Diver lost 15 Jan 2013 Cozumel

[Gdog]

Never Mind.

 

[drrich2]

I'm curious as to local community standards in the area, since a post by Johnoly gave one view, I think we should explore the issue since some people might use it to judge local op.s. Parts of his post, related to his experience in Florida I believe (bold emphasis mine):

Just like other popular dive destinations we have a healthy competition and banter between dive boats. But one thing we always do and that is, if the call goes out for a missing diver, everyone grabs tanks and gear and goes to find them even if it's a recovery dive. We pull people from 2 hours away that come running, ready to dive deep after the 1^st team has hit NDL's and back them up to get in the water. Drop what you are doing, close shop, get off FB and get diving deep to go find them. Boats are always standing by and will go no matter what, just get to the dock.

A dive op may not be friendly with the boat that's in trouble, but it's a diver and you have to go. Doing your 2^nd dive when you know there's an overdue diver and you have tanks, qualified DM's or passengers within ear shot that can make the dive but don't??? That's not right. And if you were a passenger on a boat waiting for your 2^nd dive and still did it without redirecting to look (topside or bottom) shame on you. Even staying at 60 feet or snorkeling and looking down to the bottom is searching and helping. Every piece of sand or topside that you can cross off and marked covered helps.

Blowing off doing any help to search so you can continue a vacation?? I wouldn't be able to sleep at night.

On land, when the t.v. news reports a missing child, for instance, there will be a search, and depending on the circumstances some citizens may volunteer to aid (e.g.: kid lost in the woods). But there is no expectation that every able-bodied citizen within a given radius of availability is obligated to join the search.

I do not know the 'social norms' aspect of a missing diver situation. Before we give people the impression that if they were on a Cozumel charter boat that day, and their charter followed through with providing the service they contracted for rather than speeding off to join a search & rescue operation that this was shameful dereliction of duty, lets ask the question:

Is there some 'social norm' in Cozumel whereby all dive op.s within a 2 hour trip radius are supposed to drop what they're doing and speed out to join a search & rescue operation for a missing diver? If so, is this perceived to be an obligatory moral duty?

Richard.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

If you have special skills, and you are in the area, and it is within your capacity to help, then good people will help. Not too difficult to understand?

The local (Florida) dive community (scuba spearfsihing) used extraordinary means to try to locate a missing diver several years ago. The search involved private aircraft, private boats, volunteered charter boats, and diving continued for probably 5 weeks or longer.

Of course, the Coast guard and other agencies were involved as well with the search of the surface.

 

[ggunn]

I am going to nitpick one element of Mike's previous post. If you suddenly realize that you are alone, your first thought should not be "panic." Ideally you have enough training/experience to think instead "Geez I screwed this up. Now where did they go?"

This is where the self-reliance training/experience comes into play. I do not know if what CowBells experienced was personal apprehension or a concern for her husband. She can address that with her husband or here as she chooses. My suggestion, beyond the self-reliance issue, is that if she photographs a lot, her buddy should be beside or behind her. I do not remember if Tormentos has coral heads suitable for getting behind and out of the current, but that option, along with facing into the current and slowly swimming to minimize current-induced separation.

I've lost the group a few times. IME, if you lose the group and did not see it happening, the chances are that they are downcurrent, not upcurrent from you.

---------- Post added January 16th, 2013 at 07:16 AM ----------

We never even hear about most of the losses I don't think.

You say that a lot, that you think that there are lots of diver deaths in the waters around Cozumel that we don't ever hear about. That's a pretty serious allegation; upon what do you base it?

 

[Dave Dillehay]

Dear Gordon,

I agree completely. Every diver dead or lost is immediately in the local papers and the harbor master must provide a report, etc. IT is all very formal and legally required. IMO it would be impossible for a death in Cozumel, of any sort to go un reported. However, getting bent raises no eyebrows.

Dave Dillehay
Aldora Divers

 

[browntrout]

Best wishes for the family. Utah woman missing in Mexico | ksl.com

 

[DandyDon]

You say that a lot, that you think that there are lots of diver deaths in the waters around Cozumel that we don't ever hear about. That's a pretty serious allegation; upon what do you base it?

My thoughts, which could be wrong. Maybe most of them do make US Google news.

Best wishes for the family. Utah woman missing in Mexico | ksl.com

Not to take a news article as a fact source, but this casts a new possible view: "Emma said Tamara and her two brothers went to Cozumel for vacation and decided to try scuba diving. She said there was a large group on the dive with a number of guides, but that as the group surfaced, they lost sight of Tamara." It was mentioned early here that she was newly certified tho, so I don't guess this was after Discover training.

 

[vincent54]

I am sure the other boats in the area were notified via emergency frequencies on the marine radio. A coordinated search would be difficult with a bunch of divers diving a second dive on other boats. Sounds like the dive shops need to get together and come up with some type of emergency management for this type of situation. Time matters and disorganization takes time. Prevention is the first line of defense, but there will be incidents. If you are making a business taking divers out, then it is totally your responsibility to bring all the divers back safely. Period. If it means evaluation dives, refresher dives then do it, it's your boat and rules.

I still think there are too many unknowns to even remotely know what went on, just that it was very sad.

 

[beaverdivers]

I think locally here in Southern California we get about 5 scuba deaths a year. We may have 1,000 dives on Saturdays and Sundays but less than that on the weekdays, and probably less during winter weekends. It's too bad that the denominator in the equation is always a rough estimate. It would be interesting to have better data to make these type of comparisons. All things considered though scuba is relatively safe.

DAN Report 2004

Location - # of Dive Fatalities 2002

Mexico - 3

Central America - 3

Canada - 4

Caribbean - 11

Florida - 18

Hawaii - 5

California - 11

Gulf region of US - 2

Above are stats from the Divers Alert Network report 2004 for fatalities in 2002.

 

[scubaduo92]

No news on the missing diver and they have pretty much stopped the search at this point so this is not looking very good. The family is still on the island and they took a boat back to Palancar Caves yesterday to look again. We visited with them shortly and that will remain private. I know eveyone has an opinion on what went wrong but the family and those in Utah are reading this. I would "suggest" that inexpierence, bad judgement, and current were factors, but everyone doesn,t need to get into the speculation as it will come out in time. We were on the site and down currents did not play into this. After the call went out the were dive boats all over the area and did the best they could. The dive operators do the best they can do and I am not going to get into what could have or did not get done. By the way, Aldora Divers is one of the best on the island and all this blog needs to pertain to is the diver and her family. We will be here till Jan. 29th and will post if any other news comes out. will take PM,s from those in Utah if I can help, but there is not anything at this time.