Recently there was a woman who dove even though her inflator hose did not match her BCD. While technically she should have been able to orally inflate, or swim herself up, then she had some kind of medical problem as she swum up, and did not have inflated bcd to save her.
This thread discusses the details:
Feb 19 2017 Cozumel diving fatality
Attempts to retrieve her body were also stymied by non-functioning equipment.
According to the April 2017 Undercurrent issue, that fatality is one of many that are part of a cover up to protect vested business interests:
excerpts:
"
from the April, 2017 issue of
Undercurrent
Divers arriving in Cozumel, Mexico, can sign up with any number of dive operators -- and generally are organized into groups and frequently not assigned buddies. Much of the diving is drift diving, which can lead to problems if a diver in a group needs to return to the surface early. That's what appears to have happened to a woman on February 19th near Palancar Reef, with fatal consequences.
We contacted several people in Cozumel to learn about the tragedy, but had great difficulty getting anyone to tell us what actually happened, and some inquiries were met with an aggressive response. One witness even replied, "Mexico isn't a salubrious environment for whistleblowers, or even journalists who merely dare to expose events seen as detrimental to the profit margins of vested interests. Cozumel is a small place, the tourist and diving industries have a lot at stake here, and human life is worth very little." Wow. This probably explains the reluctance of anyone to give any information.
This is the story
Undercurrent distilled after some detective work and confirmed in part by a British diver who was there at the time, aboard a
Deep Blue dive boat:
The dive had not started well for Tammy R. Schmitz, 43, from Denver (CO), diving with Scuba Mau's
Gaviota1. Some witnesses reported she had trouble with her BC inflator mechanism, and once at the dive site, she found it was not compatible with the regulator and her direct-feed hose. In order not to lose the dive, she probably intended to inflate it orally as and when she needed buoyancy. A well-practiced diver can handle this, but if anything else went wrong, it could lead to an incident.
.....the article concludes :
"Because of the reluctance of many people to talk with us, we think there may be more to the story. We'll follow up, if we can."