Fatality on Rosalie Moller wreck

[beester]

But the logic may have been different . . . the top of the wreck was "only" about another 10m down, right? She had almost half a tank. Maybe the thought was to just go down and take a look, and then realizing she had to go a little deeper, then a little deeper . . . then a little deeper . .. then trying to find the weight pocket.

THIS! People don't get up in the morning thinking "hey this looks like a nice day to die, let's make all the obvious mistakes I can possibly make and do just that, it will be a wonderful day." They make a decision based on the information at hand in a split second and follow it through, it cascades in other issues and can end badly.

We are discussing this with a lot more information, and a lot more time to think things through than the victim could. We also don't have a glass orb to witness what happened, and the only witness to what happened (or the trigger) was himself not very experienced. We can try to break it down, come up with reasons and triggers (out of gas, overweight, hypercapnia due to gas density and effort, stress) but in the end we'll never know.

What we can do is use this case to learn from it. Unfortunately fatal accidents are never good cases because the ultimate victim is no longer with us to share his/her thought processes, experiences. Plus it emotionally impacts people close to the victim when you talk about "mistakes" (I put this in quotes, because I don't believe in mistakes).

So what can you learn from a case like this, without looking into any "mistakes" made.

- Experience: 200 dives can be a lot, but also nothing, specially if you are a warm water diver. 200 dives could be done in 2 years in various diving circumstances (vis, current, temp, depth, boat dives, etc) or over 20 years, diving once a year on a liveaboard. Totally different thing. Self awareness is paramount! Be critical of yourself , if you don't feel comfortable about a dive, you know the feeling, that nagging, tingling feeling that you don't feel totally at ease, dare to say no! Buddies and guides should also be aware of this, if you feel your buddy is not at ease, talk about it.

- Environment: The rosalie Moller is a totally different wreck than the Thistlegorm. The vis is typically "misty", much less then the rest of the north wreck route typically taken. The depth is different. Yes the top is "only" 35m, but that's already deeper than the bottom of the Thistlegorm, and 55m is not a recreational depth. It's easy to be lured into a false sense of safety, but a good clue is, liveaboards will never do night dives on the Rosalie, while they do often on the Thistlegorm, there is a reason for that. When planning a dive in tropical "easy" water, you should always ask yourself: Would I do this dive in my local water (North Sea, Atlantic) where circumstances are more difficult. If you say no, then don't do the dive.

I'm against blocking sites/wrecks from being dived, but the Rosalie Moller is a prime candidate in my opinion to being scrapped of the itinerary of recreational cruises. I've dived it a couple of times and you see crazy stuff happening, and luckily it (almost) always goes well. A wreck on a flat bottom at 55m in moderate vis is something entirely different then a bounce dive to 55m on a nice reef wall, where you are always close to the wall. Yet it's dived very regularly by advanced OW divers with less than 50 dives under their belt, using a single 80cuft tank, being "guided" around.

Cheers

B

 

[beester]

Because sooner or later they will encounter a deco dive. Either because of the dive the dive shop is doing on those days or like in the case of this incident due to bad planning and unfortunate circumstances. I would prefer that they try it out in a controlled environment and prepare themselves at least mentally. Around 30% of dives you do in Croatia, Spain or Italy will have a group of divers going into deco, intentionally with only a single tank and I don't see hundreds of reports from those areas involving DCS or worse incidents (actually Croatia has an average of less than 10 reported DCS incidents a year and we dive like lemmings)

Yes but most won't be diving 55m bottoms. Just to use some Croatian examples, yes you see a lot of silly willies using 15Ls on the Baron Gautsch, Constantinos, Hans Schmidt, Varese, (30-45m) etc, but a lot less on the Rossarol (which only has a bottom of 49m) let alone the VIS, Kaliopi, Pascoli, etc...

I agree that a bit of deco knowledge and some little experience doing light (adv nitrox lvl) deco dives is very useful in broadening your experience. It's true that a lot of divers are too afraid of passing the NDL limit, but the other side of the medal is, that in recreational training you are just not prepared (both equipment and knowledge wise) for anything more than the 2 to 5 minutes of deco here or there. Doing 15' or more deco on a small single tank, without the necessary training is stupid!

 

[chillyinCanada]

In June I was diving in a lake (40’ bottom) with my normal saltwater 12-lb dive weight, distributed into 4 places, 4 lbs on each left & right integrated weight pouches and 2 lbs on each left & right shoulder blade pouches. When I descent with head down & fins up to ~ 20’ depth, I saw 4-lb dive weight went out of my left integrated left pouch (apparently I forgot to zip up the pouch). My reflect was to go after it since the bottom was shallow, then I decided not to, due to limited visibility (~6’) and I was with a group of 4 following a guideline. Later on I found out, although the weight wasn’t evenly distributed, I was still pretty much neutrally buoyant after purging some of the air out of my BCD.

For the most part, I dive with little to no air in my bcd. That's for use on the surface if necessary and small inlets if finding myself a bit heavy at a depth lower than 90'/30m.

I make sure to get as much air out of it again as I ascend to SS. At SS if for some reason, I haven't been able to completely vent by then, I'll squeeze out the last of it.

 

[Dark Wolf]

Not meaning any offense here, in any way. But I keep seeing people repeat "200 dives". Ok, that is great, but what is the time frame? 200 dives in 2 years yields (or should) a different level of diver than 200 dives in 20 years.

DW

 

[divezonescuba]

I don’t think the op mentioned this:

Was the smb that was used to mark the wreck still present or removed by the time the victim did her ascent? A safe operation would have waited until everyone was up before removing it.

If it had been removed prior, that means that the ascent and deco and or safety stops would have been a drift and the rib would have to go around picking people up.

If it was still there, she could have used it to control her ascent.

I had a situation once where we could not find the anchor line to ascend, due to poor visibility. There was also high current and we did not want to do a drift safety stop. We ended up using a line from the wreck to control the ascent and safety stop, in the current. You have to double the line in order to recover it on the surface.

On that wreck in Egypt, you would have had to have had a large reel rather than a finger spool to do that. In a life or death emergency, if I only had a short finger spool, I would not hesitate to tie the end off, do the ascent, and recover the line later.

I believe that the author Bernie Choudry was in a similar situation once and ended up doing a free descent instead. He ended up getting DCS although that also had something to do with his deco cylinders being at the ascent point.

 

[ginti]

- Experience: 200 dives can be a lot, but also nothing, specially if you are a warm water diver.
B

- Experience: 200 dives can be a lot, but also nothing, especially if you always dive in the same environment and/or always with the same equipment.

trust me, switching from an environment with a horrible viz and a crazy cold water to the warm and crystal clear mediterranean sea can be as shocking as the other way around (and potentially as dangerous).

The trick is building experience, and you need to try several piece of equipments and several environments, and training with different schools and instructors doesn't hurt (can all of this be done in 200 dives?).

 

[chillyinCanada]

- Experience: 200 dives can be a lot, but also nothing, especially if you always dive in the same environment and/or always with the same equipment.

trust me, switching from an environment with a horrible viz and a crazy cold water to the warm and crystal clear mediterranean sea can be as shocking as the other way around (and potentially as dangerous).

The trick is building experience, and you need to try several piece of equipments and several environments, and training with different schools and instructors doesn't hurt (can all of this be done in 200 dives?).

Yes, it can though it's unlikely our victim had done all of that.

She had taken a deep dive course. The question is when and where.

 

[johndiver999]

- Experience: 200 dives can be a lot, but also nothing, especially if you always dive in the same environment and/or always with the same equipment.

trust me, switching from an environment with a horrible viz and a crazy cold water to the warm and crystal clear mediterranean sea can be as shocking as the other way around (and potentially as dangerous).

The trick is building experience, and you need to try several piece of equipments and several environments, and training with different schools and instructors doesn't hurt (can all of this be done in 200 dives?).

I don't agree with this at all. Moving from cold dirty water to warm and clear is far easier than vice versa. The clear water might give some unusual perspectives and those conditions might increase the chance of not using an ascent and/or descent line, but to say the two environments have equivalent challenges is off the mark.

If a diver is used to diving in warm water with, thin or no gloves, thin or no hood, little or no lead and good lighting conditions and you bundle them up in an exposure suit that is tight and uncomfortable, gloves that restrict mobility, a hood that precludes hearing, inhibits equalization and induces claustrophobia and slap 25 lbs of lead on their body and then you add on the stress of potentially rough conditions the stress of bone chilling water and the DRASTIC changes in buoyancy with depth (from a thick wetsuit) and then throw them into dark and dirty water.... the chance for problems is huge!

The reality of the situation is that being able to function with 3 finger mittens and all that other "crap" doesn't necessarily enhance a divers ability to function in warm water.

The total number of dives a person has made is not all that important. What is really critical is how many dives a person has (recently) successfully completed with similar gear and similar conditions. If a guy has done 50 quarry dives and has it totally nailed, it matters little if he gets sea sick, can't swim against a current or has little reserved strength to climb a ladder in rough seas.

 

[beester]

I don't agree with this at all. Moving from cold dirty water to warm and clear is far easier than vice versa. The clear water might give some unusual perspectives and those conditions might increase the chance of not using an ascent and/or descent line, but to say the two environments have equivalent challenges is off the mark.

Mmm this is of course totally of topic, but while I agree in general it's not always as black and white. I grew up in cold water, bad vis, big current diving environments, but it can lead to bravado and an over estimation of ones skill. Next there is always something to learn and every environment has it's particularities and dangers (also tropical water). Once you've dived in enough different environments you start realizing this.

 

[bcaderunr]

Mmm this is of course totally of topic, but while I agree in general it's not always as black and white. I grew up in cold water, bad vis, big current diving environments, but it can lead to bravado and an over estimation of ones skill. Next there is always something to learn and every environment has it's particularities and dangers (also tropical water). Once you've dived in enough different environments you start realizing this.

A good example of this might be a diver who is used to diving in cold, murky conditions accidently dropping a weight. In that environment where the visibility is poor, he might never consider chasing down after it. But if he sees it on the bottom in clear conditions, the temptation to retrieve it might be too compelling.