Diving Accident in Florida Keys

[Adam6521]

It also talked about his BC.  I know things happen but of course you should be dumping air, cause you know it is going to expand.  Each month or so I get a magaizine from DAN.  It shows that out of air emergencies should NEVER happen.  I think it was mostly the divers fault and his buddy.  I always pay attention to my air.  But I know things happen.

[goaliemn]

Oh I agree.  But, if my buddy was having some air problems, I would've offered him my backup reg and also to go up with him.  I'd like to be able to buy that beer or two afterwards rather than waiting around a hospital to see if he's ok.

[Austin]

The guy punched out, plain and simple.  Diving 101 - air expands as you ascend.  The only thing on the divers mind was getting to the surface.  I'll guess the "5 minutes" was actually 15 seconds.

This isn't pairs diving, the buddy is not to blame. 

   

[goaliemn]

If diving with a buddy isn't "pairs diving"  why do you need a solo diving certification? 

If your buddy isn't there to help in case you need some help, why is diving with a buddy ingrained in every new diver?

I'm not saying the buddy is to blame, but you make it sound like a buddy should do nothing to help in a situation like this..

[mattd]

I think what he is saying is that you should not depend on a buddy being there.  If they are - great, but chances are your instabuddy doesn't know how to use his own gear much less rescue you.

[mermaid]

From what I understand from the article, IMHO, there are a few things that happened...and for the sake of conversation, nevermind that what is reported may not be completely accurate. 

1.  Matthew and his brother were too busy watching the fish swimming around the USS Spiegel Grove for Matt to be paying attention to his SPG.  "Matthew came to the grim realization he was short (on air)."

2.  Doug and Austin are correct, the kid panicked, when he realized that he was "short on air", which means he was not paying attention to the fact that the expanding air in his BC was speeding his ascent to the surface.  "I was thinking I needed to get to get to the surface; that I didn't want to run out of air," he said..."I just needed to get out."

3.  Mattd is also correct.  From what I've learned in dive training, ideally, your dive buddy should always be close by in case one of you runs into an emergency.  But, as Adam6521 says, "things happen".  Matthew could have drifted away from his brother without realizing it, and found himself further away than he should have been.   

4.  Expanding on what Doug said, IMO, checking the SPG MUST be done if you don't want to find yourself in this situation. 

This is just my opinion...a guppy's opinion...where there is always room for improvement.  ;D   

 

[Terry]

                    I have about a dozen dives on the Grove, a dandy wreck, but tricky in a number of ways, first, shes HUGE! at 530' in length with a total of 8! bouys on her, shes well lit, by that I mean shes open to allow natural light to penetrate along her beams, has usually real decent vis. and so she "feels" shallower then she actually is, (60' min. to the uppermost deck, 141' at the bottom of the props) (any deeper requires a shovel) and shes fascinating, now (thanks to a hurricaine) almost perfectly upright (to within 4 feet of level, port to starboard) has a real neat selection of machine tools still on board in their shop, real cool equipment in the radar room, list of names on a bronze sign on her port beam to list $ sponsers, intact johns, painted on "snoopy" as a ships mascot, etc,,,,and there are some shops in So. Fla that will do, back to back dives on the Grove, pretty much "requiring" the second dive, be a full blown deco dive. The other tricky factor is current that can be effectively non-existant on the way in but whipping you like a flag, REQUIRING hand over hand asscent to stay on the line, on the way out, and all thru your stops.
                  I agree with my friend Steve that the article was poorly written AND the numbers dont jive, I agree with Mark that his buddy, potentially "could" of prevented this, and I agree with Jason that you do need to be responsible for your own air consumption, and that he almost surely bolted, or missed required stops to end up hit that hard. I do wonder why CDNN? never reports ANYTHING except dive injurys and deaths, if I'd read some of their stuff before being certified, I would of just learned to skydive with homemade chutes, because it seemed much safer.      TRINITY

[mermaid]

I have to agree with my friend TRINITY.  That's one thing I noticed about the website...articles about diving injuries and deaths are the ONLY thing I saw (as if they make an effort NOT to promote the sport)...not to mention the redundancy of some of the articles under different captions.  Note to self about the "facts of the article", what's the expression?  Never believe anything you hear and only half of what you read . 

[DetectorGuy]

Learn what we can from accidents like these but in the end... There is such a thing called an un-deserved hit. It could happen to any of us even while doing the right things so the important thing is to dive conservatively and not dive outside of your training.

[doug67]

Amen!