Straits of Mackinac diver death

[jasondbaker]

It's becoming a bad year for Minnesota divers. A Mankato diver died while scuba diving in the Straits of Mackinac. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family. Be safe out there folks.

[dennisonclutch]

[stick500]

anybody know what went wrong?

it's the only way we could learn from the tragedy

[arcFlash]

Accident reports take years or more and hardly ever get released to the public, presumably it's better for all the parties involved.

If you want to understand how most of these happen read DAN's annual report. Spoiler, medical issues or diving beyond there skills or training. I believe you have to be a member to download it, I stopped reading them. Sometimes details show up on TheDecoStop under Accidents. It can be a lot of armchair detectives guessing but if you can get to the story of the buddy that survived or actual witnesses speaking that tell a clear story it can be difficult to read (I sometimes find myself shaking because it's close to what I've seen or done only it didn't go bad for me)

I don't know that I ever 'learned' anything from the 100's I've read. Everything is in the first few chapters of OW. Dive within your abilities, with a competent buddy and stay fit for physical activity.

[DetectorGuy]

[/quote]

Well put Steve!

[arcFlash]

A little reading and the diver was inadvertently breathing the wrong reg. Something an in water buddy check (or attentive buddy) could have discovered. Begin With Review And Friend. It's very unfortunate and i'm sure his buddies all regret not taking a minute to check each other. It could have been any of us.

[/quote]

Well put Steve!
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[DiverQueen]

Sad thing is I probably knew him 20+ years ago when I went to MSU. I knew a lot of the Maintenance and Engineering guys there. But that was long before I was a diver.

[Claymore]

There is a thread on ScubaBoard in the Accidents and Incidents forum on this incident.
Diving accident on the Cedarville
It appears that there was a series of major mistakes made by both divers that lead to one dead and another going on a chamber ride.

This does appear to be one of those incidents where there are multiple things to be learned from a tragic accident.

[arcFlash]

[I read the reports on SB, I agree with 'Flots Am'] With all respect I don't see anything to learn. Everyone already knows to check their gear and their buddies. Everyone already knows complacency kills. If divers need to re-learn these from dive accidents they need to take training more serious in the first place. IF they followed the rules and still had an accident I want to read it. Break a handful of rules and it's sad but that's all.

I have a guess from reading the reports and it sounds like failure to follow basic OW caused the problem (like so many are) and failure in Rescue Skills(both of them) didn't stop it in time. Ether way, this was avoidable and all the skills needed to avoid it are in the books. Nothing new to learn.

Not trying to say I can't have an accident but if I do, I got stupid and ignored my training. (highest are Cave 1 & Stage Deco/O2). I've done a lot of inherently dangerous stuff and every time things got scary I messed up a basic rule.