Originally Posted by hbh2oguard
I suspect that may be a translation issue and they really mean 'he hit the bottom'?
Having nearly caused my own demise through my own stupidity years ago I found that dragged up a memory or two .......... as if it wasn't harrowing enough on its own.
Was this a recent incident & was that at the famous "Blue Hole".
What was the purpose of the dive? To do a bounce dive to get to the bottom and back?
Dive Accident on Tape
I am hesitant to comment on a fellow diver's demise, because people in glass houses should not throw stones. So I am commenting here not to criticize but to add to a discussion that will hopefuly help all of us to avoid these kinds of incidents.
On a fast descent like this (mentioned 30m/100ft per minute), your task load is very high and you constantly have to equalize your ears. We often use this technique on deep dives and you don't have a spare hand for cameras or other toys. One hand goes for your nose and the other is on your controls, whether that is depth guage and/or BCD inflator. If you dont equalize on such a fast descent you will pop your ear drums and suffer pain and vertigo.
It often happens that when you get into the water with a lot of toys (camera etc) your BCD inflator hose gets caught behind your head. If you have the habit of deflating the BCD through a different dump valve, you may not realize that the inflator hose is entangled somewhere, until you reach for it to inflate the BCD. Finding that entangled inflator hose while you are dropping like a rock, combined with ears popping, vertigo, panic and narcosis, the outcome is not likely to be good. I could not hear any attempts to inflate his BCD on the video.
Some of the comentators on the video mentions he is descending without his buddy being next to him. If you get caught in a runnaway descent your buddy will not be of any help. In fact you will drop out of sight before your buddy even realizes you have gone missing. Also if your buddy does not have experience and training in deep diving, then he will probably not be able to help you either.
Another comment on the video was that he got entangled in the sand. Sorry but you cant get entangled in sand. The diver was obviously disoriented, in panic, narc'ed and possibly in pain, which would explain why he apparently dropped his regulator and attempted to get away from the situation.
Condolences to the family, and may we all learn from this. Complacency and lack of training has no place underwater.
TD van Niekerk
Good points made
You're right, now that I think about it, I don't remember hearing the inflator
going off either. This was, what about 6, almost 7 years ago? Has anyone
been able to find any info to the conclusions of what had happen to
cause this? Was it the plan to bounce? Why didn't/couldn't he stop? etc...
Last edited by lars2923; 02-26-2007 at 09:38 AM.
Lars
Explore, understand, protect
"Let's go Diving"
Yes, it would at least be a help to be able to learn from something like this. I often see with the media that they report on a diver death, but when it comes time to report the conclusions of why it happened the media is bored and has moved on. But the rest of us can only learn if we know what went wrong and analyse how to make sure it doesn't happen to us.
That's just sad!
I fully agree that toys get in the way but I'd really like to hear any follow up since it did happen awhile ago.
This Diving instructor, was a full Tri-Mix diver, very experianced russian, alot of russians divers here love to go to the extreme limits.
Gas was Tri-mix, he showed his computer to the camera, just to record the depth on camera, i have seen this done quite often. as was stated, he was too heavy, left his buddy behind, i would say he lost control of the dive in the very beginning when he left his buddy. the descent was 100 feet/min= WAY too fast.
this was a needless accident, it shouldnt have happend.
why we go over our limits is a compleate mistery.
the dive was planned as a touch and go dive, the camera was hung in his V space, he went down too heavy, could be for very rapid descent, i dont know, it happend in the Blue-Hole site in Sinai Red-Sea.
one of the more horrific diving accidents in my eyes.
sad.
i will try to get the full official report, got it in hebrew, i'll translate it for us all. will be a job though.
i hope we do learn from all these accidents.
he did hit the bottom, but beforehand had bounced off the rock wall, out of controll, the all the people in the movie the senior ones used to dive that site in the 50's-late 80's and have been part of rescue teams and rescues in that specific spot, they are all diving instructors, some were Israeli "seals"
all are very well known in the diving industry and are concidered experts in the field here.
I'll try to get the full report translated.
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