Fourth Diver this year dies at Gilboa

[Busdiver]

Hey all,

I was in the dive shop this morning and was told another diver passed this Sunday at Gilboa. I guess she was in her 50's and diving with her husband. This is awful. Gilboa is one of the best dive quarries in the Midwest. They really run a safe friendly place. I do not have any other info. I do not know if it was a drowning or a heart attack. If anyone else has any info. please post.

 

[Busdiver]

Here is more info.




Fourth diver in 4 months dies at Ohio quarry

Sunday, July 29, 2007 11:19 PM



Associated Press

GILBOA, Ohio—A woman died today after she was pulled not breathing from the water of a quarry where she was diving with her husband, authorities said. The fatality is the fourth death in as many months at the popular freshwater diving spot.

#####, 54, of Ashland, swam away from a group of divers she was with at the Gilboa Quarry and was found shortly before noon floating in about 65 feet of water, Putnam County Sheriff's Lt. Marv Schweibert said.
####, not breathing when she was pulled from the water, was pronounced dead at Lima Memorial Hospital. An autopsy was scheduled for Monday by the Lucas County Coroner's Office to determine the cause of death.​

#### death is the fourth fatality this year at the quarry, about 50 miles southwest of Toledo, which draws divers with a range of abilities because its depth ranges from five to more than 120 feet. In June, certified scuba instructor Van Losh died in an accident while diving with friends, and in April, two divers from the Dayton area died when their air regulators froze in the 38 degree water, impeding their breathing.

 

[diver 85]

This indeed is very sad.........IMO(& I've never been there), something needs to be looked into concerning this place, they are way over the stats.......Good luck to all diving this site......

 

[bladephotog]

I don't understand this either. I dive Gilboa quite a bit and know Mike runs a safe op. Either way, I don't think there is much he can do about it unfortunately. My prayers and thoughts are with the victim and her family, as well as with Mike, Jody and the rest at the quarry.

 

[MikeFerrara]

This indeed is very sad.........IMO(& I've never been there), something needs to be looked into concerning this place, they are way over the stats.......Good luck to all diving this site......

There isn't anything wrong with or even unique about Gilboa. It gets a lot of traffic though and divers are on their own without supervision. They don't do very well because there is something wrong with dive training. That's what needs to be looked into.

 

[tstormdiver]

I am in no way trying to put down the divers that have passed there, my heart & prayers go out to the divers & their families, but at least 3 of the deaths look to be diver error. If I remember correctly the two that passed in April did not have cold water equipment & at the time (I haven't read or heard any more about it any time lately) that they may not have been trained in deep diving (if I'm wrong on this please feel free to correct me on it). I'll admit I really haven't kept up on that particular topic. In the last incident it says that the diver was found away from her group. It doesn't say how long she was away (it may never be known), but most agencies train that if you're separated from your buddy (or maybe in this case your group) to look for 1 min. then make a safe ascent & wait at the surface. The same goes for a group. There should be periodic head counts to verify everyone is there. A problem can occur in a very short period of time at depth & in the cold, which emphasizes the importance of sticking close to your buddy or group, especially at depth. I commonly dive in a deep quarry just a few hours away from Gilboa in KY & the conditions are very similar. When the people I dive with down there decide to go as a group, we do the group in buddy pairs or threesomes (as needed), as we had a rather bad separation problem of the group on one particular dive, & though we were lucky that no one go hurt or worse, we learned our lesson. In that event, everyone followed their training & looked for 1 min. then surfaced safely. Now by keeping the buddy pairs or threesomes in a group, even if we get separated as a group, we can safely continue the dive. What I'm trying to say in the end, is from what I've read at least the 3 deaths don't seem to have been caused by anything the operators could control. From their web site pages, they seem to have a comprehensive preparation list & submission of a deep dive plan to dive deep, but that's not really going to stop anyone who wants to do it form just going ahead & going deep. They can't police everyone all the time. As those who do it know, cold deep quarry diving can be done relatively safely when there is proper training, a thorough dive plan & everyone "plays by the plan & the rules of diving", not to say that there still can't be problems, injuries or even, God forbid, fatalities even with the best training, equipment, plan & divers, but when you have all these things in place, the deep & the cold can be a cool place to check out.

 

[do it easy]

This indeed is very sad.........IMO(& I've never been there), something needs to be looked into concerning this place, they are way over the stats.......Good luck to all diving this site......

I agree with Mike- there is nothing different about Gilboa that you won't find in similar freshwater quarries.

 

[Busdiver]

I guess the question I have (which cannot be answered) is why is Gilboa experiencing this high mortality rate where as a similiar quarry like Portage is not experiencing the same issues? It really is a shame. I wonder how many folks were diving that day. Viz can go from good to zero quickly if a lot of divers are bouncing off the bottom.

 

[Mrs.Prages]

I have been to Gilboa a lot. I may have started out on the wrong foot with Mike (the owner of the quarry) and I may not always have thought he was the nicest of guys, I will say that he runs a very safe operation. He really does strive for safety and try very hard to lookout for the divers that go there and the wildlife within the quarry. Sometimes he is gruff, but I understand that he really does have the best intentions and is just looking out for the good of the quarry.

I do not think that the 4 deaths this year have in any way been the fault of the quarry or the staff that work there. I think it would be unfair to add extra burden to the staff of Gilboa, and I know they are already feeling the stress of these accidents without any added pressures.

 

[WJL]

This indeed is very sad.........IMO(& I've never been there), something needs to be looked into concerning this place, they are way over the stats.......Good luck to all diving this site......

I have been diving at Gilboa a number of times, so I feel like I should say something. I can't think of anything about the site or how it is run that would contribute to this accident, other than the fact that its a place where people dive.

I was not present for any of these fatalities, and all I know about them is what I read. The only thing I know about this latest death is what is posted above. From that story it is pretty hard to conclude what caused this woman's death. I can't tell anything about this person's training or skill in the water or even just what killed her.

It sure is disquieting that 4 people have died there this year, but I can't see any reason to pin responsibility on the site or its operators. My view is that these accidents could have happened anywhere, and it's just Gilboa's bad luck that they happened there.

Mike Ferrara's many posts about inadequate training seem like a better starting point for inquiry than focussing on the site itself, but at this point even that's just a guess.