KEY LARGO.. 3 divers die OOA

[LKunze]

Bodies of two divers recovered in 'risky' mission
BY CAMMY CLARK
cclark@MiamiHerald.com


KEY LARGO --The bodies of two divers trapped overnight in the bowels of a sunken Navy ship were recovered during two ''risky'' missions Saturday, said Chief Sergio Garcia of the Key Largo Fire and Rescue.

Garcia said a team that included 14 expert divers retrieved the deceased men on two seperate dives spaced three hours apart.

''Both recoveries went flawless,'' Garcia said. ``Garcia said. ``It went just as we had planned.''

The two victims trapped inside the ship, 135-feet deep, were identified as Jonathan Walsweer, 38, a Wall Street stockbroker and Scott Stanley, age unknown, a co-owner of a carpet store. Both were from Westfield, N.J., according to the Monroe County Sheriff's Office.

A third diver, Kevin Coughlin, 51, a real estate entrepreneur of Chatham Borough, N.J., also died during Friday's accident. He was found in distress Friday afternoon by two divers from another boat. Those divers brought him to the surface. From there, the Coast Guard took him to shore. CPR was performed the entire way, but Coughlin was pronounced dead at Mariner's Hospital.

The fourth diver, Howard Spialter, 52, a lawyer and former municipal judge of Westfield, N.J., had surfaced safely when his air supply began to run low. He had remained outside the ship, according to the police report.

The sheriff's office is investigating the accident, which local dive captains have called the worst in Keys history. Three others have died at the Spiegel Grove, but all in separate accidents.

The father-in-law of Walsweer answered the phone at Walsweer's home in New Jersey on Saturday afternoon, but said everyone in the family was too distraught to talk at that moment.

The recovery team met Saturday morning at a diving shop in Key Largo owned by Captain Rob Breser, the leader of the mission. Thirty-five people from about six agencies, including the Coast Guard, participated in a 90-minute briefing on the tricky recovery, Garcia said.

Two expert technical divers, the same ones who found Stanley's and Walsweer's bodies in the pump room of the ship, dove 90 feet to an opening in the ship. From there, Garcia said they had to dive another 45 feet deep (about four stories) and then travel 90 feet laterally to the bodies.

''It's definitely risky with the depth of the dive, the darkness and the confinement of the small space,'' Garcia said. ``Only one person can fit in there at a time. And there are lots of parts on which they can get hung up.''

The divers also have to try not to stir up the silt that can hamper visibility. And at that depth, the divers could stay at the bottom only about 30 minutes before having to surface.

Several safety divers, including experts from local dive shops, were on hand in case anything went wrong.

''This is a part of the ship experienced divers try to avoid,'' Garcia said. ``We're having our divers go into a place that is not the best place to dive. We don't want any more casualties.''

The three deceased divers were among a group of four friends from New Jersey who had chartered the Scuba-Do boat to take them diving to the Spiegel Grove, a 510-foot ship that had been sunk six miles off the coast of Key Largo in 2002 to create an artificial reef and recreational dive site.

The four divers were reportedly all experienced and all had dove the shipwreck the previous day. But on Friday, they ran into trouble when they tried to do an extremely difficult ''penetration'' dive inside the massive ship that is the length of nearly two football fields.

The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. contributed to this report.