Scuba diver goes missing off Catalina Island

[dumpsterDiver]

...

Drifting Dan was almost 12 years ago. To my knowledge - although I know there have been occasional divers left behind and the boats came back to get them no-harm-no-foul - we haven't had a serious diver-left-behind scenario in that time. People tend to get complacent when everything is fine. In fact, there's a good chance that many people who DM today weren't even around when Drifting Dan occurred and don't have that as a reference point or educational model.


- Ken

How in the world can you categorize a professional, registered charter operator leaving divers behind on a dive site as "no foul"? Seriously is that you perspective?

It would only be a "foul" if the person dies, and even if they end up dead - it "probably ain't the crew's fault"???.

I'm not attacking you or your considerable expertise in analyzing these situations, but your thought process about these situations is quite different than mine.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

Although it doesn't matter what gear she was using, she dived in a Deep Sea Supply backplate and wing.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

In an earlier quote you stated pretty precisely what time the diver went in the water at 9:55 (no source of info quoted).

Let's just say my source is someone who was one the boat and I believe the time to be fairly accurate. It could have been 10:00AM, it could have been 9:45AM. In terms of the overall point I was trying to make - which is that deco obligations and/or air consumption would have required her to surface long before 11:15 - still is valid IMHO unless you can somehow make the argument that she went in sometime after 10:15 or 10:30.

The other thing to look at is the Sundiver Facebook page, which showed a pix of Ship Rock that was posted at 10:06 on 12/29 (the post has been since taken down). My understanding (again, not specifically sourced) is that Laurel had entered shortly before the pix was taken/posted. Just simply math would say at least minute or two to take a picture, at least another minute or two to post, and going backwards from 10:06, you're maybe at 10AM, and could float some speculative time arguments that pushes it back closer to 9:55AM.

But again, to be clear, yes I stated 9:55AM but I'm not saying with 100% absolute confidence that that was the exact entry time. But I believe it to be relatively close to that and, as I think I said in a previous post, it certainly wasn't 10:30 or 10:45 or anything like that.

You also stated the divers complete dive plan. She was going to go to 80 ft for stretching and then look for lobster.

Not exactly. I said I had been told this was her plan. Yes, I made the assumption and did calculations based on her doing that, but I don't believe I have ever said that I know that;'s exactly what she did. I thought I made it pretty clear - and maybe I didn't make it clear enough - that anything I or anyone says happened after she submerged is pure speculation, educated guess, etc., whatever term you want to put to it, as opposed to settled fact.

As a side note I have been to this location during the current lobster season and it is pretty barren. The boats will even tell you that there are not many lobster at ship rock except for the tech divers who go down past 200 ft so this doesn't make much sense either.

What you would do and she would do are not necessarily connected. Whether it was a good idea, the fact was they WERE at Ship, she apparently liked to hunt lobster, and she apparently (note the word is "apparently") was going to give it a shot.

But the real confusing part is that with as much detail that was provided about the precise time of entry and the complete dive plan there was no information provided on what gear she was using?

I hope that's not confusing at all. It's not uncommon to have info on one aspect of something and not another. And without any info I considered reliable on what she was or wasn't wearing - and it may not even be that germane to what happened - I chose not to comment on it.

The story that we have heard from friends on the boat is that she may have been using an old fashion horse collar type BC that belonged to the boat.

Again, this sort of validates me reasoning for not commenting on this. I've had people tell me she wasn't wearing a BC and people tell me she was. I have no idea and both things can't be true.

- Ken

 

[Ken Kurtis]

How in the world can you categorize a professional, registered charter operator leaving divers behind on a dive site as "no foul"? Seriously is that you perspective?

I believe I didn't explain well enough or you misunderstood. Let me try again.

THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR A BOAT LEAVING A DIVE SITE WITH DIVERS IN THE WATER.

Now, I don't care if the DM ****** up or the captain, or someone else. You can't leave people behind, regardless of how long it takes you to realize the mistake. (And, despite USCG arguments, there really IS a whole side argument here that deals with insurance regulations and industry practice and standard as to who's really responsible. It was an issue that was going to be raised with Drifting Dan but wasn't during the trial.) I know of cases where boats left and went back, I know of cases where boats were radioed by other boats saying "We have the divers you forgot", I know of boats where the divers popped up at the stern just as the captain and crew were securing the swimstep after determining everyone was there.

I used the term "no-harm-no-foul" not to indicate MY position, but to indicate that that seems to be a general attitude of the industry overall. "Nothing bad happened so let's not worry about." Whoever made the mistake will downplay it but more to the point, NO ONE ON THE BOAT will likely do any follow-up. In other words, if a diver got left, they could file a complaint with the USCG, but - to my knowledge - that's never happened. They could sue whoever the charter operator was (maybe for infliction of emotional duress or something like that) but to my knowledge - other than Drifting Dan and that case was at the extreme end - no one has.

The same thing happens - parallel complaint - when divers run out of air. If nothing bad happens, people don't worry about it. We did. On Reef Seekers trips, our policy is that if you run out of air, you're done diving for the day. Period. No exceptions.

And I'll tell you right now if one of my DMs had ever reported to a captain that we had everyone back when we didn't, they would never DM for me again (at least not without a LOT of retraining) and I would make sure other shops and boats in the area would know why.

So divers have to take some responsibility here for not putting more pressure on the industry as a whole for some of this. Shoddy practices continue when people look the other way, don't hold anyone's feet to the fire (or vote with your pocketbook), or simply shrug their shoulders and say "Well, there's nothing I can do to change that."

It would only be a "foul" if the person dies, and even if they end up dead - it "probably ain't the crew's fault"???.

Not at all what I believe. Not at all what I said.

I'm not attacking you or your considerable expertise in analyzing these situations, but your thought process about these situations is quite different than mine.

I think your understandable outrage comes not from being in attack mode but perhaps because I didn't explain myself well enough or what I said sounds in my head better than it does when someone reads it.

Your thought process on this and mine are probably much more in sync than you think. But I definitely do approach it from a more detached, dispassionate perspective.

- Ken

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Thanks for taking the time to more fully explain your position on this. I don’t appreciate you categorizing my comments as “attack mode”, since I do not know you (Ken), I don’t know anyone who knows you and I never dove within probably 500 miles of the accident location – ever. I have no personal axe to grind with you or the operator.

However, I have waved the BS flag on ANYONE who proclaims to express confidence that they know what happened (i.e., the cause of the fatality) unless they have a lot more information which has not been made available in this discussion.

This thread has taken an interesting turn with the discussion of non-paying crew or friends or volunteer helpers not making it to the manifest. There is a very GOOD reason for this.. it makes it easier to collect money. You may add customers to the roster and when they pay, maybe you add a check mark or something to indicate payment. Adding several non-paying individuals to the roster makes reconciliation of the cash with the number of divers more difficult.

It is an absolute TERRIBLE reason to do such a thing, but I have seen it done, understand why it might be done and it actually occurred in the fatality that I was involved in where we “forgot” to call out the name of a crew member. Subsequently, we left the site and 45 minutes later I was bringing our friend and crew member to the surface with his brain, quite literally, spilling out from a propeller wound. This topic does have personal relevance to me.

It is possible that crew members may feel that the other crew (or friends and family) are such good divers and everyone is so familiar with them that… there is no way we would forget them, hell we hardly even need to call their name in a roll call. If the DM is doing the roll call, does he call out the captain’s name?

It should be obvious that I don’t know if the roster/manifest in this particular case excluded the decedent, but it also seems clear that the people in the know aren’t going to say much. If it was missing, it is a critical piece of the puzzle; it would pretty much explain how and why they left the dive site without the diver and it should be added to the tally of errors committed by the operator on the day in question. It certainly is strange that we know extremely detailed information like the fact that the decedent entered the water just before the picture was taken of the dive site, but we don’t even know if her name was included on the roster.

 

[scubadada]

...THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR A BOAT LEAVING A DIVE SITE WITH DIVERS IN THE WATER... - Ken

Ken,

I was confused by your earlier statements also, and was ready to reply, but dD beat me to it, not the 1st time.

This is not a complex topic, there really is no excuse for ever leaving a dive site with divers in the water. Every diver in the water, paid customers, instructors, DMs, and guests, should be listed on the roster and should reliably be confirmed back on the boat before departure from the site. There may be extremely rare exceptions to this rule. I once surfaced last from a wreck dive in Boynton Beach with the mooring ball, only to find my boat gone. Another local boat was just pulling up to pick me up. They informed me that there had been an OOA emergency earlier in the dive and that my boat was headed in with the affected diver. This was a completely acceptable emergency plan.

The topic of dive run time is a separate issue. Much of my diving is drift diving in SE Florida. Some operators have a limit on bottom time to make sure all divers should be up by a rough, maximum time. One operator in Jupiter, with deeper dives, has a bottom time limit of 45 minutes, all divers are up in the low 50s of minutes. A couple of operators in Boynton Beach have a bottom time of 60 minutes and should see all divers by mid-60 minutes. An operator without a bottom time limit must simply make sure everyone is back. If the operator takes the time to have a diver or group commit to a run time, that information can and should be used to estimate surfacing.

I'm responsible for managing my gas and deco, I should be able to count on my boat to reliably pick me up at the end of my dive. Exactly what to do, and when, about an overdue diver, is another discussion.

Craig

 

[Ken Kurtis]

I don’t appreciate you categorizing my comments as “attack mode”, since I do not know you (Ken) . . .

To digress for a moment, read what is aid last night again. I said NOT from being in attack mode. NOT. NOT. If I said it somewhere earlier in the long thread and offended you, my apologies.

In general terms, and certainly in things I post, if I'm discussing something remember that there's a difference between EXPLAINING what happened and ACCEPTING what happened as OK. To use my favorite rant, I can EXPLAIN that a diver ran out of air but that doesn't mean for a second that I find that ACCEPTABLE.

- Ken

 

[mdb]

It seems the real constant is how to prevent this in the future in CA or anywhere. A standard protocol could be the norm.

 

[Dive Time Remaining]

Thanks for taking the time to explain your position more Ken. My issue is that I have a bit of guilt here by simply voting with my pocketbook. I have been on this boat previously and had experiences that made me say never again. Since then I have talked to other divers who have also voted with their pocketbooks with this operation for the same basic reasons but this action did not stop this event from happening. I believe that is why you are seeing all the comments and outrage on this thread. I am convinced that we need to develope a divers bill of rights carefully thought out and posted on every legitimate dive boat that explains the duty of care that they are prepared to provide for every diver on every trip. Crew pictures with their names and credentials should be posted on the boat for all to see. If anyone observes that the boat is not prepared to perform to the standard or does not have a qualified crew on board they would have a right to a full refund. The overall issue here is that if we don't do something the government (Coast Guard or other) will step in with more regulations and make SCUBA tougher and more expensive for everyone. We need to stay a self regulated sport but if we show that we cannot handle that I am sure the government won't have a problem helping us. I know there are many good dive boat operators out there and I am sure they will not have a problem with these concepts.

 

[scubadada]

Here's my "personal" thoughts on this incident. Leaving a diver is unacceptable. However, after doing a little research about this dive site I think it's very risky to do a dive here without a BCD where the depths hit 300 fsw.

We will never know if leaving her contributed to her death or if it was purely coincidence. At a minimum the operation should be held accountable for that action.

Do we really know she was diving without a BC, this does not seem to be at all clear? Too bad someone present could not have cleared that up.

No excuse to leave a diver in the water