Diver dies on French Reef (Keys)

[Fly Girl]

oh yeah - I never thought about taking my huge yellow fins off and waving them out of the water if I needed someone to find me. I suspect they would show up well. I had never heard that before.

 

[Jang]

I have been placed in a similar situation that fortunately ended better. I asked the other members for recommendations to learn from our mistake. The result is I carry a SMB all the time.

I know many question the usefulness of a snorkel, but in my situation, in 3-4ft seas and current, I was glad to have it during our swim to a nearby island. I also carry it all the time.

 

[Missdirected]

Important point on the securing the sausage. I have a nice metal clip to attach it to my BCD. Should I have something else? (Seriously, I really don't know. I just assumed the clip was enough.)

Thanks for the info on the folding snorkel with velcro. I don't think that would be as annoying as my stupid monster big hard plastic one.

Get a spool or reel (spool is cheaper). Attach to the SMB then you can clip it off, if you choose. Be sure to practice deploying the smb with the spool first. The last thing you want is to try it for the first time when you really need it.

 

[DandyDon]

Important point on the securing the sausage. I have a nice metal clip to attach it to my BCD. Should I have something else? (Seriously, I really don't know. I just assumed the clip was enough.)

Thanks for the info on the folding snorkel with velcro. I don't think that would be as annoying as my stupid monster big hard plastic one.

I keep mine on my D-ring, inflate it while it's still hooked, unless I deploy it from spool below.

The snorkel is not as important perhaps, but I like us carrying ours. You can get the velcro snaps separately. I used those with a different snorkel chasing whale sharks.

Oceanic Worldwide - Scuba Diving Snorkels - Pocket

oh yeah - I never thought about taking my huge yellow fins off and waving them out of the water if I needed someone to find me. I suspect they would show up well. I had never heard that before.

Even waving black ones is better than nothing.

 

[Ana]

At least the last thing this woman did was diving. In my opinion, much better than many other things. However, as mentioned above, maybe a needless death.

A lot of talk about markers and snorkel. I agree that a marker should be a must, not sure about a snorkel because all my surface swim with gear is done on my back, but that's neither here nor there. What I see way too much around divers, is a level of uneasiness that bugles the mind.

Seas may have been rough enough to not see a head from a boat, but fine to be floating if the person is not freaking out. Most of the operators in the Keys don't go out if it gets that bad. Once in a blue moon the boat leaves your behind in the water but that is the exception. The norm is that if you come up too far from the boat you'll have to wait. The wait is easily done if you are not afraid of the water, a few splashes in the face should not be reason to freak out.
Granted the available facts are few and maybe this woman was happier than an otter with hands filled with clams. As mentioned above, is not about her anymore but about other people that still have the opportunity to avoid a situation like this.

Respect the water yes, but learn to be in it for whatever amount of time may be necessary. I swear sometimes I see people that makes me wonder about their cleanliness, doesn't everyone get their face under the water in the shower?

In the keys? nice warm water... please... get on your back and enjoy the water, steadily kick in the direction of the boat and you'll get there when you get there. Every so often take a look, adjust for heading and love the fact you're not somewhere else. If the boat left you, then you have to kick all the way to land (or a buoy, or a rock, or whatever) then get going. Set the rhythm that is good for you and know in your heart and in your mind that you can float forever, sooner or later someone will miss you and you need to be alive to kick who ever was responsible for that.

 

[bigken462]

Wow Kenny?! Did you write that up here? Let me insert your picture...

I talked to a home area couple who got swept away from a boat dive off of Boaire but were luckily found by the boat ok. I asked if they had sausages. "Those were in our bags on the boat." :silly:

Yeah yeah heard that before. I'm not trying to convict anyone, and I think it's too late to "help" here anyway. It's what the forum is for. To speculate & discuss so as to avoid similar accidents. It's fine if we cover a what-if that may save a reading diver here even.

Hope you tell your students of the learning opportunities here on A&I forum, even if you don't approve of all the posts.

Wow this threads turning sour. Come on guys let’s remember what the purpose of the forum is for. If only one person can carry something home from reading something here and a life is saved, then it’s all worth it.

Don, to answer your question regarding if I made a write up or not; no at the time I did not even realize these forums existed. I'm not sure if this is the best thread to post my events on or not, but since we are talking about the importance of safety gear etc. I will give my account of a dive that went sour for me a few years back.

This dive occurred back in 2004 where I had just returned from a cpl years stint of hardly diving at all. I will share my story, but I ask not to be beat up over my mistakes. I have since learned many things about diving, and have since received several higher levels of training to improve how I dive.

For starters, no one action led to my event. It was a cascade of bad decisions which snowballed into a mishap that could have been bad. In March of 2000 I received my divers certification after a cpl years after I first learned to dive (I won’t go there) the first cpl years I dove regularly, however later seemed like my dive buds quickly faded away. My dive gear laid dormant for the most part with the exception of maybe 3-4 dives a year till I found a local group here in my town. Ironically I never knew we even had a dive club here. Lol.

In April 2004 I had surgery, and as soon as I was able started to hit the water with my new dive friends. Soon a boat trip was organized and I was thrilled to sign up. During this time of my life I was also grieving over the death of my mother who was my best friend. Sadly I chose to go against the very upbringing she raised me by and begin to hit the night clubs and bottle kinda hard. Long story short, this was the first of many bad decisions.

Upon our arrival to Florida, I was once again the only single feller around. Seems like everyone either had a spouse or girlfriend but myself. Still kinda moping about the loss of my mom, I did what I thought was the best thing to do and buy a liter of Vodka, cpl Red Bulls and huge beach mug and set out to see the last remaining daylight on the beach. Naturally it was not long before I was completely wasted, and just about the time I thought it was time to turn back to the hotel, several of my close dive buds found me in the sand. Being understanding buddies that they were, they felt we needed to top off the gallon beach jug again and mope together. It was not long that we now had three very well intoxicated beach goers. Sadly this was the night before we were to head out on the boat. Eventually my friends helped me to my feet where they carried me to my room and dumped me to recover on my own. They then turned and went out for a few more hours to enjoy the night life and continued to drink.
OMG the headache the next morning was terrible. I could have simply enjoyed myself better had I stayed in the hotel room to sleep it off. My dive buds would not allow that to happen and thus dragged my hung-over tail to the truck to go find an early breakfast. YUCK!

Realizing I was lacking boat experience, I requested that I be paired up somewhere behind the dive master and in vicinity of at least a cpl of our more experience dive instructors who was in our group. The seas that morning were terrible since a hurricane was brewing up several days away. I do not recall the numbers, but it was enough to send two divers hugging the rail before we even made it out of the pass. It was going to be a long day. Lol. During our ride out the DM was giving a brief and mentioned that the visibility was going to be poor till we dropped to 40-50 feet or so, and that in case the anchor pulls away from the wreck to simply follow the drag marks. Not knowing any better I thought this was all the norm. At the time I was only open water certified with the only boat trip under me was four years prior on my certification trip. I had no clue what a reel was, much less the importance of just how useful it could have been later. I was diving with a typical BC; whistle etc. with a single aluminum 80.

Once we reached the dive site, more divers were hurling over the boats edge - I remember at least six. Knowing I needed to allow some experienced divers in front of me, I was teamed up to go 3rd pair in behind the DM. Just as soon as we splashed things started to go south when the divers ahead of us started to have equipment problems, another had some sea sickness issues, and yet the last one simply changed their mind about diving all together. The next thing my friend and I knew was that we were now the first on the line to go down. The waves were beating the crap out of us since we were being slammed against the hull of the boat, so we elected to go on down and wait.

Remembering the DM instructions about the visibility came to mind when we soon found that it was green soup. I recall maybe 15 feet max or so that we were able to see. Upon reaching the bottom at around 90 feet or so, we were surprised that it never opened up to the clear water that we were advised would be waiting for us, not to mention the fact that there was not a wreck anywhere in sight. Seeing the plow marks in the sand, my buddy and I elected to follow it since it seems no one was coming down the line behind us. So off we go in the nasty green soup of nothing to eventually find our way to the end of the trench marks. Realizing we’re eating time we soon came to the conclusion to continue on in search for the wreck………………Now we did have enough common since to take a heading, however somehow between the bad mojo never made our way back to where we started. We were basically screwed from the moment we elected to continue the dive. Soon we reached our turn pressure and elected to go to the surface to see where the crap we were at. Upon doing our safety stop, my buddy begin to hurl his remaining breakfast through his reg. This continued for a few minutes until we both completed our stop and then surfaced to find the seas seemed much worse off than they were before we splashed.

Once surfaced, we could not see a boat for a LONG ways. Actually the boats were so small by then we could not even tell which was ours. Thinking they would simply come pick up us we just sat there. My friend continued to dry heave and soon begin to exhaust himself. Eventually he quit talking and would only respond to me hollering. Neither of us were having problems with staying afloat, so we elected not to ditch our weights. I pulled my friend by the shoulder straps up close to me to keep his head somewhat higher, and to where I could monitor his alertness, and airway. He was miserably sick, and continued to puke over my shoulder.

My friend kept wanting to get out of his wetsuit, and knowing that meant ditching the dive gear I kept having to argue with him to keep things as they were. Eventually I conceded into agreeing to cut the sleeves of his wetsuit off. Remembering I had my trauma sheers in my pocket I reached in and pulled them out along with a damn safety sausage of all things. I had purchased four years prior and had forgotten about it being there. I was like SOB all this time we could have been using it. The one I had was a very cheap vinyl orange tube that rolled up to maybe an inch in diameter, so it was something small in which simply had been in there for years w/o me having a use for it. Quite naturally I inflated it and rolled the end up to keep the other end sticking out of the water. The air would not stay in very long, and I would often have to unroll, re-inflate and start over.

Initially not too many thoughts of our safety was a concern, however I soon realized my friend was in trouble and we needed to get the crap out of the water yesterday. I knew dive boats did drift dives every day of the week, and I expected these same principles of man overboard be applied to finding us. Looking back I guess it’s a good thing I never knew just how up the creek in trouble we were.

Nearly three hours later we seen a boat, and then begin to blow our whistles and yell like they were no tomorrow. Soon we had our boat beside us, and several rescue divers in the water to pull us on board. We were both stripped of our gear and showered with fluids. My friend was so weak he could barely move, but quickly resumed his position over the side of the boat dry heaving. Neither of us had the energy to talk, and pretty much just wanted to get the heck home. We were both thankful that our boat found us, and saved us the bill had the coast guard been the one to pluck us out. Although I think had we been giving the choice while floating we would have traded in everything we owned for a ride home.

Looking back I hold one, and one person only responsible for what happened –and that was me and my buddy. No one twisted our arms to make us do the dives when common sense was to stay home. I learned many, many valuable things that day in which I still use today. I could list them out individually, however I think from what I have told gives a pretty good idea on what we (or at least myself) will never do again.
My advice to anyone reading this is to know your gear and know when to use it. I made so many mistakes that weekend, that any one alone could have got me in bad trouble, and looking back it was pure luck that we are still alive today having so many of those decisions converge back on us at once.

Dive safe,

Kenny

 

[diver 85]

Important point on the securing the sausage. I have a nice metal clip to attach it to my BCD. Should I have something else? (Seriously, I really don't know. I just assumed the clip was enough.)

Thanks for the info on the folding snorkel with velcro. I don't think that would be as annoying as my stupid monster big hard plastic one.

I got an inexpensive(well- damn it cheap!!..lol) finger spool with 150' of line & use it attached to the SMB anytime I deploy it.....1st started using it in CZM last year this time ie to practice with & the DM started letting me 'do it' to end all dives there(with Aldora). Think I paid ?$10 for the spool on sale on line somewhere.It was worth it----.I would start with a finger spool with at least 100' of line....btw, also makes low vis dives in Toledo Bend alot easier---just follow the(dotted) line back to home, lol.....

 

[Noboundaries]

How does a dive boat not see divers 100 yards away and leave them struggling for 30 minutes?

Ooooh, I'm going to get flamed on this thread, but it is something I feel strongly about.

The quote above is probably a more common belief among divers than the true reality that a diver is basically invisible on the surface of the ocean. The common error is to believe you are as visible to the boat as the boat is to you.

The first lesson of open water survival training is to accept and believe that you are invisible on the water. From a boat the horizon extends out to about 13 miles in all directions. That's about 133 square miles of area. If we restrict the search area to 100 yards in all directions, the searchers still have to visually cover almost 283,000 square feet of search area. Your head presents about 1/3 of a square foot of surface area in the ocean.

A searcher's eyes are drawn to movement and contrast. If there is any sea state at all, the waves, shadows, spray, foam, birds, boats on the horizon, planes in the air, kelp, buoys, dive site markers, floating garbage, etc all present distracting movement and contrast, complicating the recovery.

The searcher's eyes are also influenced by assumptions; assumptions of where you'll surface based upon currents, time you're expected to surface, and their knowledge of your training. What if those assumptions are wrong and/or you didn't follow your training? They'll be looking in the wrong area and possibly at the wrong time.

Here's an experiment. Find an empty elementary school field/playground. Close your eyes and plug your ears. Have a partner place a basketball somewhere in your field of view about 100 yards away in any direction. Open your eyes and it probably won't take long to find it. You just found a diver on a glassy sea.

Now, fill the same field/playground with hundreds 3-4 foot tall elementary school kids running all over the place and see how long it takes you to find the basketball. The kids are the sea state. If your partner got creative and painted the basketball so there isn't much difference between the color of the basketball and the location it is placed, you might not find it at all.

In open water survival, the basic rules are conserve, control, and communicate. Conserve your body energy, body heat, equipment power, available water and food. Control your emotions and environment as much as possible by inflating your BC, dumping weights and unneccesary equipment, and securing any survival gear. Don't forget to secure yourself to your dive buddy. Then communicate as soon as the situation is secure. Use your radio (VHF, EPIRB), signalling devices (SMBs, strobes, signal mirror, fins, Dive Alerts, whistles), and visual detectors (streamers, dye markers, flares) when appropriate. Even your mask can be used to reflect sunlight if held at the correct angle.

Have a plan for all situations you can think of. Write the plan down and give it to somebody who would be interested (boat captain, dive shop, etc). Take appropriate survival action the instant you believe there is a problem. Worry about the consequences once you're safe, not before.

The difference between public safety officers/military personnel and the general civilian population is obvious. PSOs/military train extensively for a wide variety of situations that may never happen but has happened to someone at some time. Even though they are part of a large authoritarian organization, they are trained to handle many situations independently. If the rare situation does occur, they know exactly what to do and are equipped to handle it.

Civilians generally believe that whatever authority is in charge should take all the precautions and spend all the money to handle a rare occurrence. Civilians generally believe in luck and the odds that it won't happen to them so why worry about it, plan for it, or spend the money on it. Want proof? We all drive. 73% of drivers NEVER check the air pressure in their spare tire! Successful experience in anything merely adds to the evidence that preparation is unnecessary. When "it" unfortunately does happen to them though, the eventual outcome is often avoidable and possibly tragic because they are unprepared.

Were the circumstances of the death that started this thread avoidable? We don't know but it appears so with the scant information we have. Unfortunately, it is in the past and there is nothing any of us can do about it. What matters are the circumstances of the ones we're going to read about in the future. The choice is whether to bet on extensive preparation, some authority, or the odds of luck. No matter what you choose, I'll guarantee you we'll keep reading about outcomes and debate the "should haves." If or when it happens to me, I know what I want you to read.

 

[Missdirected]

Fly Girl, just a thought but does your lds have a pool? If they do, I'd bet ya they'd be willing to let you practice deploying your smb.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

And I also carry a Dive Alert. At 100 yards even in moderately heavy seas that thing will make some people soil their wetsuit when it goes off. Tests have shown it effective at over 1 mile on calm seas. I personally met a guy who had his heard at over 400 yards off New Foundland in 4-6 ft seas with some 9's thrown in. He surfaced too far from the boat due to currents and a dragging anchor. Deployed an SMB but they actually saw it when he hit the DA button.