Northwest Dive Club

I heard that a DIT student (diver) died in Cove 2 today. Anyone hear more details?

Didn't hear about being a student, but heard he was found by himself in 30 feet of water, brought to shore by two divers who found him, then 911 was called. Emergency treatment was unsuccessful.

Well, like always, the stories have started conflicting with themselves. Not sure which is correct, but here is what I heard…..

I came out of the water this evening with my buddy, and went into the restaurant for some chowder and a beer. I hadn’t heard about the diver yet, but once inside the owner (manager?) told me a diver had just died there.

Apparently she knows the guy who pulled out the victim, and spoke with him. Although I thought she said the victim was only around thirty, but in any event he was solo diving with his fiancé waiting on shore for him. She said something happened to cause him to “pop up” and yell something before going down again. There were other divers in the vicinity and her friend (I think recently certified 6 weeks ago) was able to get to/find him and pull him out. The reporters got there almost as fast as the ambulance according to her. No one knew yet what had actually happened though.

Not exactly the same story as the paper reported, and I suppose the tragic end result is what really matters. There were five deaths there last year (by her count), and this year is getting off to any early start.

Sad......

Solitude Diver wrote: with his fiancé waiting on shore for him.

I suppose the tragic end result is what really matters.

Sad......

We should all wish the best for her and a strong and positive recovery.

I spent nearly a year consoling someone who lost a loved one kayaking with me. They are now both in my prayers.

one of the divers who attempted the rescue posted over on scubaboard:

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/accide ... diver.html

here's the account:

jodomonk wrote: Hello everyone,

My dive buddy and I, along with two other divers, pulled a man out of Seacrest Park Cove 2 today. He was in about 35 feet of water or so and did not have his regulator in his mouth. Our best guess is that he was down 3-5 minutes. He had surfaced, screamed for help (meanwhile my buddy and I were beginning ascent from our dive), and then gone back under. When we came up, his fiance was yelling from the shore about a diver being under us. My partner went down for about 2 minutes (I only had 450 psi left and could not risk going back down, he had 1100) and when he came back up, he had the guy in tow, frothing from the mouth and not breathing. His tank was empty so we had to manually inflate his BCD as we towed him in. When we got him to shore, paramedics had just arrived on site and began chest compressions along with that squeezy thing they put over your mouth. Eventually they hooked up some kind of machine to his chest as well as an I.V. I heard his fiance mention something about him being prone to panic attacks. 10-15 minutes later he was loaded onto an ambulance and they took off for Harborview Medical Center(he was still unconscious or not alive).

My guess is that he did not make it, but I am no medical expert and have been searching for information all day long, hoping for the best. If anyone finds out what the outcome was, please post. I would be very grateful.

the poster mentioned he's waiting on approval to get on this board...

Solitude Diver wrote:There were five deaths there last year (by her count), and this year is getting off to any early start.

Sad......

To the best of my knowledge, there were two diving-related deaths in West Seattle last year ... one at Cove 2 and one at the Pipeline. There were five in all of the Puget Sound area (including the San Juan Islands) ... which is still a very bad year ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Both the fiance and rescuing divers are in my prayers.

-Valerie :-(

ken and i did a long dark hour at cove 2 that night, vis was pretty poor. and the seals were not helping at all. my condolences to the family.

Hi everyone,

I'm one of the divers who towed Joshua in to shore and my account can be found posted above by lamont. I just wanted to say the fiance issued a statement saying that Josh did not make it. Her statement can be found here.

My prayers go out to his friends, family, and fiance. Rest in peace.

jodomonk wrote:Hi everyone,

I'm one of the divers who towed Joshua in to shore and my account can be found posted above by lamont. I just wanted to say the fiance issued a statement saying that Josh did not make it. Her statement can be found here.

My prayers go out to his friends, family, and fiance. Rest in peace.

Welcome to the board- sorry to "meet" you under these circumstances; and thank you for your rescue efforts with the deceased.

I agree, this is a grim start to the new year for the diving community and I'm sure a very traumatic event for the diver's fiance. My prayers go out to her and to the diver's family. I wish there were words that would help console his loved ones, but sadly if there are I don't know them. May he rest in peace.

Hey Jodo,

Yes, welcome to the board. This board is a safe place to talk about anything you'd like and ask as many questions as you wish. Everyone here is very friendly and there are highly experienced members here with lots of wisdom to share.

We're glad you found us, though we all wish it wasn't under these circumstances. This kind of thing sucks. Be aware, sometimes discussions in online forums don't go so well when these sort of incidents happen... but this is a relaxed group.

We're looking forward to meeting you in person - go to the introductions page and share more about yourself!

-Doug

Jodo,
Thank You and your buddy for your couragous efforts! My prayers also are going out for Joshuas family and fiance. It is sad that we have to read
about these unfoutunate accidents at Alki but they all seem to have that one common thread. Solo Diving! Why? Or lack of a buddies help. It sheds a dark light on the Dive community and I am greatful that we have this board for such disscussions. Jodo, I hope you and your buddy are dealing with the emotions that this sort of thing brings up. Please don't be hesitant to seek the help of a profesional to help you, if you or your buddy needs it.

God Bless,

Keith.

Jodo...and anyone else who may have been involved in this situation...my thoughts and prayers are with you.

I must tell you that for a newer diver, I'm impressed with the entire "rescue". From what I've heard, it sounded like everything was done as it should be. And to be in the situation and not push personal safety limits regarding a low tank of air...that's to be commended.

Looking forward to diving with you prior to your trip to NZ.

Cheers!

My condolences to friends and family of the diver as well as to the rescuers, that must be tough to get that close and have the victome die anyway.

It also reinforces my belief in NEVER diving solo.

Sometimes it takes incidents like these to make us think. Unfortunately we have been thinking alot this past year.

Another week and I should be back at it...

Any news as to the cause of the accident. I assume the death was of course caused by drowning, but what of the cause of the OOA that was described?

The only thing I could think of was that he came to the surface and didn't have air to fill his BC and wasn't thinking clearly enough to dump his weight?

My condolences.

Yeh, I'd be interested in hearing the final cause myself. Gives us something else to practice during safety stops.

Sergeant Pepper wrote: The only thing I could think of was that he came to the surface and didn't have air to fill his BC and wasn't thinking clearly enough to dump his weight?.

This was my first thought as well. His rescuers apparently didn't drop it either.

Sergeant Pepper wrote:Any news as to the cause of the accident. I assume the death was of course caused by drowning, but what of the cause of the OOA that was described?

The only thing I could think of was that he came to the surface and didn't have air to fill his BC and wasn't thinking clearly enough to dump his weight?

My condolences.

In Sheryl's case she went OOG at 10 fsw and held her breath to the surface and the ME found lung barotrauma and a cerebral arterial gas embolism. She was conscious at the surface for a few minutes before slipping into unconsciousness.

Similar thing could have happened here with OOG due to inattention leading to barotrauma+CAGE...

The other possbility is, of course, OOG and being overweighted, unable to swim it on the surface, and not trained or not aware enough to drop weights and orally inflate.

Might have been OOG due to free-flow as well, we'll never know...

The lesson here, I think, is that OOG situation immediately severely limit your options. You have a minute or two to safely get to the surface without blowing your lungs and establish positive buoyancy.

lamont wrote: The lesson here, I think, is that OOG situation immediately severely limit your options. You have a minute or two to safely get to the surface without blowing your lungs and establish positive buoyancy.

Was he OOG? Is that confirmed or speculation?

If he was OOG, was he not diving with a redundant air source? If not, why not ... or if so, why didn't he deploy it?

People seem to be in a hurry to blame this accident on "solo diving". Seems to me the more I read that it was a case of someone doing something that they had neither the training nor equipment for. In other words, this accident happened because of decisions made before this diver ever touched the water.

Makes me wonder ... if this guy had just grabbed a rebreather, taken it diving and killed himself with it ... would these same detractors be saying that rebreather diving is dangerous, and should never be done?

Somehow I doubt it ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Grateful Diver wrote: Was he OOG? Is that confirmed or speculation?

I'd consider that confirmed. Both jodomonk's writeup and Ivan's writeup mention having to orally inflate his BC at the surface due to his backgas being dry. Ivan went into considerable detail on how much of a PITA his combined alternate air/inflator was to use to orally inflate.

I know from experience that witness details are very far from perfect, but independent confirmation and level of detail suggests this is pretty good information.

If he was OOG, was he not diving with a redundant air source? If not, why not ... or if so, why didn't he deploy it?

Nobody so far has mentioned any redundant air source.

I don't think everybody's trying to blame it on solo diving. The root causes go back further than being in the water alone, and if his tanks hadn't run dry, it doesn't sound as though he would have died. Why his tanks were dry, we'll never know. I've had a freeflow in Cove 2. It doesn't take very long to empty a single tank through a LP hose.

And a bad buddy may be no help, to be sure. But, when this man went under the water the last time, he had about four minutes to live with any meaningful neurologic function. I don't know about anybody else here, but I can't swim from the shore of Cove 2 to the can buoy and descend and find a diver in four minutes. If I surface with my buddy, and he yells and goes back down, I may very well be able to find him within one, and get him to the surface in two or three.

No matter what the series of events was that led to the emergency, the fact that he made that last descent alone almost guaranteed that he would not survive it. I think that's what gets us focused on the "solo diving" part of this.

It's no question that it's better to prevent emergencies than to cope with them. Training, experience, a better equipment configuration for what he was doing, and careful gas monitoring might have kept this from happening at all. But the final straw was that nobody was at hand to get him up to the surface in enough time for him to live. Even those of you who are defending diving alone have to acknowledge that.

Actually, I'm not defending solo diving ... the more I learn about this situation, the more convinced I become that this person had absolutely no business underwater by himself.

Just to make that clear.

What I am trying to do is to stop people from making assumptions, jumping to conclusions, and focusing on the wrong "lessons" ... if, in fact, it's anyone's intention to try learning anything from this tragedy.

We're all familiar with the saying "you don't know what you don't know".

Suppose for a moment that rather than making a topic "taboo", we were to give people an inkling what it was they didn't know.

Don't you think they'd then be in a position to make better decisions?

The relevent question isn't whether this person would've been better off with a buddy ... it's why was this person solo diving in the first place?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Actually now it sounds like his tanks weren't dry:

Ivan Smigoc wrote: It looked like steel tank but I am not sure. I think it had that plastic thing that keeps your tank up on a dry land.

I couldn't see what type of weights he was having because I was focused on trying to put some gas in his BCD, plus there were so many colors
and staff on him that it was very confusing especially considering that I had narrower vision as well. Once we started to pull him up he was
very, very heavy. We couldn't swim him up, so the other diver grab him and he probably inflated his working BCD and that's how they got up.
Once on the surface it took three guys to keep him afloat on the surface and start pulling him to the sore. It looked like he was seriously
overweight. Also, when I found him at the bottom he didn't had his mask on.

I overheard police on the shore that he had gas in the tank (take this with reserve, because that's what I think I heard). I am sure that his
inflator was not working underwater at 30 feet. Could be many things, one that come to mind is partially open valve and with his configuration
and tank sitting low he didn't have chance to open the valve. Once under pressure not enough air was coming through. Just my guessing, I could
be totally off.

Carrie wrote: Yes, there was air in his tank. I was with the police when they were purging his primary reg and lots of air was flowing at what sound like a
normal purge. Don't know how much gas was actually in the tank, though. I remember seeing a console type computer. Didn't see an analog
SPG.