inflator and seeign the resistance she decided to move around behind the diver and during this maneuver the diver dropped further (beyond the depth the DM felt safe to continue her efforts).

In Rescue they pound into your head "Don't let 1 victim become 2". I have a wife & 3 kids, you can't pay me enough money to put your safety before my ability to return to them.

[onlyhalcyon]

I am currently on vacation in the Bahamas and only joined this site after reading the posts. I am the primary witness to the dive incident involving Mrs Wood. I will post my account of what happened once I get back to NY and once the Forensic Dive Investigation team has had a chance to talk with all the people involved. I would like to say that prior to talking with the Dive Investigator I had similar views to the posts above. However what we are all missing is the DM's account of what happened. After talking with both the DM and the FDI I now have a clearer understanding of what transpired that morning.

[ScubaSteve]

But again, there has been nothing anywhere on the news? No newspaper has run anything? I find it hard to believe that neither a Bahamian news source nor any local (to where the diver was from) news sources have run anything at all on this. With only CDNN to validate.....alarms go off in my head. Further searches have returned nothing (not to say nothing exists) so I have to come back to the fact that CDNN is not a trustworthy source.

[bleeb]

But again, there has been nothing anywhere on the news? No newspaper has run anything? I find it hard to believe that neither a Bahamian news source nor any local (to where the diver was from) news sources have run anything at all on this. With only CDNN to validate.....alarms go off in my head. Further searches have returned nothing (not to say nothing exists) so I have to come back to the fact that CDNN is not a trustworthy source.

At the risk of getting further off topic, I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with you, ScubaSteve, but wanted to toss a couple of thoughts about the lack of information in 'traditional' news media out for consideration.

It's been alleged before here in Accidents and Incidents that some vacation areas may have a tendency to not want to publicize problems that may scare tourists. This may be a common societal attitude and the local news media may not have any interest in publicising accidents, or may just not consider it news-worthy by local standards. The comment has also been made more than once that the rest of the world wouldn't even know about these fatalities if it weren't for family and fellow-diver/tourist witnesses and the Internet.

Two: IIRC, the latest DAN Accident Report counted over one hundred dive fatalities a year in Canada and the US alone. That's a couple every week, even assuming they're evenly spread throughout the year. Don't think there are that many discussion thread here in A&I, although the vast majority of these probably at least result in a brief statement in some local news.