Pulau Aur Accident?
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aaronkok
Registered
No idea, but i do know that we lost a 3 divers in Perhentian/Redang during the May 1st weekend holidays. 1 due to lung over expansion, 1 went missing and another causes unknown.
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babySEAL:
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The New Paper - 01 Jun 2004
'Current swept me from rope'
S'pore man dies in diving mishap. Girlfriend says she lost sight of
him after letting go of rope
By Faith Teo
IT was his girlfriend who got him to take up diving. Mr Mike Soo,
28, wasn't too keen on the sport, but tried it out of love for Hui
Peng, 25, his girlfriend of more than a year.
Mr Soo, a strong swimmer, was beginning to like diving when his life
was cut short in a strange and tragic way.
Mr Soo and Hui Peng, who declined to reveal her surname, were in
Tioman on Saturday with four friends and a diving instructor.
Mr Soo, the only son of parents in their 50s, drowned there. He has
an older sister.
It was the second day of their diving trip to the Malaysian island,
and they were at Pulau Aur.
Only one of them had a diving licence. The rest were working on
getting theirs.
It was the first time that five of them, including Mr Soo and Hui
Peng, had dived in the open water.
They had taken two theory lessons and had two sessions in a swimming
pool earlier.
The first dive was successful, and the group emerged cheerful and
ready for a light lunch.
Less than two hours later, they were ready for their second dive,
and put on the same diving gear and breathing apparatus they had
used for the first dive.
Following the standard procedure, divers in each pair tested the
breathing apparatus for each other.
They then swam to the buoy on their instructor's command. And pair
by pair, they were signalled to descend along a vertical rope
attached to the buoy on one end and anchored to a rock on the seabed
12m down.
Hui Peng and Mr Soo were the last pair to descend.
She said: 'I had a feeling the currents were stronger than in the
morning, although we were diving at the same spot. I was swept away
from the rope, and when I turned around Mike was nearby.
'I had to swim for quite a bit before I reached the rope again, but
by then I couldn't see Mike any more.'
That was because Mr Soo had made a rapid descent to the seabed. Four
members of the group, who were waiting for them at the bottom,
spotted him.
One of them, Ms Koh Ein Lit, said: 'He was quite disoriented, and
couldn't stand properly. The instructor was attending to him and
signalled for him to hold the rope, but it didn't seem to register
with him. He was very unsteady.'
Ms Koh was at the wake yesterday. She said: 'I think he was in a
panic, struggling to get out of the water.'
Another member of the group, Ms Van Li Hui, who was also at the
wake, said: 'The regulator (breathing mouthpiece) was out of his
mouth, and when the instructor wanted to put it back into his mouth,
he pushed it away.
'The instructor tried with a backup regulator, but still he pushed
it away.'
It seems the instructor then grabbed Mr Soo and made his way to the
surface, passing Hui Peng, who was on her way down, holding on to
the rope.
She said: 'I could see that Mike was bleeding, but I didn't know
whether it was from his nose or mouth. His regulator was out, and he
seemed to be losing consciousness.'
She quickly returned to the surface, but by the time they reached
the platform, Mr Soo was unconscious, and their desperate attempts
to revive him failed.
One of his rubber shoes and a flipper were missing.
HAD TO GET PASSPORT
According to Hui Peng, he wasn't taken to hospital till she had made
a trip to the hotel and back to the platform by a motorised sampan,
to get his passport. They then left for Mersing on a speedboat.
'I don't know how long I took to get the passports, and I don't know
how long the speedboat took to get to Mersing, but I was told it was
two hours,' she said.
And all the while his life was ebbing away.
'I just kept on talking to him, asking him to breathe into the
oxygen mask. I didn't know what else to do, I was shocked and
terrified,' she recalled tearfully.
By the time the group reached the hospital, it was too late. 'There
was too much water in his lungs,' she said.
He had been 'the right man' for her and had been keen to marry her,
she said.
Copyright © 2004 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved.
aquaoren
Contributor
Very unfortunate accident, my condolances to the family and girlfriend.
It's a shame it took so long to get to the hospital.
It's a shame it took so long to get to the hospital.
animian2002
Contributor
aquaoren:
Pulau Aur is quite far from main land. A normal diving trip to Aur would require us to take a 4 hours boat ride to reach. I guess there isn't much they can do at that point of the time.
OP
babySEAL
Guest
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There is a fast boat now at Aur...unfortunately not sure about why they made the poor guy's girlfriend go back for a passport. Surely that's something that should have been omitted. The fast boat can get to Mersing in about 2 hours time...the regular boats take double that time. Curious about why they asked her to go get the paperwork prior to getting the poor guy to the hospital.
aquaoren
Contributor
Possibly because of the payment question?babySEAL:
This is a risk that we all carry when we go to remote destination, It's ususally far away from a hospital
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