Raja Ampat diver death

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Here’s a more detail news about the accident;

I can’t Google Translate the text for some reason. So, I’m going to roughly translate it to English some points that haven’t been mentioned in the earlier news:
- The accident happened on Wednesday (Nov 29) at 08:37 Indonesia Eastern Time (IET).
- Damai 2 divers consisted of 10 guests, 3 DMs, 1 CD.
- At 08:15 IET they (9 guests, 3 DMs, 1 CD) went to North Kawe with 2 dive tenders (tender 1 & 2).
- At 08:20 IET they arrived at the dive site and entered the water together.
- A few minutes later 7 guests & CD were back to the surface and picked up by tender 1.
- Tender 2 driver saw 1 guest (Steve) on the surface unconscious at 08:37 IET.
- The crew brought Steve back on tender, conducted CPR and radioed Damai 2 to prepare Oxygen tank.
- At 08:42 IET, tenders arrived at Damai 2 and brought Steve to the mother boat to continue the CPR for few more minutes. No pulse detected.
- They (witnessed and verified by 3 guests, Captain and CD) concluded that Steve couldn’t be saved.
Since I was on this trip with Steve, I can identify the cruise director in the front of the photo and one of the dive guides in the back of the photo with the long dark hair. They told us the photographers were rude and disrespectful about crowding into the room to get the photos.
 
I was on this trip with Steve, and here's an excerpt about the accident from my trip report, which @Dan so kindly referred to in an earlier post in this thread.

We had successful diving on November 27th & 28th, but on November 29th, there was a fatal accident at the beginning of the first dive of the day. I saw the news article in the Accidents and Injuries forum, but the article is not quite accurate. The diver’s name is correct, Steve, but the date of death is November 29th, not November 30th. He was found floating at the surface at approximately 8:30 a.m.

The dive briefing was thorough. For each dive, they send the tender boat to the site for a guide to jump in to check the current. If it’s too strong, we move to another location or drop in ahead of the current in order to ride with it. That’s what happened on this day. For about an hour after our scheduled drop-in time, we finally landed on a site. Just for some context, when the dive briefing starts or it's meal time, there's a big bell that's rung outside. So I waited in my air-conditioned room rather than in the heat to hear the bell. For some reason, I didn't hear the bell or maybe they didn’t ring it because everyone was ready to go anyway. So when I came to the dive deck to check on the status, everyone was gone, so I literally missed the boat by five minutes. There were nine divers and three guides in the water and we lost one diver.

What I tell you here is from what I have learned from other divers’ accounts and what I saw when the tender boat came back with Steve.

Within the first 15 feet of dropping in, there was a down current so strong that it took everyone down for a rapid and uncontrolled descent, 90-137 feet in less than one minute. That day, everyone was on 29% Nitrox. The depth each diver reached varied by their computer. As soon as the dive started, it was clear it needed to be aborted, but nobody could control their descent. One diver dropped her weights, emptied her BC, and still could not fin up. She ended up at 137 feet before one of the dive guides was able to stop her descent and helped her to the surface. Steve, another diver, and a guide were able to make it to the wall to at least hang onto something, but they were still being forced down. A guide was a little farther away from Steve and the other diver and seemed to be out of the worst of the down current. Steve and the other diver were at 90 feet and about six feet apart on the wall. The other diver was able to climb the wall at a rate of 1.4 feet per minute. He told us the physical exertion was enormous and he could not hang onto the wall anymore, so he pushed off. His fingers were shredded from hanging onto the wall. He was not wearing gloves.

Steve was also trying to climb the wall but was making less progress than the other diver. The last time Steve was seen alive was when the other diver and Steve locked eyes with that “I’m going to die” fear as the other diver pushed off the wall to survive. We think he probably had a heart attack from the extreme physical exertion and drowned or perhaps the force of the down current knocked his regulator out of his mouth. His regulator was not in his mouth when he was found on the surface. His mask and everything else, including his camera rig, was still attached. The other diver’s dive lasted 4 minutes from drop in to surface.

Another diver said he saw his bubbles going down and sideways but not up, and it was so confusing for him and he didn’t know if his brain was playing tricks. He could barely keep his mask on and regulator in because of the force of the down current. That diver got to 90 feet before he got out of it and was able to slow his ascent around 60 feet, then 30 feet, then did a safety stop. His dive lasted 11 minutes.

We just happened to have two instructors on this trip, so there was a lot of discussion in the aftermath, and there was nothing that could have been done differently. This was just a really bad accident. The diver that was with Steve on the wall (instructor) and the other diver/instructor got Steve on the tender boat with all his gear and tank still on. It was a heroic effort and took immense strength to pull him onto the boat. One of the instructors was the first to give him rescue measures, and he said his pupils were fixed and dilated, and there was no pulse or heartbeat. Steve was being worked on for at least 20 minutes. Since the shortest dive time was four minutes, he may have been on the surface for less than five minutes.

What I saw personally was from the time the tender boat made it back to the mothership. The first tender boat came back with Steve and the people that were trying to resuscitate him. The second tender boat had the remaining divers, but there were two guides missing. Once all the divers were accounted for, the staff immediately took off to look for the missing guides. They were gone for what seemed a long time, and we were all very concerned for them, but, eventually, they were found quite far away and were safe and not injured.

From what I saw, Steve was obviously dead from the look of his body. His eyes were open and he was a bluish-gray color. Chest compressions got water out of his lungs, but the rescue efforts continued without success. He was then respectfully wrapped in a sheet and placed in the camera room.

I am being very factual and matter of fact, but this was a horrific event to have been involved with. The trauma to everyone, including the crew, has been difficult. I only knew Steve for a couple of days, but he was a member of the good-guy club. He was a genuinely kind man and had a true passion for diving and photography, and he died doing what he loved. We dived together the day before, and his enthusiasm for diving was infectious. He was a very experienced diver, and he took the time to point things out to me. May he rest in peace and his soul be free.
 
Hi, ask yourself how tec divers call themselves (they do not have pointers)
if you have use for a pointer, then carry one, nothing against it, I don't think that there is a "no pointer" rule in tek diving (as long as you tuck it away neatly). as many have pointed out, pointers can be used to "hang on", I have bend several pointers while crawling against currents (on sandy bottoms of course), now I use stainless instead of aluminum. I also use it frequently to stabilize my camera for macro shots
To add my two cents on the glove topic in this thread... I prefer to use simple high-vis mechanic gloves. In places where it's not allowed I don't use them.
 
Is it really the best option to swim out into the blue if you get caught in a down current on a wall, as pointed out by @drrich2, @Twiny, and @John Bantin?
I've never experienced a strong down current. I understand the logic of swimming away from the wall, but its counterintuitive and takes some courage. Also, in the excellent and sad report from @living4experiences, divers who swam away from the wall seemed to have less struggle.
My question is whether we should always try to swim out from the current instead of clinging and try to climb the wall?
 
Is it really the best option to swim out into the blue if you get caught in a down current on a wall, as pointed out by @drrich2, @Twiny, and @John Bantin?
I've never experienced a strong down current. I understand the logic of swimming away from the wall, but its counterintuitive and takes some courage. Also, in the excellent and sad report from @living4experiences, divers who swam away from the wall seemed to have less struggle.
My question is whether we should always try to swim out from the current instead of clinging and try to climb the wall?
Post #70 might provide an answer to your question whether it is worth pushing away or staying on the wall.
 
Reef hook and extreme down current do not match : just watch this video at time 3' .... and the current was far from being extreme.
Just use your hands and do not care about the scratches when your life is at stake ...

 
Reef hook and extreme down current do not match : just watch this video at time 3' .... and the current was far from being extreme.
Just use your hands and do not care about the scratches when your life is at stake ...


There are time and place when using hand is better than pointer or reef hook, especially when the current is not stiff and / or surging like in Darwin’s Arch, Galapagos . When the current is very stiff and the crevices / cracks are too small to stick your finger tips in, you will not be able to hold on to the rock and you will be dragged down by the current.

I dove in Nusa Lembongan a few times, especially the Blue Corner that the video seems to be taken from. There are some small cracks that I was able to stick my pointer stick into and held on the exposed part of the stick with both hands and bent the stick by the force of the down current.

Looking at the video you posted, above, this girl in pink Scubapro Seawing Nova fins, at time period 4:20-4:30 used her pointer stick, that was strapped on her right wrist, to stick it on the wall and hung on to it.

IMG_2664.jpeg
 
How horrendous is that published picture on the local news website? Man…

This news did hit me a bit hard last night. I have been on the Damai II twice with itineraries to Raja and the Banda Sea with the same cruise director and probably at least some of the crew. We chartered the entire boat for a return trip to Komodo with most of my previous cohort next year because we had such a good time.

I can only vouch for the safety conscious aspect of the boat and crew and attest to the thorough dive briefings and pre-dive current checks.

Having said that, you are diving in one of the most remote parts of the globe and I have personally experienced currents changing out of nowhere. We did have to skip certain dive sites in Raja both trips as well as the conditions were not conducive. We were usually able to come back later in the day.

I have experienced down currents in Raja, Socorro and Galapagos - but probably nothing as extreme as described above.

In Socorro they were particular prevalent, including a dive where a member of the group ended up at 130ft and proceeded to hand over hand on the rocky cliff side to get out of it. She was calm throughout, which I massively admired afterward... Where I was it wasn’t quite as bad and swimming out of it horizontally with my buddy’s help solved the problem. In Socorro the down currents mostly seemed associated with the topography and incentivized you to keep your distance from the reef.

On the last Raja trip I also encountered another downcurrent, but this one was away from the topography, so rather unexpected. We did a ridge dive at maybe 40-50ft with fairly decent horizontal current along the ridge.

For some reason I used up more gas on that dive so decided to move to my safety stop a bit earlier, which meant swimming away from the ridge. Once I got off of it I got caught in a downward current, but it started some distance from the ridge.

It wasn’t strong enough to mess with my mask but it took me a little bit to understand why I wasn’t making any progress to my safety stop but instead ended up at 80ft+, when the entire dive had been above 50ft… My buddy eventually realized something weird was going on and moved to join me for the safety stop - I had initially signaled I was going up by myself. He ended in the same downcurrent, 20 feet below me. We managed to stay in eye contact and got out of the downcurrent by swimming horizontally and slightly up. With some decent finning and extra air in the BC we eventually got out of it and ascended normally.

I have also had dives in Raja where there were fairly sudden currents when I did not expect them - like on a jetty night dive in 20ft of water, sudden strong off-flow from the island and washing machine conditions.

Same thing happened in Bali on a dive (my first one ever in Indonesia, incidentally) that initially really freaked me out. Very sudden strong current out of nowhere that there was no swimming against - we were at the bottom at 80ft or so, so downward current was not a concern, but getting to/staying with your buddy was a massive challenge (and I was less than a fin kick away shooting some nudibranchs). I borderline panicked, began hyperventilating trying to kick back to my buddy/the group who attempted to get to shelter behind a ridge. I eventually just had to let the current take me while attempting a reasonably controlled ascent. Current eventually slackened on the way up and I was able to surface safely, somehow my buddy had managed to get to me and we were hanging onto each others harness straps on the way up to not get separated... This Bali dive had not been planned as a drift dive, the (very experienced) operator also was completely caught by surprise. Everyone managed to ascend safely, but did so all over the place and the dive boat spend easily 90 minutes picking everyone up as we had all drifted a fair distance but in completely different directions...

Bottom line, I have learnt to expect crazy unexpected currents in Indonesia and can easily see someone panicking and possibly experiencing a cardiovascular event with the exertion. I have been there with the borderline panic...

Desperately sad for the lost diver, his family and the trauma experienced by the Damai crew and fellow travelers. :-(
 
On the face of it, sticking close to the wall seems intuitive: friction between moving water and an irregular bottom will slow the current.

On the other hand Bernouille's principle is also intuitive: with nowhere else to go, water pressed against a surface will speed up as a distance to that hard edge is decreased.

So... what will dictate how one handles a crazy down-current?

Incidentally, in Twiny's video, above, I noticed that as everyone clung to the bottom with their reef hooks, one diver, some 20 feet above the bottom seemed to be doing OK, finning in place (see 3:44 and some time before that).

I guessed this is where the pre-dive briefing and the DM's pre-dive inspection becomes important. In the absence of both, what's a diver to do?
 
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