Three divers perish on Spiegel Grove
BY STEVE GIBBS
Free Press Staff
KEY LARGO — Local divers successfully extracted the bodies of two dive victims off the Spiegel Grove wreck Saturday under difficult and dangerous conditions.
On Friday, three New Jersey divers died while exploring the deepest part of the 510-foot former Navy ship sunk as an artificial reef in 2002. The wreck is about five nautical miles off Key Largo at 135 feet deep on the bottom.
The incident was the worst single-day loss in Keys scuba diving history.
"I do not know of three people ever dying on one boat at one time," said Capt. Spencer Slate, owner of Atlantis Dive Shop and a 29-year Keys diver.
The body of one diver was recovered Friday, but two others were left overnight deep in the bowels of the ship, in an off-limits area, according to Key Largo Fire-Rescue Chief Sergio Garcia.
"Before the ship was scuttled, hundreds of holes were cut into the ship to allow divers to escape in case of an emergency," Garcia told the Free Press. "This one area had been chained off as an unexplorable area."
Recovery divers Jason Nunn and Steve Campbell found the bodies based on information gleaned from Howard Spialter, 52, a Westfield, N.J., diver who had entered the shipwreck with the others, but ascended when he ran low on air in his dive tanks. He said he tried to tell his companions which way to go.
"He went one way and they went the other," said Monroe County Sheriff's Detective Mark Coleman.
Spialter, the lone survivor, told the detective he grabbed the hand of one of the others, in an attempt to get him to follow.
All were certified technical divers.
The three who died were Kevin Coughlin, 51, of Chatham Borough, whose body was recovered Friday by two divers from Gainesville, Ga.; Scott Stanley (no age given) and Jonathan Walsweer, 38, both of Westfield.
"At 10:10 a.m. [Saturday] two tech divers penetrated the hatch and went down 45 feet into a pump room. That's the height of a four-and-a-half story building," Garcia said of the recovery effort.
"They went along a narrow catwalk where valves stick out and could snag a diver. Even the most trained professional is taking a risk here. Those protrusions can be hang-ups.
"Then they proceeded along a narrow tunnel that goes 75 feet horizontally from one side of the ship to the other. That's where the victims were located," Garcia said.
Due to murky conditions from stirred-up silt, the recovery divers had to feel their way to the bodies.
"Once they found the victims, they used a tag line tied to the first victim and unrolled it as they left the chamber. The plan was to move the victims, one at a time, back towards the opening of the 45-foot vertical shaft. When the first victim was in place, he was raised to the deck of the ship, which is 90 feet below the surface," Garcia said.
Once on the deck, Monroe County sheriff's divers put the victim in a body bag before raising him to an awaiting boat. The first recovery took just under two hours; the second body was brought to the surface in the same manner, but about 15 minutes faster.
"One body was brought to the surface just before noon and the second just before 4 p.m.," sheriff's spokeswoman Becky Herrin said.
The bodies were transported to Key West where the Monroe County Medical Examiner's Office performed autopsies to confirm the deaths were due to saltwater drowning, Herrin said.
Seas were reported at 8 feet on both days, and a current below made the recovery more dangerous. The group had dived the artificial reef the day before, according to the Sheriff's Office.
Coughlin, who was recovered from the wreck Friday, was found unconscious by two open-water dive instructors, who were diving from an Atlantis Dive Shop boat.
"We were at the beginning of our dive doing a swim-through on the middle level on the port side when we spotted three stage tanks and a line that went into the next room," Stephen Collins told the Free Press. "We swam into that room and found a diver sitting at an opening next to a window. As we approached him, we saw that he did not have his regulator in his mouth."
Stage tanks are placed along the interior of the wreck to provide emergency air for divers.
"My dive buddy, Joe Kellogg, and I worked as a team and brought him through the port and to the surface."
Coughlin was later pronounced dead at Mariners Hospital.
The Spiegel Grove has been a boon both to the diving community — more than 200,000 dives have been made on the wreck — and to an over-dived coral reef just offshore.
Six divers have perished while diving the Spiegel Grove, according to the Associated Press.
The recovery was a coordinated effort by several agencies, including the Key Largo Fire-Rescue Department, the Sheriff's Office, the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission and volunteers from local dive shops.
The victims were diving off the Scuba-Do, a local charter dive boat owned by Capt. Mark Cianciulli. He has not returned messages left by the Free Press.
The Sheriff's Office is investigating the deaths.
sgibbs@keysnews.com
