Cozumel Incident 9/4/11

[Tortuga68]

Everyone has talked about the al 80's but has anything been said about their regs? Brand? Ip?

Dude, really? Regs?

 

[jswensva]

I meant "good story" in the sense of a steel pot with a bullet hole and no wounds.

But I do think the attitude indicated in bold in the quote is counter productive to understanding what went wrong. It is not sufficient to just say, "Kids, don't do this at home." I think it is an attempt to scare folks away with absolutely no rational to make them understand the reasons this was a bad idea. This dive may very well have been planned by the group in terms of air and decompression requirements. Heck, they may well have planned this dive using the "rule of thirds" and it looks like it was
well within that "rule".

The problem is not that they did not plan enough air for a successful dive. The problem is that they apparently did not adequately address the things that could go wrong and take additional, prudent risk reduction measures.

As far as air and deco requirements, I estimate that such a bounce dive would require about 15 cu ft of air for the descent to 300 ft at 60 FPM with a SAC of .5. And the total dive air requirement of about half of an AL80 including 6 minutes of required deco stops based on Navy table. Aggressive? Sure, but...

A steel pot represents a safety measure. These folks didn't have appropriate safety measures.

I didn't say don't talk about this dive or dives like it. I said it's awful to have those discussions portray in a positive light this type of diving. Absolutely point out why the decisions made were the wrong ones, but don't glorify (not saying you're glorifying, just making a general statement) dives like this one.

The problem is exactly that they didn't plan for enough air or plan for any other contingencies (or training) which can result in a dive to this depth, with vastly different means, being successful. They do not appear to be within the rule of thirds...in fact they're obviously in violation of it given 3 divers on one tank. Most technical agencies advocate 1/6s in overhead environments on single tanks. One does not have in single tank diving the redundancy of manifolded doubles. That's why the volume and the methods in which they carried their gas (singles) is a bad idea.

They did not have the appropriate gas types, from an END, EAD, OTU, or any other standpoint. END and EAD are obvious as they're the actual depths, whatever they were, but certainly well beyond what any sane individual will claim as acceptable. Best case, OTUs were well north of several hundred percent, and even if these folks had training about tradeoffs in running up O2 clocks, it would not appear to be well applied (high OTUs and very high PO2s)-I have no idea the level of training of these folks, so I'm just positing best case training and still concluding the selection was incorrect. 1/6s are obviously violated. The issue is one of redundancy, not just volume. That's why the gas types are a bad choice.

Navy tables are designed for healthy guys in their 20s, with ready access to on-board recompression therapy, and allow for a slightly less than 1% failure rate in practice. That's why they're a bad idea for this type of dive.

All of this has been discussed ad nauseum in this and other threads, yet still doesn't seem to make a dent for some folks. None of us need every gritty detail of this dive to come to a conclusion about the primary causes of the incident. The unknowns are secondary.

It's very sad that these three face the type of recovery and life which may be ahead of them. It will be exponentially sadder if the reasons why this incident happened are not taken to heart and dives like this remain condoned, implicitly or explicitly, when they should be condemned in the strongest possible terms.

 

[Doubler]

Dude, really? Regs?

What about split fins?

This is getting to the point of ridiculous! What Bc did they have? What about mask squeeze. The point is it does not matter what regulator, what BC or what certifying agency. What matters is the extreme depth on a single 80 and poor planning has changed these people and their families life for ever. Geez let's stop beating this dead horse.

 

[Tortuga68]

It's well beyond the point of ridiculousness already

 

[Garth]

Dude, really? Regs?

Yeah dude. As in if you had 500cuft of usable bottom mix plenty of deco gas surface support the whole nine yards... If you have regs that lock up at that depth no amount of gas really matters. You have no air to breath and no air to stop an uncontrolled descent. Stop me if I'm wrong here it sounds like you have been to 300-400ft before and know exactly what your talking about. Me on the other hand have not been near that depth.

 

[ScubaSteve]

If you have regs that lock up......

I have never been to 300' but I see this as where your logic falls off. What exactly are you referencing here? Regs that simply stop delivering air altogether?

 

[Garth]

Regs are pertinent as they need to perform at those depths, whereas split fins play a part in environmental conditions and may not play a part in open water incidents. IMO

 

[Garth]

Interstage pressure, oil lube stff like that. My point about the regs was that along with the amount of gas, type of gas, and redundancy of gas sources, it seems pertinent to examine choice of regulators for dives to these depths. I am not suggesting it would have changed the outcome but to say it makes no difference and shouldnt be discussed is a bit much... ( given what has already been discussed).

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I dunno about locking up, but regs that perform poorly can contribute to CO2 buildup as you go deeper ... and that can present all sorts of interesting problems, from increasing narcosis to out-and-out panic as that "I can't get enough air" feeling takes control of your brain ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Mossman]

Yes, I hesitated to use the word "deserve" and even went back to edit my post, but decided to leave it. It is a harsh word, to be sure, but I'm not sure what word I would use in its place.

I don't wish ill will on anyone. But the sheer stupidity of this incident still stuns me. I can only shake my head. I hope that Opal, Gabi and Heath will recover.

That makes no sense to me. If you think they deserve it, why would you hope they recover? Make up your mind.