The Down Current Killer

[Hashsaz]

Every diver seems enjoy drifting during wall dives.


I cant really calculate how many wall dives i have done in my logs and i enjoyed it until I witness an incident. It happened somewhere in Indonesia (not going to say which dive spot as this case is just really minor incident but it happens, still a good spot anyway).


It was a wall dive spot. There's 6 divers (all of us were leisure divers and some of us are dive masters) led by a local DM. The current was extremely strong that day and seriously we were hardly see any marine life beside drifting left and right. The only thing we could do was trying to buoyant ourselves at certain depth. Due to the bad condition, we were asked to ascend. A sudden down current hit on some of the divers who left behind. We heard the "beep" sound from the dive comps. We just ignore as what we managed to do was helping our own for safety stop. During the safety stop, we were actually found out one of us was missing, we didn't really care by the time as he was an experienced dive master, shouldn't a problem for him.


We waited in the dive boat for more than 20 mins (including bottom time, more than 80mins) and there's no sign of him, the feeling of fear start striking us. We keep circling around the spot checking for bubbles until more than an hour and half surface time. At last we found him floating somewhere about 1km away, sadly with no pulse.


The local DM checked his dive comp and showed the max depth with 100 over metres underwater. Seems that, this incident was not the first experience for him as we could see his action by checking the dive comp calmly with no hesitation after the body was pulled on the boat.


This incident never stop us from diving anyway, but we do learned a lesson, never take things for granted especially for those who experience drift diving, take good care and good luck.

 

[openmindOW]

The local DM checked his dive comp and showed the max depth with 100 over metres underwater.

I am sorry to hear about your experience.

Could you please confirm the statement above. That is, is it accurate to say that the victim's dive computer showed that the victim had reached a depth of 100 metres?

When did this incident occur?

 

[JamesK]

A death is a minor incident to you? Not seeing a dive buddy on ascent, at the safety stop, and hearing his computer screaming is no worries to you? You only get worried after a half hour of sitting on the service?

Wow. Just wow.

 

[Hashsaz]

openmindOW - yea, the victim's dive comp showed he reached max depth of 100 metres, could be more than that. not sure if the dive comp will show depth with more than 100. This case was happened early of this year.

Jamesk - sorry for my poor english, what did I mean for the "minor" is, it doesn't happen always (low possibilities). Therefore, I'm not going to ask everyone stop diving or dive at the dive spot. And of course I knew it was serious incident, else I won't share it out here.

To make the story more precise, we don't know each other and met only at the boat during the dive, got to know he was a DM working at other place before the dive. That's the first time we met him there but also the last time Along the dive, I was buddy with my friend who is less experience and we were right after the local DM, the victim was always diving alone at behind. We aware bout his lost at the safety stop, but the local DM showed hand signal of "no problem", "ascend" and "wait for him".

Don't know who to blame, but I felt that the local dm or the dive center should pay the full responsibilities as they didn't take immediate action whilst a diver was lost. What we were told by the local dm and boatman, he was their return divers and that's the way he dove (alone) always. He was familiar with the dive site very much. Whatever they told us, just Bullsh*t, everything's over.

Actually, there's few cases more I was at the scene. Personally met 3 death case along my dive logs within the 4 years. 2 other cases were heart attack, those were personal health case so we couldn't comment much on it. The incident I mentioned above was special case, that's what makes me remember him always. With regrets, I never ask for his name. RIP

 

[SangP]

There have been many such incidents already, it's generally acknowledged that some of the local dms have a sense of machismo coupled with a certain lack of responsibility.

Life seems cheap to some people, I would avoid that dive operation and especially that dm forever.

 

[DandyDon]

Hashsaz thanks for sharing your story. I know that some of your expressions may seem odd in that you are translating to English for us even tho it's not your native language. I'm sure it was a horrible experience for all.

Did the down swept divers try to get close to the wall and climb it, away from the wall to get out of the current, or just fight it - do you know? My personal approach is to swim away from the wall, but I've only been in one and it wasn't so bad.

Glad he did finally float up at least. When I die, I'd rather go diving than laying around a hospital bed or old folks home, but I'd hate for anyone to take risks trying to find my body - and I'm guessing it'd be my own mistake that takes me out anyway.

 

[Hashsaz]

Thanks for understanding

The rest of us swam away from the wall for safety stop. Couldn't really see how he was being swept, the only sound we could heard was the "beep", we ignored as our dive comp were alarmed too earlier during the drift. And visibility on the day was just about 2-3 meters, behind me there's 2 more divers and last was him. He was diving alone since the early descend, cant really confirm if the "beep" was from his dive comp or one of 2 divers behind me.

Anyway, hope there's no more incident anymore to every divers on earth. Good dive and safe dive.

 

[smokin3000gt]

What depth was everyone diving prior to surfacing?

 

[peterbj7]

I was present a few years back when divers got caught in a down current. It was at Ras Mohammed in Egypt, and the dive leader (a very experienced instructor) had given a really thorough briefing warning of the down current and not to exceed 20mtr at that point. Despite that two Italian divers chose to ignore her, and she had to leave the group and head down to them. When she reached them they were at 55mtr, still descending, quite unaware of their position, and getting pretty low on air. She dragged them back up (they fought against her) and took them straight to the boat. They didn't dive again that trip as the dive shop impounded their cards. This was an extremely brave act on the part of the instructor, who was on nitrox 32% (or it may have been 36%). They never accepted that they were responsible and would have died except for her.

 

[ScubaSteve]

During the safety stop, we were actually found out one of us was missing, we didn't really care by the time as he was an experienced dive master, shouldn't a problem for him.

I think you all need to seriously consider learning to be a buddy. "I don't care" should never be part of the buddy arrangement.

Edit.....I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say this was a language barrier....lost in translation. BUT, someone, his buddy and the DM/Captain should have been looking for him as soon as they realized he was missing. In fact, the Buddy should not have been able to separate and surface without knowing where the other diver was going (i.e. depth, direction etc.).