I love it when you make me think Bruce!
I respectfully disagree with your theory.
There is no evidence that Mrs. Woods was not capable of diving as a result of any prior stroke. Nor is there actual evidence that the prior stroke was actually a contributing factor to the incident.
There is no evidence what Mrs. Woods' doctor did or did not tell her. Perhaps the doctor told Mrs. Woods not to dive and was quite clear and perhaps Mrs. Woods chose to disregard the doctor's admonition. Perhaps not. In either case, what the doctor did or didn't tell Mrs. Woods cannot be a part of any theory.
In my post I was careful in my wording....
That breakdown may have started with the Doctor failing to make it clear to the Woods what activity level Mrs Woods was capable of. I would not accuse anyone of incompetence without significant information that is lacking here. It is one of a doctors responsibilities to completely inform their patients of all risks associated with the medical conditions they are treating them for.. some fail in this regard.
Again, we do not know that there were any medical risks. Nor do we have evidence these were a factor in the incident.
I am not a doctor but have enough training/experience in the field to
know that anyone who has had a TIA is at significant risk of future strokes without subjecting themselves to increased pressures and gas exchange issues on the simplest dive. I can not imagine a dive doctor clearing this lady to dive. In the next section of your post you seem to agree with that.
If the Woods did let the dive op know Mrs. Woods had had a stroke, I am surprised the dive op let her dive at all. I've seen too many dive ops refuse to let divers dive for much lesser maladies.
Again, there is no evidence of a communication failure. For all anyone can tell, Mrs. Woods got the DM's message quite clearly and then disregarded it.
There are two parts of communication.. communicator... and receiver both are required for effective communication. The DM was communicating by banging on her tank.. that is pretty clear.... Mrs Woods was not receiving. I would suggest they needed to be very clear on the surface how they would communicate and how they would dive. Even saying..
"I am paying you to accompany me I will do my own dive, your job is to show me interesting stuff or watch me do my own thing. I will not be follwing any directions from you" granted it is possible the DM may have decided not to dive based on those instructions from her "employer diver".
That the DMs and Dive Crew failed to listen to onlyhalcyon is an understatement. However, my impression is that by the time onlyhalcyon got to the other DMs and/or Dive Crew, it was way too late to perform any sort of a rescue or recovery.
I think this is a reasonable assumption. And, for anyone who thinks the DM should have surfaced and sought help, look at the issues surrounding Gabe Watson when he let his new wife sink while he purportedly went for help.
I agree we can't rule these out. But, I feel it is too speculative to base any theory on any of these. (My pet theory will come shortly.)
Again, it seems to me that by the point
onlyhalcyon was able to signal or otherwise communicate to anyone, it was too late. As such, I do not see it is a matter of sharing responsibility for anything.[/quote]
I got the impression that the DM signaled fairly early on. Yes it may have been too late already... we don't know.. maybe Mrs Wood started to swim back to the surface at some point and having someone there looking for her could have helped. Probably that is a stretch but delaying the search may have done nothing worse than deny the family a body to burry.. to some that is a significat set to 'closure'.
Now for my personal pet theory: For reasons that no one will ever know, Mrs. Woods went deep and did not come back up. She died either (1) as a result of running out of air, (2) oxygen toxicity at sufficient depth (yes, even on air), or (3) from some other condition.
I recognize that my theory is not particularly elegant or exciting. However, it does explain the known facts and does not require speculation about "facts" that cannot be established.
The net result is that I am moving toward the camp that questions why the DM assigned to Mrs. Woods let her get so far away that when Mr. Woods started her descent over the wall, the DM was not able to act decisively to bring her back up. While I can see why the DM may not have chased Mrs. Woods after a certain point, I wonder whether, had the initial interaction not been so deep, i.e. had the DM gotten to her sooner, the DM would have had more opportunity to remedy the situation.
Well I can't disagree with your pet theory! I still contend that a number of things contributed to this death and Communication breakdown was a factor. Only one thing is clear and irrefutable Mrs Woods started a dive she did not return from. There are a lot of people impacted by that fact. The family and loved ones are the most obvious. The Dive Operator's staff, everyone on the boats and involved in the search also need support. Even tho IMHO a number of people did or failed to do things that contributed to this event accusations and blame laying with not bring this poor lady back. I would rather try to understand what contributed, learn from it and if it is ever in my power to prevent future incidents.
