missing diver?

[lamont]

If she was with the buddy at 15', then who cares what the depth they were at previously was?

No, if you run OOG at 15' because you were down at 120 that would make the 120 foot depth relevant.

[lamont]

You know, screw trying to be PC. A 19 year old is dead, which just shouldn't happen. She didn't have a heart attack. My bet is that someone really screwed up in her training or on the dive plan. Sorry. I don't know if it was 120 feet or not, class or not, her fault, buddies fault, instructors fault, whatever. Someone really screwed up. Sue me for noting the obvious.

[Burntchef]

so if it was equipment issues then whos fault is it?? why are we instantly looking to blame someone? i appreciate your feelings that a 19 year old person is dead and that f***in sucks but here we go again " stating the obvious" when we know next to nothing. maybe no one screwed up.

[gcbryan]

so if it was equipment issues then whos fault is it?? why are we instantly looking to blame someone? i appreciate your feelings that a 19 year old person is dead and that f***in sucks but here we go again " stating the obvious" when we know next to nothing. maybe no one screwed up.

I agree. Sometimes things just happen and your number is up. I think that's more or less what happened with the death at the Alki Pipeline last year. Accidents happend around the house, on the road, while rafting down the river and generally people just accept it as such. In diving it seems we must get angry or find someone to blame for some reason. I don't get it.

[ljjames]

I was under the impression that the fatality at alki was in fact a lack of enough positive buoyancy at the start of a dive whilst gearing up which allowed things to get out of control when the 'rogue wave' hit.

a) Enough gas in BCD when putting on fins/entering the water to float, especially when diving doubles.
b) buddy within arms reach and/or helping
c) regulator in mouth

any one of these three things would quite possibly have changed the outcome.

I'm with Lamont on this one. I truly hate to hear about divers dying. Short of natural causes there is just NO excuse. It DOES come down to "blame/accountability" and being able to accept this and learn from it... If we pretend that nothing could have saved her (again I'm talking short of something like an occult cardiac issue) then we are being foolish. Upon review of the actual facts and a true accident analysis I for one believe that we'd see many "forks" in the road where decisions made lead to misfortune.

Although speculation bothers some people, in fact it does serve a purpose, it opens peoples eyes and thought processes to some other 'risk' factors that may or may not have occurred to them. When we learn the 'real' story, it's interesting to see how close our armchair quarterbacking really was.

Some things that would be telling...

Gas remaining in buddy's tanks
what was her tank pressure at the start of the dive
how familiar were they with this site
how many dives did she have recently?
Was it in fact a class? (Advanced openwater still counts as a 'class')
etc...

[John Rawlings]

I was under the impression that the fatality at alki was in fact a lack of enough positive buoyancy at the start of a dive whilst gearing up which allowed things to get out of control when the 'rogue wave' hit.

a) Enough gas in BCD when putting on fins/entering the water to float, especially when diving doubles.
b) buddy within arms reach and/or helping
c) regulator in mouth

any one of these three things would quite possibly have changed the outcome.

I'm with Lamont on this one. I truly hate to hear about divers dying. Short of natural causes there is just NO excuse. It DOES come down to "blame/accountability" and being able to accept this and learn from it... If we pretend that nothing could have saved her (again I'm talking short of something like an occult cardiac issue) then we are being foolish. Upon review of the actual facts and a true accident analysis I for one believe that we'd see many "forks" in the road where decisions made lead to misfortune.

Although speculation bothers some people, in fact it does serve a purpose, it opens peoples eyes and thought processes to some other 'risk' factors that may or may not have occurred to them. When we learn the 'real' story, it's interesting to see how close our armchair quarterbacking really was.

Some things that would be telling...

Gas remaining in buddy's tanks
what was her tank pressure at the start of the dive
how familiar were they with this site
how many dives did she have recently?
Was it in fact a class? (Advanced openwater still counts as a 'class')
etc...

Well, I'm NOT "with Lamont on this one". His statement, "screw being PC", is unreal. No one wants PC crap....what is wanted, and needed, is actual facts before we start blaming everyone under the sun and conjuring up imaginary scenarios.

No one here is saying that "nothing could have saved her"....I'm not sure how you plucked that out of the blue. What people are saying is that some actual FACTS would be good things to have before the peanut gallery starts their shrill dialog and writing fiction.

Now, if we actually HAD the information you mention:

Gas remaining in buddy's tanks
what was her tank pressure at the start of the dive
how familiar were they with this site
how many dives did she have recently?
Was it in fact a class? (Advanced openwater still counts as a 'class')

Plus maybe even a couple more:

Was it a boat or shore dive?
What WAS the actual depth?

THEN it really WOULD make for a good discussion involving at least SOME facts.

Right now ALL we REALLY know is that a young female diver entered the water but didn't come up....

A couple of our members have stated that they are attempting through channels to get additional information regarding the incident. It seems that even a couple days of patience might bear fruit and add some facts to the mix.

I'm sure that there are other boards that have a witch-hunt going on this already for those that enjoy participating in such things. It doesn't mean that it has to happen here....

- John

[Nwbrewer]

That's the first time I've ever been accused of being the PC police.

All I'm saying is wait until you have something slightly more solid than what the talking bubble heads report to base that conjecture on. More than likley lljames is right, and there were many forks that would have lead to this girl coming to the surface safe and sound. But let's see if something a little more solid shakes out before we start randomly guessing at what the road look like, let alone which forks SHOULD have been taken.

Jake

[OreCoastDiver]

Two of the 3 instructors who teach at WWU are good friends of mine. If and when I can get some solid info I'll let everybody know.

-Ben

It sounds to me like this may have been an AAUS check out dive. If so, we can count on a through investigation and report. My guess is that the Walla Walla diving program will be shut down for about a year. Some programs never recover after an accident like this. Where I work the AAUS diving program never did come back after a diver fatality. Too bad, because we need to do some shellfish surveys and about the only way to get all the info is with divers.

[Joshua Smith]

so if it was equipment issues then whos fault is it?? why are we instantly looking to blame someone? i appreciate your feelings that a 19 year old person is dead and that f***in sucks but here we go again " stating the obvious" when we know next to nothing. maybe no one screwed up.

I agree. Sometimes things just happen and your number is up. I think that's more or less what happened with the death at the Alki Pipeline last year. Accidents happend around the house, on the road, while rafting down the river and generally people just accept it as such. In diving it seems we must get angry or find someone to blame for some reason. I don't get it.

Well put. I find it interesting that if she had died driving to the dive site because she wasn't wearing a seat belt, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

[LCF]

We don't know much about this incident, and that's true.

But I agree with Lamont. A 19 year old girl shouldn't die diving in Puget Sound. She wasn't in an environment where catastrophic downwellings could carry her too deep to recover, and short of that, ANYTHING that happened to her should have been survivable with good training and execution by her and her companions.

I know of four deaths in the Sound in the time I've been diving (there may have been more -- I can just think of four). All four were eminently avoidable. There is no "it was your time", unless your previously asymptomatic cerebral aneurysm or coronary lesion decides to cause trouble while you're underwater. And what makes diving deaths so much more poignant is that they are so often young people, who had a lot more time to live.

[Tom Nic]

But I agree with Lamont. A 19 year old girl shouldn't die diving in Puget Sound.

OF COURSE NOT! No one is saying that. No one is saying everything was wonderful and that no one is to blame. No one is saying don't learn from the incident. No one is saying to not deal with responsible parties IF THERE ARE responsible parties.

The only point is to try and avoid speculation with no info which almost ALWAYS makes a thread go off on rants and ends up having our own "private" trial - again on almost zero objective information. Surely you are aware of the flame fests that result from that, (and from which usually nothing good comes) as well as the often stated intention is that NWDC does not want to go down that road. No one is defending anyone, we're just trying to keep the skids from getting greased and things getting out of control. We can learn from this as more info comes in.

Again sympathies to the family and friends who have lost a loved one... and dive safe, please.

[CaptnJack]

I know of four deaths in the Sound in the time I've been diving (there may have been more -- I can just think of four). All four were eminently avoidable. There is no "it was your time", unless your previously asymptomatic cerebral aneurysm or coronary lesion decides to cause trouble while you're underwater. And what makes diving deaths so much more poignant is that they are so often young people, who had a lot more time to live.

A co-worker of mine Kevin Lee, died of an acute MI diving at Keystone ~2 yrs ago. They were swept around the end, he struggled to swim up current out of the ferry lane leading to his MI and eventual death. That's the only "its your time" (and that's somewhat debatable) scuba death I know of locally in the last 5 or so years. The rest have been much more preventable incidents involving OOA/lack of bouyancy/excess depth/blown deco/faulty gear/faulty classes, etc etc. A 19yo diving off Rosario Beach can ONLY be preventable. Hence there is a responsible party. Whether they will ever come to light is questionable.

[Joshua Smith]

Yes, it's true that many diving deaths are preventable. As are many other kinds of death. But speculating about what might have happened in a particular incident on this forum will not change much of anything. Does writing about how smoking, overeating, and not wearing seat belts are bad for you change anything? Maybe a little bit, but overall, not much.


It has been the policy on this site not to speculate about any specific death, for reasons that I am actually getting tired of repeating. When facts become known, if they ever do, we can fall all over them like a pack of starving hyenas, and disect them endlessly. But if this thread turns into a speculative blame-fest about training agencies and standards, I will simply lock or delete it, just like the last one.

[dwashbur]

While I agree that blame-fests are counter-productive, I don't mind a certain amount of speculation on a board like this one, simply because things come up that I never thought of before, and I learn something. The one about the "rogue wave" is a good example. I never thought about such a possibility; I like to make sure my buddies and I are plenty buoyant before we enter, but I almost always enter with my snorkel rather than my reg, mainly because I can get really goofy about preserving my air as much as possible. After hearing about that Alki Pipeline accident, I'm rethinking that. Speculating on things that might have gone wrong, tossing ideas around, I like. Pointing fingers, I don't. As long as the speculation takes the form of "could it have been X" where I can pick up more tips about being safe, I'm in favor of it. "Somebody's to blame and maybe it was X, Y or Z" I agree is bad form. If it starts descending into that, definitely cut it off. But I don't really see that happening on this thread... yet.

[lamont]

so if it was equipment issues then whos fault is it??

if equipment issues *alone* could kill me on a recreational dive at rosario beach, i would stop diving.

the guy with cancer at redondo awhile back is one where the only way to prevent it would have been for him to
take a different risk-reward assessment and simply stop diving after his diagnosis -- and there was no reasonable way he could have known what his actual risks were with diving and his chemo. i would consider that to have
been an accident.

i do find this incident unacceptable.

and i also find most car accidents unacceptable, too. the example of driving to the site and dying because you weren't wearing a seatbelt is unacceptable. dying and/or killing someone because you were talking on your cellphone is unacceptable. and most drivers even when they're off the cellphone have poor situational awareness. that is also not really acceptable, but i don't know how to change that other than by changing american society to realize that the not all the walls are padded in this asylum and some of them are sharp and you need to pay attention.

and i'm not speculating about facts that we don't know. here are the known facts:

1. 19 year old
2. rosario beach
3. dead

that's unacceptable. if you've got evidence that she was actually a 50-year old with diagnosed heart disease and diabetes diving the narrows and the papers have gotten those facts all wrong, then i'm terribly sorry for jumping to conclusions.

[Tom Nic]

I agree that blame-fests are counter-productive, ...But I don't really see that happening on this thread... yet.

Agreed! But trust me, it can go there REAL fast... we are just working for that NOT to happen.

i do find this incident unacceptable.

and i'm not speculating about facts that we don't know. here are the known facts:

1. 19 year old
2. rosario beach
3. dead

that's unacceptable.

Sigh... of course it's unacceptable. No one is saying anything to the contrary....

[LCF]

Tom, you are, of course, right -- Rampant speculation isn't fair or useful.

In any given incident, it can be very difficult to identify root causes. Diver has a free flow and runs out of gas, for example, and instead of sharing air with a buddy, bolts to the surface but doesn't make it and drowns. Is the equipment at fault for freeflowing? Is the shop at fault for selling the diver a reg which is known to have issues in cold water? Is the instructor at fault for not adequately training the diver to cope with freeflows or OOA situations? Is the diver himself at fault for not practicing skills so he's competent in emergencies? Or was it the luck of the draw, and a well-trained and prepared diver whose training failed to kick in in the face of excess fear? We never really know, but we can actually often accomplish something useful by discussing all of those possibilities.

Once more information about this incident is known, it may be that some topics like the ones above will be well worth some batting about. In the meantime, I share Lamont's distress that an incident like this just shouldn't happen.

[airsix]

If Josh doesn't mind, I would like to add one more request. When the time does come for further discussion I hope that it can be conducted in a considerate, respectful, and compassionate manner (i.e., no flippant statements of condescending judgment ). We can learn from mistakes and accidents, but we should do it with reverence and respect. None of us are perfect (Yes, that includes YOU).

-Ben

[John Rawlings]

Once more information about this incident is known, it may be that some topics like the ones above will be well worth some batting about. In the meantime, I share Lamont's distress that an incident like this just shouldn't happen.

I'm a little taken aback by this. Please....you need to understand that everyone is distressed about this young woman's death. I cannot imagine why anyone would think that we aren't simply because we want more information available before discussing the tragedy at length.

We need folks to just back way from the keyboard for a bit, take a few sanity breaths, and wait for some details that WILL allow for useful discussion.

- John

[CaptnJack]

I will bet money those mythical "details" will never implicate anyone or anything substantively. They never do to avoid seeming disrepectful of the dead and/or legally blaming anyone living.

E.g. from other incidents... if taking AOW students to 200ft on air in an AL80 isn't negligent homicide then failing to teach OW students proper gas planning and the situational awareness to go with it will never be considered criminally unacceptable for the mainstream agencies and many of their instructors. Nothing will change in the scuba industry from "dive safe" platitudes.

[lamont]

I will bet money those mythical "details" will never implicate anyone or anything substantively. They never do to avoid seeming disrepectful of the dead and/or legally blaming anyone living.

E.g. from other incidents... if taking AOW students to 200ft on air in an AL80 isn't negligent homicide then failing to teach OW students proper gas planning and the situational awareness to go with it will never be considered criminally unacceptable for the mainstream agencies and many of their instructors. Nothing will change in the scuba industry from "dive safe" platitudes.

word.

i'm pretty sure i can at least blame the "dive industry" on this one. barring the odd MI or cancer patient, the accident chains always seem to start with poor/insufficient training. i don't "know for sure" in some kind of epistimologically precise way that it is the case here, but that's the prevailing pattern.

i get way too many compliments on my rockbottom page than i should if the diving industry was doing its job. i'd like to see my inbox filled with complaints about how its confusing and overly pedantic and everyone gets taught all that stuff in OW1 anyway... (i occasionally do get the former two complaints, but never that last one).

[Sounder]

I will bet money those mythical "details" will never implicate anyone or anything substantively. They never do to avoid seeming disrepectful of the dead and/or legally blaming anyone living.

E.g. from other incidents... if taking AOW students to 200ft on air in an AL80 isn't negligent homicide then failing to teach OW students proper gas planning and the situational awareness to go with it will never be considered criminally unacceptable for the mainstream agencies and many of their instructors. Nothing will change in the scuba industry from "dive safe" platitudes.

word.

i'm pretty sure i can at least blame the "dive industry" on this one. barring the odd MI or cancer patient, the accident chains always seem to start with poor/insufficient training. i don't "know for sure" in some kind of epistimologically precise way that it is the case here, but that's the prevailing pattern.

i get way too many compliments on my rockbottom page than i should if the diving industry was doing its job. i'd like to see my inbox filled with complaints about how its confusing and overly pedantic and everyone gets taught all that stuff in OW1 anyway... (i occasionally do get the former two complaints, but never that last one).

...and BTW, I personally have given the link to your gas planning site, and Bob's gas management information, to countless people who say it has changed the way they approach dive planning and has made them safer. Thank you for writing it and making it available to them.

[gcbryan]

When I say sometimes your number is up I'm not saying that in hindsight it's impossible that it could have been prevented. In hindsight most everything is preventable however that's not human nature. To armchair quarterback a situation and imply that it couldn't happen to "me" misses the reality just as much as poor planning. Things can go wrong for everyone even the well trained.

At the Pipeline which is a shallow protected cove how many people are going to have a regulator in their mouth while they are standing in 4 feet of water just beginning the gearing process? As far as I know the buddies were within reach of each other, they just weren't staring at each other. Sure one should have positive buoyancy upon entering the water but since the water is shallow, no current, and an easy entry and since you're going to vent your BC right away anyway how many of us have had less than positive buoyance on occassion in such a situation?

I put this accident more in the "when your time is up" category not because in hindsight it couldn't be prevented but because standing in 4 feet of water, swallowing water and being knocked over by a "rogue" wave and drowning is a freak situation at that site.

[sheahanmcculla]

A co-worker of mine Kevin Lee, died of an acute MI diving at Keystone ~2 yrs ago. They were swept around the end, he struggled to swim up current out of the ferry lane leading to his MI and eventual death.

Sorry, not trying to change the subject but what is "MI"? It's probably something easy but I can't figure it out.

Thanks
Sheahan

[gcbryan]

A co-worker of mine Kevin Lee, died of an acute MI diving at Keystone ~2 yrs ago. They were swept around the end, he struggled to swim up current out of the ferry lane leading to his MI and eventual death.

Sorry, not trying to change the subject but what is "MI"? It's probably something easy but I can't figure it out.

Thanks
Sheahan

Heart attack (myocardial infarction).