neutral
Contributor
Any fatality diving is bad. It is too bad better statistics can't be compiled due to privacy, etc. I would like to know how often fatalities have underlying health conditions as contributing factors.
Scuba diver drowns near Santa Cruz Island
- Thread starter DandyDon
- Start date
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I think the autopsy clearly said that he had died from asphyxia (suffocated). All further details may not be provided at the moment because 1.) medical history of a person is a solely private matter disclosing of which may lead to legal penalties, 2.) It is still under investigation. ...I believe suffocation can occur because of... -your ideas here-... my first idea is that you do not necessarily have to dive to die from asphyxia...
In fact, if it was quote, "ruled his death an accident" unquote then we may never find out any additional details as the case is going to be closed for absence of corpus delicti (no components of crime) and no one is going to be "ferreting out" anything else as to perhaps why his equipment failed and so on...
In fact, if it was quote, "ruled his death an accident" unquote then we may never find out any additional details as the case is going to be closed for absence of corpus delicti (no components of crime) and no one is going to be "ferreting out" anything else as to perhaps why his equipment failed and so on...
JFS
Contributor
Solo diving I'd wait to hear the results of the accident. I have several thousand solo dives......
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tin_the_fatty
Registered
I've found a report from the Sing Tao Daily (syndicated to the Sina portal) on this incident:-
Sing Tao Daily piece, where Zhu's ex-wife was interviewed,
and
Google Translate
TL;DR: Zhu was meant to dive w/ his buddy. Buddy couldn't go. Zhu drowned.
Did the dive master allow Zhu to dive solo?
Sing Tao Daily piece, where Zhu's ex-wife was interviewed,
and
Google Translate
TL;DR: Zhu was meant to dive w/ his buddy. Buddy couldn't go. Zhu drowned.
Did the dive master allow Zhu to dive solo?
Ken Kurtis
Contributor
I was going to let this one pass but since it's come back up again . . .
Don, why was the first thing you wrote in the very first post of the thread "Gotta wonder if he was solo diving." Quite frankly, that really bugged/bothered me.
(And just for the record, since this case went to the Ventura County Coroner, I have no direct involvement with it.)
There is absolutely nothing in the news report to prompt that kind of baseless speculation. Maybe I'm focusing too much on your choice of words (and maybe you simply wrote this poorly) but why do you "gotta" wonder that? Why would that be the first thing that jumps to your mind? Why not think of accident triggers like (1) out-of-air, (2) heart attack, (3) kelp entanglement, (4) equipment failure, or others? Why lead with solo?
Equally invalid (IMHO) and unwarranted speculation would be:
"Gotta wonder if he was certified by (fill in the blank with your least-favorite agency)."
"Gotta wonder if he was a Democrat."
"Gotta wonder if he was left-handed."
"Gotta wonder if he was a vegetarian."
None of these have anything to do to cause this accident, and certainly not based on the facts as presented in the article. And I won't go through my "don't-speculate" rant again as I think regular readers here know how I feel about baseless speculation.
While your thought stated above (learning from the mistakes of others) is certainly noble, if that's truly the case, start a thread that's called "Mistakes of Others From Which We Can Learn." But don't muddy up a thread discussion with things not known to be true.
It's hard enough with these kind of accidents to get to the true facts. It makes the job even more difficult when you have to wade through the debris of specualtion.
- Ken
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Sorry it bothers you, but no or poor buddy protocols seem to be all to common in death threads, there was none mentioned, and I know that some Ops leave such totally to the diver - so I gotta wonder.
3 out of 4 buddy responsibilities.
None of which are common aspects on these threads.
Ok, so does anyone know anything then, or must we simply wonder about the common mistakes and problems and reinforce avoiding them...?
Got to wonder...?
Ayisha
Contributor
3 out of 4 buddy responsibilities.
That is a very good point, Don. Entanglement, OOG, or equipment failure could all be handled within a good, properly equipped buddy team. Even a heart attack (or other medical issue) victim has a fighting chance if a buddy gets them to the surface before they drown. The odds are stacked against an improperly equipped diver diving alone.
Ken Kurtis
Contributor
Absolutely not. These are DIVER responsibilities. (And even the heart attack is too because if you get regular - like yearly - medical checups for diving, we'd eliminate some already-certified people from diving as they age because of underlying cardiac issues.)
But back to the original point, this whole undercurrent of "my buddy can/will fix whatever goes wrong" is what gets a lot of people in trouble.
You want to learn a lesson from other people's mistakes? Start off with the notion that you need to be self-reliant because - buddy or solo - that may give you your best shot.
- Ken
Ken Kurtis
Contributor
I meant to post this earlier but somehow it didn't show up . . .
Good detective work. But I read the translation as not being a comment on him diving alone, but that the people he intended to make the trip with couldn't go and that he went anyhow. Whether he was matched up with someone on the boat or whether he dove by himself isn't, the way I understood this, addressed in this article.
Regardless, and at the risk of igniting the whole solo debate again, one thing to bear in mind - and this will sound like semantics or splitting hairs - is that there is no accident trigger for solo divers that doesn't also exist for buddy divers. In other words, in the pantheon of things that can go wrong, the lists for solo and buddy are the same.
What DOES change are the options you have to deal with something once the spit has hit the fan. THAT'S where the difference is, not in the maladies that can befall you.
I think it's an important distinction to make and one that frequently gets lost in the sometimes-hysteria of defending a solo or buddy position.
And if you REALLY want to split hairs, you can make the argument that if your buddy isn't watching you every second along the way and vice-versa, you're diving solo even when there's someone with you. But that's a whole 'nother thread . . . BBB
- Ken
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