Yet another senseless death

[amtrosie]

Below is a link to the report of another death in the Keys. The site this woman was diving has a max depth of about 40 feet (13 meters).


The point I want to emphasize is the level of discomfort experienced by this woman. She is obviously an inexperienced and an infrequent diver (these two all too often are synonymous). A diver MUST NEVER BE PRESSURED TO MAKE A DIVE THEY ARE UNCOMFORTABLE DOING!!! To do anything other than affirm the decision to abort a dive is totally irresponsible!!!

The other issue here is for the inexperienced or infrequent diver, and that is NEVER, NEVER, NEVER assume a dive is "easy" to do. I am seeing more posters here that are new to this wonderful sport. Take to heart the axiom "your certification is just a licence to learn". Never under-estimate the necessity of continued practise and training.

Let us not let yet another death pass us by without trying to learn from the many tragic mistakes (and there were many) of this accident



http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/loc...,6542357.story

[acelockco]

Thanks for posting the link to the story. I feel before we jump to conclusions and try to find a lesson that needs to be learned, we need to find out what actually happened.

From what the story implies, she drowned because she paniced. I never heard of anyone drowning because of panic. When we find out the real and entire story only then can we determine if there is a lesson to be learned.

[acelockco]

Was she even SCUBA diving or was she skin diving? I could understand how someone with too much weight and no SCUBA gear on could drown. If that is the case, I guess the lesson is don't be stupid.

[hbh2oguard]

The article was pretty short and lacking details, but it sounded like they weren't actually diving yet. I don't see how one could drown on the surface before a dive, with a buddy at their side. Drop weight, inflate BCD, or sink all 40ft with a reg in your mouth and then drop weight. Maybe I read the article the wrong way but if the case is what I think this is, her or her buddy had NO business being in the water. Is there a longer article somewhere bescides the one on the link?

[hbh2oguard]

I never heard of anyone drowning because of panic. When we find out the real and entire story only then can we determine if there is a lesson to be learned.

I fully agree that we need more details, but I believe it was Scuba diving because she was on a dive boat and was a certified Scuba diver. One thing I couldn't disagree with more is what you said about panic. The number one cause anyone drowns is due to panic from lack of expierence. Panic kills.

[acelockco]

I think you miss understood me. She may have paniced, but that did not kill her. She did something else that killed her. Maybe she paniced and then tried to inhale water, but she died from drowning not panic.

There is no such thing as cause of death "panic". There is such a thing as cause of death "drowning".

[hbh2oguard]

Yes that's very true, you can't directly die from panic. But panic indirectly kills. More than likely not the person would still be alive today if she didn't panic about the weight problem. Does anyone have more info about what happened?????

[lottie]

It's always terrible news to hear of a fellow diver's death under circumstances that could have been prevented.

I agree that we don't know enough about the story to make an informed choice as to what went wrong and know that if we were involved in a similar predicament to know what actions to take to rectify the situation.

The one part of the story that I didn't understand was her friend (i'm assuming he was also her buddy?) tried to help her drop her weights - which to me, seems the most obvious thing to do, especially if she was complaining she had too much weight - but then she paniced? That doesn't make sense.

As she was complaining of too much weight before entering the water, shouldn't/wouldn't another diver/DM/Instructor talk to her about the weight and make sure she had enough to maintain neutral buoyancy?

If she was diving in < 30ft of water (I know Amtrosie mentioned max depth of 40ft), she would have been within the limits to do a CESA (Controlled Emergency Swimming Ascent)???

[amtrosie]

You asked for more details, here is as much as is known:


http://www.keynoter.com/articles/200...ews/news07.txt




As for those who question how panic could lead to a death, I can only assume that you have never dealt with a panicked diver. When one perceives ones life to be in jeopardy, you will do literally ANYTHING to remove oneself from that situation. Why is it that during rescue classes they instruct the rescuer to be behind the victim? Simply put, to maintain control of the situation. If the victim becomes violent, push them away. This is where you have them move towards you (the rescuer), as you move to safety. Unrealistic, you say? NO!!! You are dealing with an irrational being and everything, I repeat, everything is not only possible, but likely to occur.

In any accident investigation, there is never one cause of an accident but several. It is referred to as the "chain of events". It is the CULMINATION of individual events that causes the accident.

The ancillary issues are not, and were not, the impetus for the original post. My aim is not to impugn the dive operation, diver, or the buddy diver. I wish to focus on the event, and what all contributed to the event occurring. Sure the dive boat and others MAY have been able to do something differently, none of us who were not there will ever know.

What are you capable of doing? That is the question

The above discussion is proof enough of the lack of awareness of divers, placed in an emergency situation. The whole point of a GOOD rescue class is to train a better diver. By making a diver aware of what can occur, train them to prevent it from ever starting. Thus stopping a potential accident/incident before it ever starts.

What may not be known to the board is the number of deaths that have occurred in the Keys, and in South Florida lately. If we as a dive community do not start being proactive about the lack of skills and training the "certified" diver possesses, we WILL be under the scrutiny of the various government agencies very soon. Which will lead to control by those same agencies. This will occur both in the US and abroad.



So, AGAIN, I ask what can I learn from this latest death?

[lottie]

Thanks for the further info Amtrosie.

Not having done the Rescue course (as yet), I wouldn't know the first steps in dealing with a panicked diver - for their safety as well as my own.

It seems from this latest news that she was still at the surface. Maybe there was something else that panicked her - i noticed they haven't got the results of the toxicology report as yet and as you so rightly put it, "none of us who were not there will ever know."

The only lessons that we can learn from this is to make sure that if we are uncomfortable about diving due to anything (equipment, our own state of mind, feeling uncomfortable about the conditions or have a sixth-sense about something), we should a.) speak to someone or b.)abort the dive altogether (you may say thats a bit drastic).
If it's someone else - either our buddy or someone we have never met before - we should have the balls to say something and make sure that they are comfortable about doing the dive....it might save a situation similar to this happening.