Scuba diver dies after being found floating at Kurnell, NSW, Australia

[DandyDon]

P-word?

When you are neck deep in water, the pressure exerted on your suit by the surrounding water is greater than the pressure of surface air, so there is nothing to force the air into the suit, if the neck seal is cracked.

Thanks. Now you have me curious. I believe you but I'm going to have to try it in the pool. Will be awhile,though. I'm still on crutches from my last surgery.

He's right. We've done that with semi-dry wet suits. Indeed, your earlier statement was so wrong that I didn't understand what you were getting at. I even use that when I am packing chili in a zip lock to freeze.

 

[DiverGirl1972]

P-word?

I'm assuming panic...

 

[down4fun]

You seem to be confusing my interest in arriving at the most likely explanation with an interest in feeling good and/or caring about whether the victim gets blamed for her own death. Nobody is infallible, but the consequences of screwing up vary from dive to dive: one would have to make a mindboggling series of mistakes to drown under the conditions it appears Quero died. Thus, my positing that the more likely scenario was an inability to remove herself from the rig and/or the absence of rational thought necessary to pursue that approach.

So my question would be why was she unable to remove herself form her rig? You mentioned maybe her drysuit was to restrictive. So, then the answer would be her gear did not fit correctly and ultimately we are responsible for our own gear and making sure it fits and is in good working order. Some have mentioned that she could have been very overweighted, combined with an inaccurate spg. Again to me this is a gear issue and ultimately up to us as the diver to mitigate.

You say it would have to be a mind boggling series of mistakes for her to drown under the conditions that Quero did, but isn't that exactly what we mean when we talk about cascading events. Any one on it's own is manageable but combined become a source of panic. Your new in a drysuit, overweighted, low or out of gas. You now have three issues not one to deal with.

 

[TSandM]

I think, what I can put together of the story is a beautiful illustration of a concept we call the Incident Pit. It's kind of like the traps that the ant lions built, where there is a conical slope of sand that end with the ant lion's jaws. If an insect puts a foot or two into the pit, he can probably get out; the further down he goes, the more inevitable the outcome becomes.

IF we have unfamiliar gear and overweighting, that's one step into the pit to begin with, and one which may not have been recognized. Unbalanced rig with inadequate wing lift is a second step. Resubmerging with limited gas is a third. Separating from buddies is another -- you're now WAY down the slope, and all it will take is one or two small things to finish the process. An out of air from an inaccurate gauge, followed by a desperate attempt surface while overweighted, could have resulted in an embolism. Getting to the surface and being unable to get positive could have resulted in drowning. The autopsy may shed light on this, but I think the very, very sad truth is that an extremely experienced diver, diving in experienced company, looked at a benign site and wrote off a lot of potential negatives, and the only person who had the perception to call her on it was the least experienced diver in the group. Which is a VERY interesting piece of information.

Of all the accident threads I have read on this board, this one may have the greatest learning potential for all of us.

 

[gypsyjim]

A cascading series of relatively minor events, and errors in judgement, combined with poorly applying or even just plain ignoring buddy team skills, all coming together in one unfortunate accident that might have been easily prevented, or remedied, by sticking to the buddy team, is what this sounds more and more like.

Even a medical emergency, if that is what occurred, might have had a different ending if the buddy team approach had not been ignored, which does certainly appear to have happend here, at least from what I am reading so far.

 

[Jax]

If Quero was overweighted, how was she able to come to the surface, hold position, and discuss her gas?

 

[phoenix31tt]

If Quero was overweighted, how was she able to come to the surface, hold position, and discuss her gas?

this was discussed already.. She couldve used the dry suit for bouyancy and maybe wad using it all the time... But then she probably vented to submerge etc etc...


Also im not sure what's so hard to understand that in a dry suit that she was having complications with she's still sort of a newbie... Regardless of how much training or experience she had previously in a different configuration... Somebody put it nicely.. Ur only as strong as ur weakest link.. And it seems inability to use drysuit may have been her weakest link..




Sent from my Nokia Lumia 920

 

[Jax]

A lot of assumptions there. Just not adding up.

 

[scubadada]

A lot of assumptions there. Just not adding up.

I also wonder how a very experienced diver would not ditch her significant weight to gain access to the surface.

 

[Hawkwood]

...Of all the accident threads I have read on this board, this one may have the greatest learning potential for all of us.

The truest comment on this sad event.