Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
A scuba diver missing for more than 12 hours off the north Queensland coast has been found alive and will be winched to safety.
The man, aged 68, went to dive at the SS Yongala wreck near Russell Island, south of Townsville, by himself and failed to return.
Police were called by the man's friend yesterday afternoon, and found the man's boat moored at the dive site last night with no-one on board.
Acting Inspector Graeme Paterson said rescuers were ecstatic that the man was found alive.
"It's a huge task to search a grid pattern of the ocean," he said.
"For police and rescue coordinators to achieve such success at this time in the day, it's a really great result."
Acting Inspector Paterson said rescue coordinators set up a search pattern from the wreck, which was calculated on the tides and currents.
"I'm not sure of the exact location that he has been located," he said.
"It's a massive search, looking for a human in the ocean is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
"I imagine he'll be medically assessed to see if he is in good health condition and require any medical treatment."
Preparation the key to survival
Acting Inspector Paterson said the man had given clear instructions on his dive to a friend, including the location of the wreck and the time he was due back.
"Because of that, when he didn't meet his contact point yesterday afternoon the authorities were notified," he said.
"Through his prior planning, it allowed us to initiate that search which was obviously necessary to save his life."
PHOTO: Acting Inspector Graeme Paterson said searching the ocean was a huge task. (ABC News: Nancy Notzon)
Acting Inspector Paterson said calm conditions assisted the search and the man's ability to stay afloat and conserve energy.
"We're also dealing with warmer waters here so that's another thing that would certainly assist," he said.
"Every hour that somebody spends in the ocean their chances diminish so the fact that he's been found in the first 24 hours is amazing.
Six aircraft along with water police, volunteer marine rescue, the coastguard, police divers and a helicopter joined in the search this morning.
The Yongala is considered one of the best wreck dives in the world and is between 16 to 30 metres deep.
Sometimes just telling a friend a float/dive plan is not good enough . . .obvious lesson learned -if you're gonna do solo diving from your own boat, then always have a PLB in a Dive Canister attached to you at all times.The one thing he did right was tell a friend when he should be back. Otherwise, his Lloyd Bridges approach to diving was reckless. The government there should require him to wear a PLB & Canister to save taxpayers on future searches, as I doubt he would ever get one on his on.
The one thing he did right was tell a friend when he should be back. Otherwise, his Lloyd Bridges approach to diving was reckless. The government there should require him to wear a PLB & Canister to save taxpayers on future searches, as I doubt he would ever get one on his on.
You're at Yongala in 2 weeks? What date? I'm there on the 27th.He has a PLB. However, he happened to clean it the day before & forgot to put it back in his gear bag. It could happen to me too. What he should have done is to thumb the dive as soon as he realized that the current is bad & he forgot the PLB, especially for diving solo.
In all of my liveaboard dives the DM will check the current first, before letting us jump into the water by looking at the surface current (ripples) & often jumping in w/o gear, just with mask (to see the underwater condition). Then he'll come back to the boat & say, "it's about 1 knot, let's go diving" or "it's about 2.5 knots, let's find another site".
I'll be there in 2 weeks. It's good to know that he was found alive after 17 hours.
You're at Yongala in 2 weeks? What date? I'm there on the 27th.