Cape Town Fatality

[DandyDon]

From Diver drowns at Cape resort - Western Cape | IOL News | IOL.co.za (http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/western-cape/diver-drowns-at-cape-resort-1.1196144)

http://www.iol.co.za/logger/p.gif?a=1.1196144&d=/2.225/2.226/2.234/2.235December 11 2011 at 01:31pm
Cape Town - A man has died while diving for crayfish at the Soetwater Resort in Cape Town, the city's emergency services said on Sunday.
The incident was reported to the paramedics around 1pm on Saturday, said spokesman Wilfred Solomons-Johannes.
On their arrival on the scene they found Athlone resident Clinton Koopman, 26, had been pulled out of the water by other divers and family members.
“When Koopman was removed from the water, he was fully kitted out with his diving equipment such as a wetsuit, hood, gloves, booties, weight belt, fins, mask, snorkel, and a special bag to put the crayfish in,” Solomons-Johannes said.
“Paramedics took over from those that removed him from the water and continued with cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).”
He was declared dead on the scene around 9pm.
An inquest docket had been opened. - Sapa

[RonFrank]

Don, are you intentionally reporting snorkelers deaths as this was not a diver. It may be interesting to free divers, but not so much to scuba divers, or at least not to me.

[Blue Sparkle]

Don, are you intentionally reporting snorkelers deaths as this was not a diver. It may be interesting to free divers, but not so much to scuba divers, or at least not to me.

However, the A & I sub-forum guidelines say that it's for "the discussion of diving Accidents and Incidents." It doesn't specify SCUBA diving. Granted, this sub-forum is a part of "SCUBA Diving Central," but then so is the free-diving and snorkeling sub-forum, so that umbrella alone doesn't seem to me to limit it to SCUBA topics -- especially when the A & I guidelines don't specify SCUBA-only.

Another possible consideration is that sometimes the initial media reports are somewhat inaccurate (along with their equipment assessments), and something reported as "diving" might be free-diving, SCUBA diving, or even snorkeling (so even if A & I were restricted to SCUBA, there might be some leeway).

I'm glad someone takes the time to subscribe to Google news (or however it is that Don gets his info), and then makes the effort to post the info and links here on SB.

[DandyDon]

I understood that Freediving and Snorkeling accidents were covered here too, but you can ask those charge.

[beautybelow]

Don, are you intentionally reporting snorkelers deaths as this was not a diver. It may be interesting to free divers, but not so much to scuba divers, or at least not to me.

If I posted in every thread that the OP wasn't interesting to ME, I would have more posts than most on here.

Stop, think, act.

[RonFrank]

It's easy for me to ignore threads. We are a Scuba website hence the name, Scubaboard... We included Free Diving as some of our members do free dive and asked for a free diving area. If members are interested in non scuba related drowning victims so be it. BTW, a guy down the street died of a heart attack last week! Give us Dirty laundry! :reaper:

[shortdivemedic]

Ron
What was he doing and did he have the right cert card. I am sure he was either doing it wrong or wasn't trAined in what he was doing.

Cheers
Michael

[DandyDon]

This is not the place to discuss forum actions. We have Site support for public discussions, or discuss it privately among Staff - and move it wherever. Snorkeling accidents have long been posted here, but whatever.

see http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/site-support/404612-so-where-do-you-want-snorkeling-accident-reports.html

[RonFrank]

Ron
What was he doing and did he have the right cert card. I am sure he was either doing it wrong or wasn't trAined in what he was doing.

Cheers
Michael

He was SWIMMING, at night. He got caught in current, and drowned. The discussion is useless unless you want to discuss the intricacies of how to breath water until dead? He did not have, nor did he need certification cards.

This thread illustrates the point. There is no reason to discuss a swimmer drowning......

[Diver71_au]

Ron. I see nothing in the article that says anything about a current, nighttime (1pm is not night) or that cause of death was drowning. I know I am relatively new around here but I believed that in this forum we try to stick to reported fact.

[DennisS]

He was SWIMMING, at night. He got caught in current, and drowned. The discussion is useless unless you want to discuss the intricacies of how to breath water until dead? He did not have, nor did he need certification cards.

This thread illustrates the point. There is no reason to discuss a swimmer drowning......

So once a scuba diver surfaces, he's a swimmer/snorkeler when he uses up his air, and the accident should not be reported if he drowns or has a heart attack on the surface fighting a current

[ScubaSteve]

There is no reason to discuss a swimmer drowning......

There is so much crap on ScubaBoard that there is no point in discussing, yet it exists here. There is little to nothing to be learned from a snorkeler that drowns IMO however the way most A&I threads go lately we learn little to nothing from them. People get in the middle and complain about the threads very existence, get offended and plead with people not to discuss it for various reasons.......sound familiar? This all waters down the original thread and any momentum that might have been gained towards producing something that might actually help someone learn something to the point that nothing is taken away and people just look the other way.

[Divedaily]

There is so much crap on ScubaBoard that there is no point in discussing, yet it exists here. There is little to nothing to be learned from a snorkeler that drowns IMO however the way most A&I threads go lately we learn little to nothing from them.

I agree. Last couple of months) this sub-forum gets spammed with every accident that was somewhere in the news, even if it's only a two sentence article with no information whats however. I don't think its useful, and it is impossible to learn from those incidents as there is no info to learn from. It seems it is more about making this into a collection of all scubadeaths (although over 50% are snorkeling/freediving related in my opinion) then about putting something up here that gives enough info to discuss and learn something based upon facts. I'd rather have 60% less posts, when the 40% remaining posts are by people who know something about what they are posting, or at least have some info to post apart from someone dying somewhere whilst he was freediving/scubadiving/snorkeling.
Then we will have the discussion again, and then we can start learning again IMHO.

[DandyDon]

I agree. Last couple of months) this sub-forum gets spammed with every accident that was somewhere in the news, even if it's only a two sentence article with no information whats however. I don't think its useful, and it is impossible to learn from those incidents as there is no info to learn from. It seems it is more about making this into a collection of all scubadeaths (although over 50% are snorkeling/freediving related in my opinion) then about putting something up here that gives enough info to discuss and learn something based upon facts. I'd rather have 60% less posts, when the 40% remaining posts are by people who know something about what they are posting, or at least have some info to post apart from someone dying somewhere whilst he was freediving/scubadiving/snorkeling.
Then we will have the discussion again, and then we can start learning again IMHO.
This forum serves to help collect additional info, and only because the discussions are started do we sometimes acquire more info from new sources. The DAN report comes out annually and is usually over a year old with that info, but still good reading - just a different approach.

Maybe you would prefer this quieter forum? Mishap Analysis (http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/mishap-analysis/)

The debate that broke our with Ron's criticism should have happened in Site Support. See http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/suggestions/404612-so-where-do-you-want-snorkeling-accident-reports-new-post.html

[ScubaSteve]

I agree. Last couple of months) this sub-forum gets spammed with every accident that was somewhere in the news, even if it's only a two sentence article with no information whats however. I don't think its useful, and it is impossible to learn from those incidents as there is no info to learn from. It seems it is more about making this into a collection of all scubadeaths (although over 50% are snorkeling/freediving related in my opinion) then about putting something up here that gives enough info to discuss and learn something based upon facts. I'd rather have 60% less posts, when the 40% remaining posts are by people who know something about what they are posting, or at least have some info to post apart from someone dying somewhere whilst he was freediving/scubadiving/snorkeling.
Then we will have the discussion again, and then we can start learning again IMHO.

Then read 60% fewer posts and put more faith in the 40% you read. I see very little good coming from most of the a&i threads (just my opinion) but respect Don's right to start the threads. I do read many of them but choose not to post is most which is a choice that everybody has.

[Bombay High]

You never know when you may gain some information that will be useful in some situation. You always have the option of not reading.
A freediver who drowns from a shallow water blackout, is of interest to me as a diver.