uwsince79
Guest
Widow disputes drowning report
BY SCOTT JENKINS
SALISBURY POST
Early MAy
The wife of a Salisbury man who died Saturday while scuba diving off the Florida Keys says she finds it hard to believe an initial report that he died after swimming to the surface too quickly.And a fellow diver who was with James Lee Webb, 48, of 155 Oakridge Run,said he was swimming behind Webb and that Webb appeared to surface correctly
in the storm-churned ocean.
The Monroe County, Fla. medical examiner's office has not completed an autopsy, an official there said today.
A spokeswoman with Mariner's Hospital in Key Largo, Fla., said Saturday that emergency medical workers reported Webb had surfaced too quickly and his body could not adjust to the rapid change in pressure.
Jane Webb, the wife of James Webb, said her husband began diving in 1999, and that he "would never have done anything to put himself in a precarious position where he was going to endanger his life."
"Jim was very smart and knowledgeable about diving and he would not have made a mistake about coming up too fast," she said. "He was well-trained and cool-headed, and he would not have made that mistake."
Webb said a doctor at Mariner's called and told her that James Webb may have had some difficulty surfacing, and that he could have been experiencing chest pains.
Michael Smith, a China Grove man who was part of the diving group with Webb, said Webb didn't indicate to him while diving that he was experiencing any
difficulty.
He said Webb surfaced ahead of him and Smith's son and that he appeared to be fine.
After surfacing, Webb communicated with a dive boat crew while pulling himself along a line to the boat.
"The crew people said they were talking to Jim and that Jim was talking back to them," Smith said. "I was thinking everything was fine, because he was way up on the tag line."
Webb gave the crew a signal indicating he was out of air, and they told him to use his snorkel, Smith said.
A moment later, Webb rolled over in the water.
The boat's captain jumped in and pulled him on board the boat.
Everything happened quickly after that, Smith said. Emergency medical workers tried to revive Webb. The Coast Guard arrived and sped him to the
hospital.The doctor told Jane Webb they tried for a 1 1/2 hours to save her husband.
An electrician, James Webb worked in maintenance at Pepsi Bottling in Winston-Salem. He had worked at Abex/Federal Mogul in Salisbury for 17 years
until company officials announced the plant's closing in November.
He was a member of St. Paul's Lutheran Church, where he served on the church council and property committee, was an usher and was active in the men's choir and the adult Sunday school class.His wife, a teacher at Erwin Middle School in eastern Rowan County, said he was "an outdoors person" - an avid deer hunter, a golfer and a "baseball fanatic" who never missed a Kannapolis Intimidators home game.
He and his daughter, Jancie, a junior at East Rowan High School, had season tickets to Intimidator's games, where Jane Webb worked summers. Their son,
Joshua, is a freshman at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Jane Webb said she and their children gave Webb diving lessons for Christmas in 1999. The family has a pool, and Webb had said he might buy scuba gear
just to sit on the bottom of it, she said.
He had helped train a group of boys in scuba diving at the Salisbury YMCA. He made his first trip to the Florida Keys last year. That's where he met Mike Smith.
"He just loved it; he said it was beautiful," his wife said.
Webb, Smith and several other local residents left Thursday night for the 15-hour drive to the Florida Keys. They had originally planned a night dive on Friday, but the weather turned rough and the group decided against it.
Instead, they would take the early dive on Saturday.
The group awoke around 6 a.m., ate breakfast and went out on the dive boat. They were part of a larger group of around two-dozen people, Smith said.
"When we started out, the sea was kind of calm ... but then the sea turned rough on us,"Smith said.
Conditions were more favorable underwater, though, and the group enjoyed a dive that took them down 80 feet below the ocean's surface.
After going to 60 feet, then 40 feet, Smith said Webb tapped him on the shoulder and showed him that he was running low on air. Smith and his son
had more air than Webb, because he had been down longer, Smith said. But they all surfaced together.
Once on the surface, he said, they had to pull against swells higher than 5 feet and against winds strong enough that the Coast Guard had issued a small-craft warning, telling boats not to come out on the water.
Still, he said, it was a shock when he got on board and found Webb unconscious. His family is shocked, too. They expected him back Sunday.
"I was expecting him to go down there and come back with a bunch of stories and pictures to show everyone," Jane Webb said, "and something happened to him. We just don't know what."
BY SCOTT JENKINS
SALISBURY POST
Early MAy
The wife of a Salisbury man who died Saturday while scuba diving off the Florida Keys says she finds it hard to believe an initial report that he died after swimming to the surface too quickly.And a fellow diver who was with James Lee Webb, 48, of 155 Oakridge Run,said he was swimming behind Webb and that Webb appeared to surface correctly
in the storm-churned ocean.
The Monroe County, Fla. medical examiner's office has not completed an autopsy, an official there said today.
A spokeswoman with Mariner's Hospital in Key Largo, Fla., said Saturday that emergency medical workers reported Webb had surfaced too quickly and his body could not adjust to the rapid change in pressure.
Jane Webb, the wife of James Webb, said her husband began diving in 1999, and that he "would never have done anything to put himself in a precarious position where he was going to endanger his life."
"Jim was very smart and knowledgeable about diving and he would not have made a mistake about coming up too fast," she said. "He was well-trained and cool-headed, and he would not have made that mistake."
Webb said a doctor at Mariner's called and told her that James Webb may have had some difficulty surfacing, and that he could have been experiencing chest pains.
Michael Smith, a China Grove man who was part of the diving group with Webb, said Webb didn't indicate to him while diving that he was experiencing any
difficulty.
He said Webb surfaced ahead of him and Smith's son and that he appeared to be fine.
After surfacing, Webb communicated with a dive boat crew while pulling himself along a line to the boat.
"The crew people said they were talking to Jim and that Jim was talking back to them," Smith said. "I was thinking everything was fine, because he was way up on the tag line."
Webb gave the crew a signal indicating he was out of air, and they told him to use his snorkel, Smith said.
A moment later, Webb rolled over in the water.
The boat's captain jumped in and pulled him on board the boat.
Everything happened quickly after that, Smith said. Emergency medical workers tried to revive Webb. The Coast Guard arrived and sped him to the
hospital.The doctor told Jane Webb they tried for a 1 1/2 hours to save her husband.
An electrician, James Webb worked in maintenance at Pepsi Bottling in Winston-Salem. He had worked at Abex/Federal Mogul in Salisbury for 17 years
until company officials announced the plant's closing in November.
He was a member of St. Paul's Lutheran Church, where he served on the church council and property committee, was an usher and was active in the men's choir and the adult Sunday school class.His wife, a teacher at Erwin Middle School in eastern Rowan County, said he was "an outdoors person" - an avid deer hunter, a golfer and a "baseball fanatic" who never missed a Kannapolis Intimidators home game.
He and his daughter, Jancie, a junior at East Rowan High School, had season tickets to Intimidator's games, where Jane Webb worked summers. Their son,
Joshua, is a freshman at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Jane Webb said she and their children gave Webb diving lessons for Christmas in 1999. The family has a pool, and Webb had said he might buy scuba gear
just to sit on the bottom of it, she said.
He had helped train a group of boys in scuba diving at the Salisbury YMCA. He made his first trip to the Florida Keys last year. That's where he met Mike Smith.
"He just loved it; he said it was beautiful," his wife said.
Webb, Smith and several other local residents left Thursday night for the 15-hour drive to the Florida Keys. They had originally planned a night dive on Friday, but the weather turned rough and the group decided against it.
Instead, they would take the early dive on Saturday.
The group awoke around 6 a.m., ate breakfast and went out on the dive boat. They were part of a larger group of around two-dozen people, Smith said.
"When we started out, the sea was kind of calm ... but then the sea turned rough on us,"Smith said.
Conditions were more favorable underwater, though, and the group enjoyed a dive that took them down 80 feet below the ocean's surface.
After going to 60 feet, then 40 feet, Smith said Webb tapped him on the shoulder and showed him that he was running low on air. Smith and his son
had more air than Webb, because he had been down longer, Smith said. But they all surfaced together.
Once on the surface, he said, they had to pull against swells higher than 5 feet and against winds strong enough that the Coast Guard had issued a small-craft warning, telling boats not to come out on the water.
Still, he said, it was a shock when he got on board and found Webb unconscious. His family is shocked, too. They expected him back Sunday.
"I was expecting him to go down there and come back with a bunch of stories and pictures to show everyone," Jane Webb said, "and something happened to him. We just don't know what."