Divers dying every lobster opening. This has to stop!

[Scubatude]

The start of this years So Cal lobster season has taken the lives of at least 4 divers. Each year is the same. Being that the loss is so recent and family and friends may be looking here for information, I will not lash out in the fashion I wish too. I will say that lobster diving requires that first you are a diver! Not someone who likes lobster so puts on unfamiliar gear once a year to crawl along the bottom and hunt. It requires focus to find and catch lobster. Focus that must be SHARED with a constant focus on your equipment, environment and buddy. Many people are unable to maintain situational awareness and be task focused at the same time. Those people should not be diving for lobster.

The diving deaths in our community are senseless and needless. Something needs to be done. I have some of my own thoughts, but want to hear yours. What can we do, as a community, to stop this?

 

[divad]

You can't stop natural selection....or god's will....or whatever you want to call it.

 

[Scott]

You can change lobster hunting with any other type of game hunt and the outcome is still the same.
Our big game hunting season opens tomorrow and there will be a number of senseless accidents in the span of few days.
People plan, but in the thrill of the hunt they continue to make bad choices.
While it is sad to read about preventable accidents it will always happen. Not every hunter will be as dedicated to the sport as we would like them to be.



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[keller34]

There is a saying: You can't fix stupid, but death can.

 

[Adam Grose]

Dumping Chlorine in the shallow end of the gene pool?

There is a saying: You can't fix stupid, but death can.

 

[kelemvor]

We were just discussing the high fatality rate associated with lobster diving last night in SB chat. I didn't think to compare it to land based hunting. I guess since I don't hunt, I don't hear about hunting deaths.

The only thing I know about hunting is that you don't do it with Dick Cheney. Unless you've been really depressed for a while...

 

[keller34]

We were just discussing the high fatality rate associated with lobster diving last night in SB chat. I didn't think to compare it to land based hunting. I guess since I don't hunt, I don't hear about hunting deaths.

The only thing I know about hunting is that you don't do it with Dick Cheney. Unless you've been really depressed for a while...

WHen I used to live in Georgia I heard about it all the time around my neck of the woods. At least 2 deaths and quite a few accidents. One made the news because it was a murder made to look like an accident.

 

[divad]

Our big game hunting season opens tomorrow and there will be a number of senseless accidents in the span of few days.

The big game will probably be happy.

 

[TSandM]

I work in an emergency room, and I will tell you that there is nothing you can do that will eliminate deaths and accidents due to carelessness, bravado, or people overestimating their capacities.

Educational programs do work to an extent -- people whose only fault is ignorance can be warned. But people whose fault is arrogance will still go on to do what they do.

 

[drbill]

First, my condolences to the family and friends of what I believe to be five deceased divers in our region.

Unfortunately, the opening of lobster season brings out some who have not dived in a while. On top of that the dives are done at night on opening "day" which adds additional risk. I caution those who have not dived since the last lobster season closed to refresh yourself with a few dives in daylight to reacquaint yourselves with your gear and add a night dive or two prior to bugging as well.

Several years ago another diver and I found a full kit (tank/BC/reg) at a local Catalina dive site. We assumed it had fallen off a boat. Turned out it was the gear from a diver on opening night who had been brought back to the surface but the gear fell off the swim step and floated about a mile from the original site. Sad when we realized what had happened. The gear was turned in to the Sheriff as part of the investigation into the death.