Two fatalities in Monterey

[Blue Sparkle]

Okay, I can appreciate that point of view, np251. I guess from my angle, I figure we rarely ever DO find out what really happened, and so for me - although of course I would like to know, very much so - the big benefit is the scenario building and discussing. I learn from that.

When someone does post facts, it's a big plus.

I do agree that assumptions about what really happened, or how qualified people were, etc. are not that pleasant or useful. But I like discussing what might have happened, and how the divers involved, or future divers, might have/would act on them.

I'll watch for your future posts; I hope you are feeling as well as you can, considering.

Blue Sparkle

PS: I don't think you came off rude at all. And I can imagine you are feeling some post trauma stress over this. That is totally understandable, and you probably are not typing your best Miss Manners notes. I'll send some positive thoughts your way.

 

[ChadK]

I have ran my tank dry on purpose on a few occasions coming back up the gentle slope of Tahoe. I wanted to know what it was like and feel that the experience was invaluable. I would say that you have a good 20 secs to get to the surface once you notice the signs, panicked maybe 10. I did this in 5 feet of water so I just stood up.( I wouldnt do it in 5 feet of water in the ocean with waves etc of course) I think this is a good exercise for someone to do. (I heard its bad for the tank though) Just my opinion and I am not even close to an experienced diver or instructor.

 

[VooDooGasMan]

chad, ya might get a little chatter, but your thinkin is in ball park, you want a close encounter. classes do the same but are restrained by what can be done. I myself woke up early and decided to go out in front of my house and drop my weights at 77', thats a ferry sunk in front of my house.

Not bad actually, I feel when I flared and held my BC dump open and I just yelled, YEA ALL THE WAY UP AND SAID BABY WHEN I SURFACED, It was not that fast, as I did not have a runaway ascent of air in my BC.

That said, I came back and washed gear, and looked to see ken post divers not dropping weights. I did make a trip around the ferry, for me in a good kick around 5 min's bottom time.

Well I am not bent and I am having a 28 year old single malt scotch to celebrate the fact you should try a few things on your own, to keep in a state of mind you are ready for.

These kids had a great time, just got a bad dose of inexperience, it has made me think of a kid,I taught that I know others had a hard time teaching, I made him aware and just did, and he would do as I Instructed. The triumph was a tug just sunk to dive, it was all intact, I went in, he followed, down below I pointed to an opening and he went. what he did not know was a cabby that loved to attack as you come out. I was a arms reach away and when it came at him, he was a bit shook, I hit the cabby in the face, and this 14 year old, seen what to do.

The story he told grandma , made her yell at me in the dive shop, He is still a diver and a tech at a big dive shop.

Experience is very hard to achieve in the diving world at a young age, I Know, I dove solo at a very young age just to dive, so it is going to be a long haul to get young divers more aware. Yet they might have done the right thing they were taught and ran out of time.

Well I said my thing, and hope these two have a happy after life, cause they were having the time of there lives when it happen.







Happy Diving

 

[Ayisha]

I wouldn't agree with that at all. It seems UNcommon. (Why do you think it's quite common? Is there a source or stats you can share?)

The laryngospasm is probably the best culprit and is the exception, not the rule. I'm not saying it can't happen, just that it rarely happens.

AGE while bringing up an unconscious or deceased diver has come up in a few places. The first time I heard it was on a TV interview with a coroner several years ago. It was in a thread recently by someone who seemed to know, and I believe he said that a person needed to be breathing to vent appropriately, otherwise AGE was likely - but I can't find it right now. It may have been regarding the death of Tina Watson, who suffered an AGE but it was not the cause of death. The embolism was believed to have occurred as she was brought up while unconscious or deceased.

Doctor Lynn has commented on it before:

I've seen a lot of autopsy results that listed AGE, and the discussion is always that the person was basically dead when retrieved and brought to the surface.

Well, there are several mechanisms that might result in embolism. One is laryngospasm, which is not unlikely if somebody has aspirated water. Another is blockage of the posterior pharynx by the tongue. Another is obstruction of the airways with aspirated water. Remember that all you need for embolism is that the gas in the lungs is expanding faster than it can escape, not that it has to be blocked altogether.

If I come across where I read the other info, I'll let you know...

 

[DandyDon]

Do you think so? I thought that A & I was for discussion of, and learning from, accident scenarios (or possible scenarios that are closely related to the accident). I may be wrong though as I am not an old hand here.

Then I thought the "Passings" forum was for condolences and more personal thoughts.

Mind you, I don't think there is a "Passings" thread for these boys (unless I just didn't see it), and I am in no way discouraging people (such as np251) from posting their thoughts or feelings here - especially when people were on-scene; but just, I thought that here it was perfectly appropriate to discuss scenarios and diving technicalities related to the accident/incident, in order to learn from them.

Granted, a few posts may have been somewhat tangential, but I don't think I would say "most" were.

If I'm off base on this mods please correct me.

No, I'd say you are pretty right on there. I am really not good at this sort of thing at all, but I have started a Passings thread for Stephen and Keegan at http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/pa...da-teens-died-diving-california-saturday.html

Sorry, most of the discussion here belonged in different threads.

I hope that someone, somewhere has the opportunity to learn from this tragedy.

In the last 22 years of flying I have lost 3 close friends to fatal accidents. By leaving messages that allow others to stay in this world a little longer, they did not die in vain.

Some perhaps. A discussion was started by an experienced CA diver at http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/basic-scuba-discussions/377950-drop-your-weights-not.html with several comments following.

As can readily be seen by my dive count and more on my profile, I am but a vacation diver - and a klutz diver at that sometimes. I'd put that in my Sig but I have a more important agenda there. I read this thread for sometime without posting before I felt a need to contribute, but my opinions and experiences should still be viewed of a surviving klutz. I've never ran a tank dry on purpose, but a couple of times from stupidity so one is more likely to learn from my mistakes than my successes - except I did swim out of those unscathed.

Mr.Kurtis does certainly contribute a lot of good to many of these discussions and I am certain that he is a top diver and Instructor. He & I may get cross with each other at times over some wordings, some statements, even some views - but he is 100% right that way too many divers drown each year with weights still on. I've never ditched mine in an emergency but I drill on it twice on the first dive of every trip and keep it active on my mind for all dives.

Im mixed on this. It can be useful and i have read extensively from such reports in the past. There are usually some really good nuggets of information there- but the first week or so, its all assumptions and scenario building, unless a first person account is given very early on. Long run, they tend to get more constructive and useful- maybe not so much in a 2-day old thread where only 2 or 3 facts are known, though.

Im holding in several comments that i just cant formulate in my head- related to this incident, but not involving the divers or the group. More of a SR procedures question. Probably be a couple days before i feel like i can post objectively and it wont be here.

edit- im sorry if this sounds like im trying to stop discussion here. This has actually shook me pretty bad so i apologise if ive come off as being argumentative or rude. Its not my intention.

No, not at all. If and when you are ready to share anything, please feel welcome but not before. The undeserved stress you are dealing with is well known and discussed in Rescue classes and a multitude of publishings on Post traumatic stress so your feelings are very understandable. I've read that it's best to talk things out well with trusted friends or professionals, and while that can be easier said than done at times, I hope you feel comfortable sharing here at some time. No rush at all. The Passings thread I posted was with your feelings in mind too, again - as poorly as I handle such at times.

 

[lamont]

But they were not in a cave, or technical diving. They were relatively shallow and from reports the tanks were empty, so they could not inflate. A perfectly good air supply only 60' away. Seems to me only one option.

Drop weights.

Flare.

Keep airway open.

Keep in mind that we've gotten off topic and we're talking about one of the posters practicing this 'skill'.

And this 'skill' is something that technical and cave divers explicitly cannot use, and that proves that there are alternatives. Those alternatives are actually better since they involve things like gas management and skill at emergency air shares.

Anyone looking at this accident and deciding that the lesson is practicing ballistic ascents is looking to risk giving themselves a fatal embolism.

 

[lamont]

Not to beat this thing into the ground (and I think there are some really good points being made here) but . . .

Look.

You do not EVER have to do this.

Even without any gas in your tanks, you are trained to do a *CONTROLLED* emergency *SWIMMING* ascent.

Please stop pontificating about ditching your weightbelt at depth and about 'flaring' and everything else that goes with it.

 

[Ken Kurtis]

Please stop pontificating about ditching your weightbelt at depth and about 'flaring' and everything else that goes with it.

When divers stop dying on the bottom with their weightbelts on, I'll be happy to do that.

- Ken

 

[Blue Sparkle]

Even without any gas in your tanks, you are trained to do a *CONTROLLED* emergency *SWIMMING* ascent.
Please stop pontificating about ditching your weightbelt at depth and about 'flaring' and everything else that goes with it.

Lamont, this leads into a question I have about cold water diving (or, at least, Monterey temperature diving, which is cold to me). This is hypothetical in detail, since I don't know how these divers were attired or what they had in their BCs. I'm just using this as a base for my questions.

If these two divers were wearing thick wetsuits, and if they were either adequately or maybe slightly overweighted, would they typically be too heavy to make a swimming ascent if they had no air in their BCs? (Presuming no redundant buoyancy.) I am thinking their suits would be pretty compressed at 60', right?

Different scenarios:

1) Empty tanks, no air in BC; out of breath.

2) Full tanks, maybe air not turned on or something, buddy out of sight (obviously not the case here but just another scenario).

I'm not trying to make a case FOR dumping weights here, but I'm just trying to run through scenarios and learn something.

3) What if you could not swim or float up for some physical reason (too heavy, incapacitated, fainting....could that happen?). Then is Ken saying that he would drop weights to let his possibly semi- or unconscious self (or selves) at least get to the surface? I know that sounds crazy/last ditch, and of course proper buddy procedure, gas management, balanced rig and etc. should prevent needing this in the first place, but...

As I'm typing this I'm feeling a bit nervous about you just sighing and figuring I Just Don't Get It, but I'm just trying to think it through for myself and sift through the various opinions that have been presented. And since I have only done calculations about cold water/thick wetsuits/maybe-overweighted, but never dived that way, I don't know for sure if all those theoretical rigs could be swum up if one were OOA.

So, please go easy on me. I do understand the concept of trying to prevent these issues in the first place, and I would never go out and practice a runaway/buoyant ascent from depth.

Blue Sparkle

 

[Bubbletrubble]

If these two divers were wearing thick wetsuits, and if they were either adequately or maybe slightly overweighted, would they typically be too heavy to make a swimming ascent if they had no air in their BCs? (Presuming no redundant buoyancy.) I am thinking their suits would be pretty compressed at 60', right?

@Blue Sparkle: Why should they have no air in their BCDs? This implies that they had simultaneous BCD failures...or that they purposefully dumped all of the air in their BCDs prior to trying to ascend. Is this the way OW divers are taught to ascend?

Would it be unreasonable to think that they were at depth with enough air in their BCDs to compensate for wetsuit compression? (In other words, that they were neutrally buoyant at depth at the time of the incident.)

As for your scenarios, I think they could spark some very useful discussion. Perhaps you could start a thread in the New Diver forum on it.