Article on Death In Ginnie Springs

[Rosborne]

As I read the article, you are saying that the findings of a respected cave instructor, which were that the gas inside the cylinder matched the markings on the cylinder and the symptoms demonstrated by the diver, are sufficiently dubious as to render the cause of the accident completely unknown.

Clearly, you liked Carlos, and you took some heat for defending him. But I think your article is specious.

No I'm not saying his testing was dubious, but if the matter had ever come before a court, the chain of evidence would have been rendered useless by that action. Investigations are supposed to follow very strict forensic guidelines. Have a local instructor, no matter how qualified, test that air was not within those guidelines. That's all I'm saying.

---------- Post added January 29th, 2015 at 09:45 AM ----------

To the author: I request you establish a motive for all the concerned parties to lie. The thing is, unless you can establish a motive your blog simply pounds the table.

I'm not suggesting anyone lied. I'm suggesting that if proper investigative procedures had been followed then we might have at least gained a valuable addition to the long history of accident analysis. Instead we gained nothing but a lot of people talking about what "probably" happened. Probably means nothing.

---------- Post added January 29th, 2015 at 09:49 AM ----------

Some really great discussion on the forum (aside from a few instances of "sound and fury" that were not unexpected.) If anything is to be learned from these kinds of tragedies, then healthy discussion is the way to learn. Thank you everyone.

 

[Superlyte27]

No I'm not saying his testing was dubious, but if the matter had ever come before a court, the chain of evidence would have been rendered useless by that action. Investigations are supposed to follow very strict forensic guidelines. Have a local instructor, no matter how qualified, test that air was not within those guidelines. That's all I'm saying.

Yeah, you really don't know what you're talking about. Which is okay. You're not really part of what happens here. The gas is tested on the surface by the people who manage the recovery, not for nothing, but so that they can do accident analysis. This is mostly for the IUCRR's knowledge, not the authorities. Since there's no way to put a contaminant into a scuba bottle at the site, there's no change in forensic evidence. All of the pertinent equipment is then taken by the Sheriff/ME for their investigation. Tanks are often sent to a lab to be analyzed for contaminants, oxygen content, CO, etc. The equipment is held for quite some time until the police do their investigation. For example: A few years ago, when the lady died at Blue Heron Bridge (with rented equipment from my shop) the sheriff's department confiscated all gear. It wasn't returned to us until more than a year later.

One last point.... it wasn't air that was tested. Had it been air, Carlos would still be alive.

 

[HIGHwing]

I think at some point you have to accept Carlos took a bottle filled with poison diving. If you can allow this to be a human factors accident, it becomes very clear what happened and who is ultimately responsible.

Your requirement for a CSI inquiry would be quite relevant if another party had motive and secretly swapped his tanks, or refilled his gas after he analyzed them in an effort to purposefully kill him. Sadly, the tanks were easily traced back to the prior dive on the Andrea Doria. Carlos failed in his responsibilty as a diver, and the best you could hope for in a trial is assignment of blame by percentage. There are a lot of people who might assign that blame at or near 100% to Carlos as he was soley responsible for checking that gas. Using witness statements - he didn't do it.

Let's assume the evidence that is intact, on-site expert statements, on-site eye witnesses, and immediate on-site gas analysis are all flat wrong. In other words, let's assume all the forensic evidence is gone. We're left with the Medical Examiner's report, and we learn from that a healthy adult male died from drowning. We trace the gear back and discover it was filled by Carlos for another dive and repurposed. We would discover that Carlos did not analyze the gas after filling the tank, and we would probably learn the gas was not marked consistent with the conventions (name, fill date, etc.) We would also learn that Carlos had physical possession of that gas, and transported it to Florida where it remained in his possession until the time of use. Skip everything that happend on the dive, skip the post gas analysis, skip the dive team statements, skip the expert cave instructor's statement, skip the on-site gas analysis. Fast forward to the ME's letter of opinion on the drowning.

Seems like Carlos didn't play by the rules long before standing on the shores at Ghilcrest County, FL and the accident had begun weeks or months before. It was imperative he break the accident chain by taking :30 seconds and analyzing the gas. But it's clear he didn't take half a minute and check that cylinder and he paid for it dearly.

A much more interesting article might have looked at one of the 5-Dangerous Attitudes of pilots. Get-There-Itis comes to mind and has killed many a pilot. The reward of getting things moving quickly overcomes the mundane safety items that seem unnecessary, but checklists and procedures are there to stop bad human behavior - to break the accident chain. In this case, had Carlos followed the rules of a recreational Enriched Air Diver, he would have rejoined his family at Disney World. Afterall, the Medical Examiner seems to think so...

 

[rivers]

He didn't analyse his gas on the day of the dive. And that's what killed him.

 

[Lorenzoid]

No I'm not saying his testing was dubious, but if the matter had ever come before a court, the chain of evidence would have been rendered useless by that action. Investigations are supposed to follow very strict forensic guidelines. . . .

Investigations only need to follow forensic guidelines if there is some reason to suspect there was a criminal act AND if law enforcement believes a prosecutor will likely need the evidence to prove a case.

They don't just go swabbing for fingerprints or whatever in every instance where someone dies. They don't even necessarily do that kind of forensic collection of evidence in every instance in which there is suspicion of some crime.

 

[gianaameri]

The tanks he had were left over from a trip to the Doria. He was sure that he had filled it with air.

And what was Carlos supposedly doing with an O2 labelled tank on the Andrea Doria that he allegedly filled with Air - FOR AN ANDREA DORIA TRIP/DIVE???

Man, don't you realise the story/fantasy peddled on the internet is full of holes...

 

[boulderjohn]

No I'm not saying his testing was dubious, but if the matter had ever come before a court, the chain of evidence would have been rendered useless by that action. Investigations are supposed to follow very strict forensic guidelines. Have a local instructor, no matter how qualified, test that air was not within those guidelines. That's all I'm saying.

What you don't seem to grasp is that this is the proper procedure. Check out the IUCRR site for more information.

 

[HIGHwing]

And what was Carlos supposedly doing with an O2 labelled tank on the Andrea Doria that he allegedly filled with Air - FOR AN ANDREA DORIA TRIP/DIVE???

Man, don't you realise the story/fantasy peddled on the internet is full of holes...

It becomes clear, you need to re-read the story about how the bottles came to Florida. It's all on the Internet for your consumption, but I'm not going to wade through that thread again to find it. The Cliff Notes (if memory serves): He filled an O2 bottle with air after use on the Doria, *but* he accidentally brought a similar looking O2 bottle that was still full from the Doria dive with O2 that wasn't used due to a scrubbed dive related to weather.

 

[TSandM]

So, Rosborne, you are saying that unless evidence from a diving accident reaches the standard of the criminal courtroom, you don't accept it as having any validity? You remind me of the defense attorney who finds a weakness in the evidence chain and uses it to get an acquittal of someone everybody, including his own attorney, knows is guilty.

I don't buy a conspiracy theory. I don't buy a deliberate attempt by anyone to blacken Carlos's reputation. I do buy that reasonable evidence obtained by reasonable people matches the description of the event, and everything I learned about the man (both from public and private sources) said that this behavior was consistent with his temperament.

 

[abnfrog]

like jim said he didnt like people to question him about diving and procedure ...that killed him not somebody tampering with his gear ..........not matter how remote