Fiona Sharp death in Bonaire

[Scraps]

I was in the Coast Guard for thirty years and was involved with many marine incidents and search and rescue cases. Only once in a very great while was there enough information available in the first few hours or even days to know what really happened, let alone to draw reasoned conclusions about what caused the problem, how to prevent similar situations, or how to react better when a similar situation occurs in the future. Often we never learn the full story. Equally often, the particulars are so specific that it's a stretch to draw any generalized lessons from them, aside from the ones we should already know. Most hard cases start with a tangle of incomplete, confusing and contradictory information. Other than getting as much hardware on scene as fast as possible if lives or property or the environment are still at risk, there's not much else to be done until the facts get gathered and sorted.

If the purpose of this forum is indeed to save lives, it would make sense to wait until more of the "as-much-as-we'll-ever-know" fact picture emerges before drawing conclusions.

From reading this tread so far, I've already seen discrete pieces of context-free information used as launch pads for speculation, only to see that information corrected and the first speculation replaced by new speculations based on other information whose accuracy and context is not yet evaluated. One dictum I've seen validated over and over again is that the first reports are always wrong.

I am confident that there are enough people here with specialized technical and medical knowledge who can provide useful insights after more facts are gathered and verified--but even experts need accurate and reasonably complete information to bring their knowledge to bear.

I'm all in favor of free and open discussion. And I don't advocate waiting indefinitely for a definitive official public report that may never be published. But I do advocate the prudence of maintaining a posture of waiting and listening until there's more of a basis for confident analysis.

 

[The Chairman]

Facts sent to me from an Insider:

Fiona was diving 20/20, setpoint controller and computer set to air, dive to 91M with a 4M/min ascent/descent rate, and whatever happened to her happened at the 80
Foot stop.

Of course, if you have pertinent information you feel should be passed on, I am here for you. I will only pass on info at my discretion that I feel to be reliable.

 

[doctormike]

I was in the Coast Guard for thirty years and was involved with many marine incidents and search and rescue cases. Only once in a very great while was there enough information available in the first few hours or even days to know what really happened, let alone to draw reasoned conclusions about what caused the problem, how to prevent similar situations, or how to react better when a similar situation occurs in the future. Often we never learn the full story. Equally often, the particulars are so specific that it's a stretch to draw any generalized lessons from them, aside from the ones we should already know. Most hard cases start with a tangle of incomplete, confusing and contradictory information. Other than getting as much hardware on scene as fast as possible if lives or property or the environment are still at risk, there's not much else to be done until the facts get gathered and sorted.

If the purpose of this forum is indeed to save lives, it would make sense to wait until more of the "as-much-as-we'll-ever-know" fact picture emerges before drawing conclusions.

From reading this tread so far, I've already seen discrete pieces of context-free information used as launch pads for speculation, only to see that information corrected and the first speculation replaced by new speculations based on other information whose accuracy and context is not yet evaluated. One dictum I've seen validated over and over again is that the first reports are always wrong.

I am confident that there are enough people here with specialized technical and medical knowledge who can provide useful insights after more facts are gathered and verified--but even experts need accurate and reasonably complete information to bring their knowledge to bear.

I'm all in favor of free and open discussion. And I don't advocate waiting indefinitely for a definitive official public report that may never be published. But I do advocate the prudence of maintaining a posture of waiting and listening until there's more of a basis for confident analysis.

Once more, the purpose of this forum is NOT to determine what happened to the deceased. In your line of work, that was clearly part of the mission, and I can understand the need for caution in that arena before promoting theories based on incomplete evidence. But that is not the mission of the A&I forum.

The purpose of this forum is to use these cases as a springboard for discussion and learning. The moderators try to keep the discussion on track and not let it range too widely from what is known about the case. Once certain facts are established it makes sense to refine the discussion so we don't keep going over the same theories that no longer seem likely.

But it is totally fine that hypotheses are corrected as new information becomes available. That's not a bug, that's a feature. You can save lives just as well with intelligent discussion, even if the theory turns out to be incorrect. For example, suppose it turns out that this was a cardiac event in shallow water. Does that mean that teaching people that they shouldn't dive to 300 feet with air diluent isn't an important lesson?

 

[pauldw]

Let’s see - the man has a ‘scoop’ and he is the senior editor of Undercurrent.

Undercurrent or ScubaBoard?

The signal to noise ration is better on Undercurrent, so...

 

[mderrick]

Also planning the dive with my deco parameters would give:

Dec to    90m            (5)    Diluent 20/20    0.70 SetPoint, 18m/min descent.
Level      90m      0:00 (5)    Diluent 20/20    1.30 (1.99),  73m ead,  68m end
Asc to    12m           (14)    Diluent 20/20    1.30 SetPoint, -8m/min ascent.
Stop at    12m     2:15 (17)    Diluent 20/20    1.30  SetPoint,  0m ead,  10m end
Stop at    9m      1:00 (18)    Diluent 20/20    1.30  SetPoint,  0m ead,  7m end
Stop at    6m      1:00 (19)    Diluent 20/20    1.30  SetPoint,  0m ead,  5m end
Stop at    4.5m    4:00 (23)    Diluent 20/20    1.30  SetPoint,  0m ead,  4m end
Surface                 (27)    Diluent 20/20    -1m/min ascent.

So everything would appear fine except for the END/EAD which is 73 and also you would be ok for the O2 exposure. So a quick bounce dive to 90 with 2 S40 appears feasible.

Hmm, perhaps on the desktop but probably not in the water. Descending that fast I would have to keep adding hot dil (at least after the first 60 meters or so) to make up volume to keep the loop breathable and I doubt the PO2 would breathe down significantly in the time allowed by this table. My intuition, based on a lot of ultra rapid descents on CCR, tells me that for my physiology it would be almost impossible to make a "quick bounce" to 90 m using air diluent without a PO2 spike to around 2 ata while also doing a significant amount of work. Just pointing out this bit of speculation is questionable on the face of it; not making any observations about the accident as I don't know anything at all about it.

 

[Scraps]

doctor mike,
I guess I question the value of a feature that involves speculating about facts that turn out not to be facts (e.g., the significance of the lost tank that wasn't lost) or the mental state of the deceased.
About a third of the way through this thread there are some exchanges where some knowledgeable commenters repeatedly talk about all the things that don't add up ("so many busts," as one writer put it). When the facts clearly don't add up I don't see much value in guessing, even though I was interested by the technical talk (much of which I didn't understand) about CCR's.
I'll keep an open mind and see how the thread progresses. Maybe I'll see value by the end.

 

[The Chairman]

Hmm, perhaps on the desktop but probably not in the water

Except for the descent rate, he wasn't far off according to the Inside Informant.

 

[CuzzA]

Once more, the purpose of this forum is NOT to determine what happened to the deceased. In your line of work, that was clearly part of the mission, and I can understand the need for caution in that arena before promoting theories based on incomplete evidence. But that is not the mission of the A&I forum.

The purpose of this forum is to use these cases as a springboard for discussion and learning. The moderators try to keep the discussion on track and not let it range too widely from what is known about the case. Once certain facts are established it makes sense to refine the discussion so we don't keep going over the same theories that no longer seem likely.

But it is totally fine that hypotheses are corrected as new information becomes available. That's not a bug, that's a feature. You can save lives just as well with intelligent discussion, even if the theory turns out to be incorrect. For example, suppose it turns out that this was a cardiac event in shallow water. Does that mean that teaching people that they shouldn't dive to 300 feet with air diluent isn't an important lesson?

Well said. I think it should also be noted that it appears the initial report we got here from @tursiops was true and accurate, with the small exception of the missing cylinder which also was true, but dropped during the recovery and not by the victim and the record was quickly corrected.

 

[doctormike]

doctor mike,
I guess I question the value of a feature that involves speculating about facts that turn out not to be facts (e.g., the significance of the lost tank that wasn't lost) or the mental state of the deceased.
About a third of the way through this thread there are some exchanges where some knowledgeable commenters repeatedly talk about all the things that don't add up ("so many busts," as one writer put it). When the facts clearly don't add up I don't see much value in guessing, even though I was interested by the technical talk (much of which I didn't understand) about CCR's.
I'll keep an open mind and see how the thread progresses. Maybe I'll see value by the end.

Sure, and I certainly don't mean to disrespect your experience and insight. But one of the sub-currents in this thread is the appropriateness of A&I in the first place. Every one of these threads about a prominent diver tends to run pretty hot, and to draw comments much like the one that you have made.

As you may know, we almost never get an "official report", we never get the actual facts. And if we do, it's often months or years later when we have stopped paying attention. Human nature.

But we do have enlightening discussions, and I learn a lot here. And the mods do yeoman's work to keep things on track, weed out inappropriate comments and (in cases like the Conception tragedy), maintain a running summary of what is known to date.

 

[Scraps]

doctormike,
Fair enough. I'll take my own advice and wait and see. Best wishes,