Diver Missing, Jacksonville FL

[Biotech Diver]

As it turns out, I am not convinced about anything, because I don't feel there is enough evidence to make a decision. You are the one who is convinced it was NOT a medical event. I will, however, reply to the point.

1. You say that people exhale enough to lose buoyancy and sink to the bottom for reasons other than medical events. What would some of those reasons be? I would think you would have to be unconscious for that to happen.

2. He was last seen during a safety stop. I would suspect a fatal shark attack during a safety stop would be noticed.

3. I would think that if he were attacked by a shark, he would have made an attempt to defend himself using his evidently unused weaponry.

4. The evidence is that he did not have any fish on his stringer. If he had, the stringer would not be next to the other gear but would have been carried off by fish attacking the contents. Shark harassment of hunters nearly always centers upon the fish that had been caught.

5. Shark attacks on divers in mid water are extremely rare. In fact, the case of a tiger shark attacking someone during a safety stop a couple years ago is the only one I know of. That makes a mid water shark attack a "zebra" in the analogy. In contrast, medical events are the most common reason for fatalities. That makes them the "horses" in the analogy.

6. As others have pointed out, the location of all the gear in close proximity suggests that the diver fell to the bottom with all gear intact.

7. Having a friend who lost her son two weeks ago to a heart attack, a son nearly the same age as this victim, a son who had no known medical conditions prior to the heart attack, I know all too well that it can happen.​

So, I have an open mind, but it sure looks like a medical event to me is by far the most likely cause. If more evidence appears, I may change my mind.

So what makes you think it was NOT a medical event?

Haha! Show me where I said it was not? Read what I’ve wrote, or I can say it in a way that’s easier for you to comprehend it. I’ve stated several times it could be a medical event. I’ve also stated several times it could be something else. I e even back d both up with rationale. Would you like me to point these out to you or do you think you can read it again?

 

[HalcyonDaze]

So you are certain things falling 80 feet to the bottom could not possibly land within 8 feet of each other? Debris fields of sunken ships have personal items such as shoes or wallets right next to the ship's wreckage after falling hundreds or thousands of feet through a water column, but I guess that is impossible according to you, right? Those items should be miles away by your reasoning.

I'm assuming you're referring to items found near deep wrecks such as Titanic, which actually proves the point that they arrived on the bottom in one package - the scavengers down there are smaller and more thorough over the decades:

Wreck of the Titanic - Wikipedia

"The question of the victims' bodies is one that has often troubled explorers of the wreck site. When the debris field was surveyed in Robert Ballard's 1986 expedition, pairs of shoes were observed lying next to each other on the sea bed. The flesh, bones, and clothes had long since been consumed but the tannin in the shoes' leather had apparently resisted the bacteria, leaving the shoes as the only markers of where a body had once lain. Ballard has suggested that skeletons may remain deep within Titanic's hull, such as in the engine rooms or third-class cabins. This has been disputed by scientists, who have estimated that the bodies would have completely disappeared by the early 1940s at the latest."

 

[johndiver999]

According to what was posted he had a powerhead on him, but it was unused.

Typically a diver will take multiple bullets for a powerheading dive. So when they say the gun was unloaded but the powerhead was unfired, I would interpret that to mean that the shaft was loaded in the gun, the bands were uncocked and there was a loaded PH on the shaft. It doesn't really tell you if he shot fish earlier or not.

However, assuming that is the configuration of the gun, I don't see how that situation would be definitive in any manner. For example, at the end of the dive and while hanging, it would be normal to unload the bands. He could have been attacked or had a medical event at this time.

If he was closely observed by buddies on the safety stop and was seen to have no fish with him and there was no observation of circling shark(s), then it seems pretty unlikely to be snatched out of the water column (but not impossible, of course).

It is relevant to note that when spearfishing is occuring in an area (and blood is released etc.), the sharks can be amped up and potentially go after a diver who does not have any fish with him. I know a guy who was bitten in the head while freediving (it was a serious injury) and he had shot no fish, but his buddy had shot a fish and removed it from the water, 3-4 minutes earlier.

Perhaps the other divers seeing him, with no fish on the Safety stop (if that is actually the case) and the fact that no sharks were observed in the vicinity, is enough to formulate a reasonable belief that he probably sunk down due to a medical issue?

 

[Biotech Diver]

I'm assuming you're referring to items found near deep wrecks such as Titanic, which actually proves the point that they arrived on the bottom in one package - the scavengers down there are smaller and more thorough over the decades:

Wreck of the Titanic - Wikipedia

"The question of the victims' bodies is one that has often troubled explorers of the wreck site. When the debris field was surveyed in Robert Ballard's 1986 expedition, pairs of shoes were observed lying next to each other on the sea bed. The flesh, bones, and clothes had long since been consumed but the tannin in the shoes' leather had apparently resisted the bacteria, leaving the shoes as the only markers of where a body had once lain. Ballard has suggested that skeletons may remain deep within Titanic's hull, such as in the engine rooms or third-class cabins. This has been disputed by scientists, who have estimated that the bodies would have completely disappeared by the early 1940s at the latest."

I was actually thinking of war wrecks. The argument still holds whether it’s a body that comes down as a package or separate items of various densities falling together. There are plenty of examples of debris fields having a variety of items falling right next to the main wreckage, and in much greater depths than 80 feet. By the one person’s logic, the further down the water column something falls the further apart it items of various densities are going to be apart. It sounds like a somewhat logical assumption to make but the reality doesn’t always play that out.

 

[CuzzA]

Typically a diver will take multiple bullets for a powerheading dive. So when they say the gun was unloaded but the powerhead was unfired, I would interpret that to mean that the shaft was loaded in the gun, the bands were uncocked and there was a loaded PH on the shaft. It doesn't really tell you if he shot fish earlier or not.

However, assuming that is the configuration of the gun, I don't see how that situation would be definitive in any manner. For example, at the end of the dive and while hanging, it would be normal to unload the bands. He could have been attacked or had a medical event at this time.

If he was closely observed by buddies on the safety stop and was seen to have no fish with him and there was no observation of circling shark(s), then it seems pretty unlikely to be snatched out of the water column (but not impossible, of course).

It is relevant to note that when spearfishing is occuring in an area (and blood is released etc.), the sharks can be amped up and potentially go after a diver who does not have any fish with him. I know a guy who was bitten in the head while freediving (it was a serious injury) and he had shot no fish, but his buddy had shot a fish and removed it from the water, 3-4 minutes earlier.

Perhaps the other divers seeing him, with no fish on the Safety stop (if that is actually the case) and the fact that no sharks were observed in the vicinity, is enough to formulate a reasonable belief that he probably sunk down due to a medical issue?

When I first heard the story I assumed predation. Having a loaded powerhead on your shaft at a safety stop with other divers and no sharks would be a major no no. You could easily kill your dive buddy by accidentally bumping the powerhead into the diver. You don't even need to have the bands loaded. There was no reports of his buddies seeing sharks.

I am told in this area it is common for divers to PH all of their fish, which is not a common practice in the rest of the state. Upon learning that I thought the presence of a loaded powerhead might carry less weight for a shark attack.

I still find it hard to believe an instant medical event, which was not communicated to his buddies during the dive and occurred without warning five feet from the surface just under the boat. With the exception he executed a very bad ascent and suffered an embolism.

I don't know his experience, but if he had a hundred plus dives under his belt I wouldn't think gear failure would cause his death being so close to the surface. But I suppose it's possible he was overweight and his BCD failed and he didn't know what to do and ended up on the bottom.

I agree with your earlier post that I find it bizarre they could make a conclusion of medical event (unless they know something we don't) based on his gear being chewed up by sharks.

I know a couple guys that dive and suffer from severe vertigo on occasion, some guys vomit after every dive. I watched a woman last week surface and vomit so we know there's people diving that probably shouldn't.

This one remains unsolved, IMO. My speculation is as I mentioned, bad ascent or undisclosed medical condition and he passed out just before surfacing, or BCD failure, overweight and couldn't recover, or a shark bit him on the stop and he ended up on the bottom where the sharks continued their predation.

All around a terrible tragedy for his wife and kids.

 

[Scraps]

Thank you for the explanation of an overused metaphor! (rolls eyes)


Objects, even light ones, can fall straight down to the bottom if there is no or little current, I've seen it, and heavier objects can drift pretty far if there is a strong current.

Almost nothing, except perhaps a speargun shaft, falls straight to the bottom.

Years ago, I worked on a buoy tender. When we placed a buoy, we'd sidle up to the assigned position with a concrete block sinker (somewhere between 5,000 and 12,000 pounds, depending on the buoy and the local conditions) hanging from a chain stopper at the buoy port.

When we got the sinker exactly over "x marks the spot," we'd pop the stopper with a sledge hammer and watch the sinker drop and the faked out chain peel off from the deck. Then we'd lower the buoy to the surface, unhook it from our crane, and re-verify the position of the buoy.

Our scientists told us that these massive concrete blocks about the size of a dining room table had only a 0.5 probability of landing in a circle whose center was directly below the drop point and whose radius was equal to the depth of the water. Our experience confirmed it, because we often had to drop sinkers multiple times to have them end up where they belonged--even though we knew we had a pinpoint three-line horizontal sextant angle fix of the drop site. In those pre-GPS days, that was about as precise as navigation got.

You know how a piece of paper flutters to the ground when you drop it? Pretty much any object--even a cube of concrete--emulates that motion as it descends through the water.

For multiple pieces of gear to be in such close proximity strongly suggests they got to the bottom together.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

Typically a diver will take multiple bullets for a powerheading dive. So when they say the gun was unloaded but the powerhead was unfired, I would interpret that to mean that the shaft was loaded in the gun, the bands were uncocked and there was a loaded PH on the shaft. It doesn't really tell you if he shot fish earlier or not.

However, assuming that is the configuration of the gun, I don't see how that situation would be definitive in any manner. For example, at the end of the dive and while hanging, it would be normal to unload the bands. He could have been attacked or had a medical event at this time.

If he was closely observed by buddies on the safety stop and was seen to have no fish with him and there was no observation of circling shark(s), then it seems pretty unlikely to be snatched out of the water column (but not impossible, of course).

It is relevant to note that when spearfishing is occuring in an area (and blood is released etc.), the sharks can be amped up and potentially go after a diver who does not have any fish with him. I know a guy who was bitten in the head while freediving (it was a serious injury) and he had shot no fish, but his buddy had shot a fish and removed it from the water, 3-4 minutes earlier.

Perhaps the other divers seeing him, with no fish on the Safety stop (if that is actually the case) and the fact that no sharks were observed in the vicinity, is enough to formulate a reasonable belief that he probably sunk down due to a medical issue?

Assuming I'm thinking of the same incident (one I'm thinking of was a bite to the neck and shoulder, though, not the head), it was also a green, murky day. I've also noted that sharks can get more "amped up" around freedivers, probably because they're making rapid movements in the water column.

The configuration of the gun and the fact that he apparently just disappeared is problematic because the odds of being "snatched" out of the water column are pretty slim. Shark attacks on spearfishers in FL are hit and run; the shark doesn't try to grab the diver and swim off. So if shark attack, it would have to be almost instant incapacitation and yet somehow not damaging most of his gear (one puncture noted on the BC, nothing else) and not scattering it. Also would leave open the question of why the other divers didn't see any blood in the water.

 

[Biotech Diver]

Typically a diver will take multiple bullets for a powerheading dive. So when they say the gun was unloaded but the powerhead was unfired, I would interpret that to mean that the shaft was loaded in the gun, the bands were uncocked and there was a loaded PH on the shaft. It doesn't really tell you if he shot fish earlier or not.

However, assuming that is the configuration of the gun, I don't see how that situation would be definitive in any manner. For example, at the end of the dive and while hanging, it would be normal to unload the bands. He could have been attacked or had a medical event at this time.

If he was closely observed by buddies on the safety stop and was seen to have no fish with him and there was no observation of circling shark(s), then it seems pretty unlikely to be snatched out of the water column (but not impossible, of course).

It is relevant to note that when spearfishing is occuring in an area (and blood is released etc.), the sharks can be amped up and potentially go after a diver who does not have any fish with him. I know a guy who was bitten in the head while freediving (it was a serious injury) and he had shot no fish, but his buddy had shot a fish and removed it from the water, 3-4 minutes earlier.

Perhaps the other divers seeing him, with no fish on the Safety stop (if that is actually the case) and the fact that no sharks were observed in the vicinity, is enough to formulate a reasonable belief that he probably sunk down due to a medical issue?

Much of what you stated is in my posts but some are only latching onto bits and pieces. It’s frustrating to expect people to actually read all of what I said instead of a sentence or two. But I guess that how forums always work.

Regarding objects falling completely vertical, that’s not what I said. I’m going to conduct an experiment the next time I go out to see for myself what a laundry basket full of dive items will do when dropped together.

 

[Biotech Diver]

An abalone diver in Marin County had his head bitten off many years ago. I I remember the story correctly, the rest of the body was found days later. Apparently the shark didn’t come back

 

[boulderjohn]

I still find it hard to believe an instant medical event, which was not communicated to his buddies during the dive and occurred without warning five feet from the surface just under the boat.

Heart Disease and Sudden Cardiac Death

From that article in Web MD:

Sudden cardiac death (SCD) is a sudden, unexpected death caused by a change in heart rhythm (sudden cardiac arrest). It is the largest cause of natural death in the U.S., causing about 325,000 adult deaths in the U.S. each year. SCD is responsible for half of all heart disease deaths.​