Death in the Blue Hole?

[hopefulist]

Anyone heard anything about this? Really sad - I just read this thread on the Trip Advisor forum:
Death at Blue Hole - Belize Cayes Forum - TripAdvisor

 

[DandyDon]

Well, quoting from Trip Adviser is not much more than rumor, but there is this there...

3. Re: Death at Blue Hole
Jeff S, Jun 05, 2012, 12:56 AM
I was on the boat that pulled the poor woman out of the water. Her boat was not from San Pedro. Her dive computer indicated that she was at 135 for 14 minutes. Do your research because amigo del mar said that they would take me and my 16 year old daughter that is only owc to 160 ft! We dove with aqua scuba and they were great. Bottom line, don't go beyond your limits.
The poor woman's dive group didn't even know she was missing for about 15 minutes after we pulled her up!

and

12. Re: Death at Blue Hole
Matt7499, Jun 05, 2012, 9:54 PM

I was on the boat too when they pulled her up too. I found this posting while I was searching around trying to find out what went wrong. She looked like she was already gone by the time she was pulled onto our boat. The boat she was with was Turneffe something.
The part I was also shocked by was that the people in our dive group helped the most, not the divemasters that ran our boat. A vacationing divemaster from Roatan, newly certified rescue diver and an vacationing EMT in our group led the effort. The people that I trusted to help if needed didn't do much that I remember.
My father in law and I have since decided to get some additional training in case it happens again, especially since we typically dive with our family. At least we would understand the basics of what to do.
If anyone knows how to get additional detail on this it would greatly ease my mind. I thought about contacting DAN to see if any detail would be known but I doubt they would give any information to me if they had it.

 

[diveTN]

How can I find out what happened to a diver that died while I was at the Blue Hole in Belize?

We had taken a trip to the Blue Hole in Belize (Two and half hour ride from Ambergris Caye), and before we even got into the water a women on another dive boat was pulled onto our boat and died.

We had arrived at the blue hole and were all ready to get into the water. As it goes, the snorkelers were instructed to get into the water first and the divers instructed to get ready to dive. We were all ready with our BCs, fins, masks etc. That is when we noticed a diver swimming toward our boat with a woman in the the rescue position. I thought it was a snorkeler who had gotten a mouth full of sea water. The woman was then pulled onto our boat. The crew of the boat starts to scramble. Four of the crew initially are there to pull here onto the boat. One crew member runs and opens up a green box containing an oxygen tank and fumbles with it for a bit. That one crew member is directly followed by two more members of the crew leaving one person (the captain) to help the diver). One person with the diver and three fooling with the oxygen tank. We (the divers on the boat) are all watching the situation unfold, looking at each other with a look of 'this is not going well. We should do something! Are you going to? Should I?'. The captain of the boat is starting CPR while the other 3 are still fooling the oxygen tank. The captain clearly does not no what he is doing. Just then two women bolt out of their gear and shove the captain out of the way and take command of the situation. They are directly followed by another diver on the boat. At this point things still aren't going well, as rescue and emergencies go. A snorkeler comes out of the water and truly takes command of the situation. I later found out that he is a first responder and and firefighter. The crew is off to the side and the divers and snorkeler are in control of the situation. CPR continues for thirty minutes or so. The body of the diver is transferred to the boat she was diving with. The divers on the other boat don't seem shocked surprised or anything of that nature (they were still down for 15 minutes after everything had began). There isn't even a diver on that boat who appeared to claim the woman.

When she brought to our boat by the diver she had no BC or weight belt on. She was only wearing a wet suite and a dive computer.
The dive computer appeared to be an older model and wore. So, my initial impression was that she was an experienced diver. It also read that she had reached 135 feet, which is the approximate depth of the Blue Hole dive.

 

[t-mac]

When did this happen?

 

[SnorkelLA]

All too many people die in Blue Holes...

 

[Scuba_Noob]

During the rescue, the rescuer dragging her to the boat may have removed the weight belt and BCD - as per rescue training. I have been told that once you need to start CPR and rescue breaths, chances are grim, so I'm not sure what more the captain and crew could have done.

You might get more info posting this in the Accidents forum (Accidents and Incidents), as opposed to the basic scuba discussions. There appears to already be a thread http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/accidents-incidents/422650-death-blue-hole.html.

 

[Pedro Burrito]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

Moved from Basic to A&I and merged two threads discussing the same incident.

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[peterbj7]

I hate Trip Advisor as absolute rubbish can be and often is posted with no moderation. Several of the statements made in the TA thread are clearly nonsense. Firstly, Amigs have never AFAIK offered to take anyone below 130ft. They certainly would not offer to take anyone to 160ft. The fact that the dive as normally conducted is deeper than 130ft is irrelevant to this point. Secondly, I can (just) believe that the woman left her maximum depth at a run time of 14 minutes, but I do not believe she was there for 14 minutes. The bulk of people would run their tanks empty before then, and in any case they would then be into very serious decompression, whilst all of the operators who go there maintain it is a recreational dive with no decompression.

But whatever, it seems that her operator was grossly negligent so who knows what the truth was? There will never be an official report - there never is.

 

[diveTN]

Thursday May 31st

 

[sbroh]

What company was the boat that eventually claimed her? This is a sad story