The Third Dive: The Death of Rob Stewart

[Wookie]

Understood. I am not suggesting that they shouldn't have participated in the search. Only that perhaps they could have abstained from recovering the body. At that point there was really no hurry.

I disagree, and having spoken to Bleser, he feels exactly as I do. The body was soon to float. 3 days makes a lot of gas.

 

[The Chairman]

Only that perhaps they could have abstained from recovering the body.

Except that they were the recovery team. Why do you think they went back and looked deep?

At that point there was really no hurry.

The ocean is full of scavengers. There is always a certain urgency in recovering a body if it's safe to do so.

 

[agilulfo]

I disagree, and having spoken to Bleser, he feels exactly as I do. The body was soon to float. 3 days makes a lot of gas.

The ocean is full of scavengers. There is always a certain urgency in recovering a body if it's safe to do so.

Understood. But wasn't the coast guard nearby? Couldn't they just wait for the coast guard to arrive and then hand over the recovery to them?

 

[The Chairman]

But it's the nature of people to want to blame someone.

Except themselves or loved ones.

But wasn't the coast guard nearby?

Few Coasties are set up or trained to do a body recovery from 200+ feet. The island's recovery team was right there.

 

[agilulfo]

Few Coasties are set up or trained to do a body recovery from 200+ feet. The island's recovery team was right there.

Ok, thank you for the explanation.

Still, the optics are similar to tomorrow's governor's election in Georgia. Kemp can't be the Secretary of State, in charge of overseeing the election, and also a candidate for Governor and expect that people aren't going to wonder about the integrity of the process.

 

[HalcyonDaze]

There's a big difference between being three days into an open-water search/recovery mission requiring highly-trained and experienced personnel and an election where the pieces are set months or years in advance.

I remember talking to an acquaintance of mine who used to be part of the Key Largo dive community during the search; it reinforced my perception that there were not a lot of people available who could have done a search and recovery for a body at 220 ft in challenging conditions (the sediment in that area is fine silt; I spoke to another friend who dove that area months later and the bottom viz was not great). I don't think the USCG maintains that kind of dive expertise and neither does local law enforcement; besides Bleser's team I imagine the only "official" option would have been to bring Navy divers up from Key West. It's not fishing someone out of a canal.

 

[Wookie]

There's a big difference between being three days into an open-water search/recovery mission requiring highly-trained and experienced personnel and an election where the pieces are set months or years in advance.

I remember talking to an acquaintance of mine who used to be part of the Key Largo dive community during the search; it reinforced my perception that there were not a lot of people available who could have done a search and recovery for a body at 220 ft in challenging conditions (the sediment in that area is fine silt; I spoke to another friend who dove that area months later and the bottom viz was not great). I don't think the USCG maintains that kind of dive expertise and neither does local law enforcement; besides Bleser's team I imagine the only "official" option would have been to bring Navy divers up from Key West. It's not fishing someone out of a canal.

There is not a navy dive team stationed in key west. We bring in the teams for assault training, and MDSU divers from little creek for more pedestrian dives. I do a lot of the commercial diving for the Navy here in Key West. For a Navy Diver to do a dive like that would be a huge deal.

Key West does have the Army Dive School. The students are in no way qualified to make that dive. The instructors are short handed and that isn’t really their gig.

Blesers team is/was the only team in the world that is/was formally formed to provide that service. A team of volunteers.

Cave rescuers like we saw in Thailand and north Florida are throw together teams of expert cave divers, and I take nothing from them, but the Key Largo WET is a special
Team with a special mission. For the navy to come down for that would have required mobilization of millions in assets and weeks of planning.

The Coast Guard does not even perform their own ships husbandry in Key West or Miami

 

[HalcyonDaze]

There is not a navy dive team stationed in key west. We bring in the teams for assault training, and MDSU divers from little creek for more pedestrian dives. I do a lot of the commercial diving for the Navy here in Key West. For a Navy Diver to do a dive like that would be a huge deal.

Key West does have the Army Dive School. The students are in no way qualified to make that dive. The instructors are short handed and that isn’t really their gig.

Blesers team is/was the only team in the world that is/was formally formed to provide that service. A team of volunteers.

Cave rescuers like we saw in Thailand and north Florida are throw together teams of expert cave divers, and I take nothing from them, but the Key Largo WET is a special
Team with a special mission. For the navy to come down for that would have required mobilization of millions in assets and weeks of planning.

The Coast Guard does not even perform their own ships husbandry in Key West or Miami

I stand corrected and I can't say that surprises me too much. Overall I'm somewhat grimly amused at the perception by some on this thread that Rob should have been left down there until the cast of CSI: Miami suited up and headed down to examine him in situ. My only familiarity with body recoveries is from reading and I hope it stays that way, but aside from a cursory check of gauges and equipment I've never heard of someone trying to do "forensics" while the body is on the bottom. It's not like you have oodles of time down there.

 

[Bob DBF]

My only familiarity with body recoveries is from reading and I hope it stays that way, but aside from a cursory check of gauges and equipment I've never heard of someone trying to do "forensics" while the body is on the bottom. It's not like you have oodles of time down there.

FBI has dive teams that do forensics. Actually the local dive team where I used to live can do forensics, their usual job is water rescue and recovery, but the remains my buddy and I found around 90' was beyond the working range of the local team. It took four or five months for the FBI team to get there.

In this case it was not a diver, the victim was a suicide around ten years earlier that was not found at the time. Granted the lake is dark and very silty, and our find was luck and not kicking up silt.



Bob

Sorry about the hijack.

 

[Wookie]

For those who think well of Beaver, the Monroe County Medical Examiner, he begged for his job back. The state board of medical examiners just held a hearing. No one had anything nice to say....Beaver all but gone from ME’s office