98 replies to this topic

[WreckWench]

Thanks for the statement from DEMA Dive Scoop!

[PerroneFord]

...however let the first person step forward who has NEVER made a mistake, never exceeded their training, never shown poor judgement, never been narc'd etc. and then you can point fingers.

Hmm lets see:

1. Mistakes - Every dang dive. Killed my buddy, day 1 of cave class. Silted out the cave on day 2!

2. Exceeded training - I was going in caverns on nearly every dive. Decided I needed to get some training before I didn't come home one day.

3. Poor judgement - You mean like training alone in my pool... at night? Or do you mean when I failied to do equipment check of primary gear on day 5 of cave class and allowed my buddy to nearly kill me in Peacock1 because she couldn't donate her long hose. TWICE!

4. Narced? Uhhh Oriskany at 121ft.


Great point Kamala...

[shadragon]

If you do stuff beyond your experience and training, it will eventually catch up with you

Makes you wonder how many times people go outside their training and qualifications without getting in trouble. You read about the flagrent situations that result in death or serious injury, but there has to be a lot more abuse out there that does not result in a fatality and goes unnoticed otherwise. People tend to keep their failures in judgment to themselves.

This is the heart of the matter. How many exciting dive shop stories were followed by, "That sounds great; so were you trained and qualified to do that?"

[Diverbrian]

I could tell stories about what I have done. I will stipulate that I have done some very stupid things and some of them after I completed my normoxic training. The worst (and one that I will not repeat) was when I rushed to throw my gear on and accidently put my long hose through my necklace. It was a routine dive (no overhead). I didn't check my ability to donate. Sure enough, my dive buddy's reg free flowed and I donated my gas only to find that the motion had taken my necklace reg behind my neck. I was no essentially out of gas even with better than 130 cubic ft. on my back. You think that I don't check for things like that now? It was actually an embarrassing, but easy way to learn a lesson because no one got hurt.

But, I will say that most of my training was preceded by me getting a small taste of where I was heading (slightly ahead of my training) and realizing that if I didn't get the training, something very bad was likely to happen.

I was doing some simple penetrations in NC where a line would have been an impediment more than a help because our dive plan had us leaving the wreck in a different location than where we went in. That was not stupidity as much as looking at the dive plan and figuring out what was practical for use and planning ahead. It also involved having a dive buddy with me who knew those wrecks like the back of his hand and knew that the areas that we were going into were not littered with more passageways inside the wreck.

I have a use for an AL80 in wreck diving. I use one as an intermediate deco bottle and maybe (money providing) as a bail-out if I get a rebreather.

[PerroneFord]

People tend to keep their failures in judgment to themselves.

This is the heart of the matter. How many exciting dive shop stories were followed by, "That sounds great; so were you trained and qualified to do that?"

One of the things I have come to admire about the cave community is the willingness to analyze near misses and fatalities in cold, hard, logic. So that it can be learned from. When a woman nearly died 2 years ago because of a failure to analyze gas in tanks, it mobilized the community and we made a change in procedure. Procedures are being scrutinized in the wake of the SG incident. Procedures were scrutinized when one agency decided to allow double for intro cave divers again after many years of not doing it. This was incongruent with other agencies and has caused a rift AND a discussion.

People, we need to TALK about this stuff. Stop pointing fingers and really TALK about what is killing us in the water. Only through doing that can we make diving safer. We also have to open our minds some and be open to the fact that there may be better or safer ways to conduct dives beyond what was learned in OW or AOW class. I cannot stress how fortunate I feel to have been exposed to technciques from IANTD, GUE, NACD, NSS, and TDI. I do not incorporate them all, and some conflict, but hearing them all and arguments for and against, forced me to THINK as a diver, and incorporate dozens of safety related procedures and checks into my diving.

I know many people just want to "jump in the water" and not worry about all that, but until we grow gills, it behooves ALL divers, tec and rec, to be vigilent about our safety, and the safety of our buddies.

Edited by PerroneFord, 19 March 2007 - 09:46 AM.

[Boatlawyer]

Latest from this morning's Miami Herald:

FLORIDA KEYS
Survivor describes diving disaster
The sole survivor of a diving tragedy in the Florida Keys offers new insight into how the deaths occurred.
BY CAMMY CLARK
cclark@MiamiHerald.com

KEY LARGO --The lone survivor of a deadly diving accident in the Florida Keys has given investigators details of how the tragedy unfolded, clues that may help unravel the mystery of how three of his experienced diving buddies died.

Contrary to previous reports, authorities said Sunday that Howard Spialter told them he did not remain outside the sunken Navy ship. Instead, he said he also ventured into the bowels 135-feet deep -- and even tried to save his best friend, but failed because he wouldn't follow him.

Spialter's story may help investigators piece together details of how three divers with decades of experience died during Friday's fateful exploration into a pitch-black pump room of a massive Navy ship sunk six miles off the shore of Key Largo. The dead are Kevin Coughlin, 51, from Chatham Borough, N.J., and Scott Stanley, 55, and Jonathan Walsweer, 38, both of Westfield, N.J.

Spialter, 52, also from Westfield, surfaced safely when his air supply ran low.

Investigators and a diving friend provided this account, based on what Spialter told them:

In the bowel of the ship, all four divers became lost.

Their air supply was running out. Visibility was nil after silt obscured their two strobe lights.

They were forced into a race against time: find their way out of the murky maze or die.

Spialter told Detective Mark Coleman of the Monroe County Sheriff's Office that he thought he knew the right way to safety.

But when Spialter tried to get Coughlin, Stanley and Walsweer to follow, they didn't.

''He went one way and they went the other,'' Coleman said in his report. ``He lived because he went the right way and got out.''

Tom Doherty, former owner of Treasure Cove Dive Shop in Westfield, N.J., where the four friends met, said he talked with a very shaken Spialter on Sunday. Spialter told him he had tried to grab the hand of Stanley, his best friend, to lead him out.

''But Howard told me Scott wouldn't hang on,'' Doherty said. ``Scott was probably the strongest diver -- most experienced. He left to try to help the divers downstream from him. That was the last Howard saw of Scott.''

Coleman's investigation concluded that at some point Coughlin also started in the right direction. The maze to safety required navigating 75 feet through a tight alleyway, and then up a 45-foot narrow shaft to a ship's opening 90 feet below the surface.

Coughlin had made it out of the pump room in the lowest level, where the bodies of Stanley and Walsweer were retrieved during a risky recovery effort Saturday.

Two dive instructors found Coughlin in distress and helped him to the surface. He was pronounced dead at a local hospital.

''Either he ran out of air before he got out, or he may have [suffered an embolism] in a section of the wreck where this is a long, steep ascent on the way out,'' Coleman said. ``We just don't know. Maybe the autopsy will be able to answer some of the questions. But we may never know the whole story.''

The Monroe County Medical Examiner began autopsies of the three victims Sunday and is expected to finish them today. Coleman also is investigating if any of the divers' equipment malfunctioned.

Doherty said that with one air tank each the divers could only be at 135 feet for about 20 minutes.

Spialter told investigators that the group didn't use lines to guide the way out in poor visibility.

Capt. Rob Bleser of the Key Largo Fire Rescue dive team said there is no marine life to see at the bottom of the Spiegel Grove.

''No fish,'' he said. ``Nothing but murky water and rusted ship.''

Doherty said the four also had to contend with the bubbles of their regulators causing a ''rust rain'' with the ceilings only a couple feet above their heads.

All four men had dived wrecks that were 100 feet deeper and more difficult. They also had been in the Spiegel Grove's pump room the previous day, Spialter said.

''They didn't feel threatened by the Spiegel Grove,'' Doherty said of the ship that was sunk in 2002.

``That's the downside of having a lot of experience.''

[Basslet]

Found this account on another board. It is from a newspaper in NJ that interviewed friends of the survivor and he disputes some of the claims, like that they didn't have a plan and the he stayed outside the wreck. As you can see, believing the details of the early accounts, especially from newspapers, can mislead one. Hey, even this account probably has mistakes.

A shower of silt believed to have doomed 3 divers
Monday, March 19, 2007
BY LAURA JOHNSTON AND CARLY ROTHMANStar-Ledger Staff Swirling silt likely blinded three New Jersey divers and blocked their exit from the pump room of a sunken Navy ship, officials and scuba experts said yesterday.
The three men, Jonathan Walsweer and Scott Stanley of Westfield and Kevin Coughlin of Chatham Borough, died Friday after running out of air in the belly of the USS Spiegel Grove, 134 feet underwater, six miles east of Key Largo, Fla. A fourth diver, Howard Spialter of Westfield, escaped.
"Visibility went to zero," said Tom Doherty of Old Bridge, a dive instructor who knew all four men and spoke with Spialter after the accident. "Howard managed by feel, literally, to find the hatch opening in the floor and drop through it. That's how he survived."
Although the Monroe County Sheriff's Department originally reported Spialter stayed outside the wreck while his friends explored the labyrinth within, officials said yesterday all four divers swam to the pump room, a particularly dangerous part of the ship that was supposed to be sealed shut.
According to the sheriff's department, Spialter said the divers weren't sure where they were, but he thought he knew the right direction. As he ran low on air in his tank, he tried to tell the others which way to go, but they didn't listen.
"He went one way and they went the other," Detective Mark Coleman said. "He lived because he went the right way and got out."
The Spiegel Grove, a 510-foot Navy landing ship dock, was sunk five years ago as an artificial reef and diving attraction. Each year an estimated tens of thousands of divers visit the wreck, though only the most experienced venture inside, where intense dark and strong currents can be disorienting.
The men dove the wreck about five other times, including on Thursday, when they also explored the pump room, friends said. They were experts, and all except Coughlin were instructors.
Spialter, 52, is a prominent Union County attorney and former Union Township municipal court judge.
Stanley, 55, a karate instructor and father of two grown children, was co-owner of the Carpet Mill outlet in East Hanover. Coughlin, 51, had battled back from homelessness and alcoholism to amass significant property holdings in New Jersey and elsewhere, said his friend, Bob Moran. And Walsweer, 38, had two young sons and worked as a financial adviser for Smith Barney in Roseland.
"The dive friends, everyone kind of came from different backgrounds and really got along well," said Walsweer's wife, Regina. "They were older than he was, but they really bonded together."
Drawing the men -- who planned their trip in November -- were 166 species of fish, including barracudas and bull sharks, and the history of the ship, which was commissioned in 1956 and once carried Navy amphibious craft to Cold War hot spots.
"It's a thrill," said Tony Donetz of Flemington, who dove at Spiegel Grove last year with all four men. "You never know ... what's going to be around that corner. It could be nothing. It could be some nice fish. It could be a shark. That's why you're exploring."
Spialter declined yesterday to speak to reporters. But friends in New Jersey, divers with whom he had made dozens of trips, spoke with Spialter.
"He was just hysterical," said Marianne Stanley, Scott Stanley's wife. "I said, 'You did everything you could do.'"
Spialter had grabbed Stanley by the hand, friends said. But when Stanley tried to help another friend, he lost his grip.
"He (Spialter) lost more than just a dive buddy," said Jim Flanagan, president of the Ocean Wreck Divers of New Jersey. "He lost his best friend."
The whole scary ordeal must have taken place about 20 minutes into the men's dive, said Doherty, explaining a tank could hold about 20 to 25 minutes of air at that depth.
The men had brought extra "stage tanks" with them, but left them closer to the entrance, unreachable once the curtain of silt descended, sheriff's officials said. And they didn't have dive reels -- spools of line tied to the dive entrance so divers can find their way back.
"It doesn't take very much movement to kick that silt up and cause problems with your ability to see," Coleman said. "Without a line to follow out and with lots of silt in the water, it would have been virtually impossible for them to find their way out of the wreck."
The men did set up strobe lights at the entrance and exit to each room, separated by narrow passages, friends said.
Small, high-intensity lights, they can be dropped "like laying bread crumbs" as divers move through a wreck, said R. J. Hartman, owner of the Treasure Cove dive shop in Westfield that brought the men together.
But in the silt -- sand stirred up from the ground and rust raining down from above -- the strobe lights were not enough. Silt can take up to an hour to clear, even outside of wrecks, Doherty said.
Sheriff's officials also contend the men did not have a dive plan, something their friends dispute. Donetz said he spoke with Stanley last Monday and knew their plan, which included exploring the pump room.
The bodies of Walsweer and Stanley were brought to the surface Saturday after a team of rescue divers found them.
Two other divers had brought Coughlin's body to the surface on Friday. A boat from the Atlantis Dive Shop, of Key West, Fla., was out by the Scuba-do, the vessel which had taken the four Jersey friends out to the wreck, Atlantis co-owner Spencer Slate said yesterday.
The two divers on his 40-foot commercial boat the Starfish Enterprise, then went into the water, Slate said, but they were not immediately aware of the tragedy unfolding.
The divers told Slate they were swimming along the left side of the Spiegel Grove's deck, when they came upon Coughlin, who wasn't moving. It took them only a minute to surface with Coughlin, and a Coast Guard boat was there to take him away.
"He had about made it, he was almost in open water," Slate said. "He must've just blacked out from exhaustion. He was just 70 feet from the surface."
Autopsies were scheduled for yesterday, but results were not available. The sheriff's office investigation is ongoing.
"It's a terrible tragedy," Doherty said. "I don't think we'll ever clearly understand what happened."


Staff writers Suleman Din, Ralph Ortega and Alexi Friedman contributed to this report.


© 2007 The Star Ledger
© 2007 NJ.com All Rights Reserved.

[JimG]

Please note that the discussion of training in general is not as relevant as the discussion of exceeding YOUR training, or that of your buddies or that of the circumstances. This community nevers condones discrediting of any agency.

I agree 100% that "agency bashing" has no place here. However, I don't necessarily believe that this incident is not the result of a training issue. It's also not clear to me that the divers were exceeding any limits of their training.

The latest reported account from the lone survivor of the dive seems to indicate that they had planned this dive as a penetration dive. Furthermore, it seems that they opted to use the "progressive penetration" technique, rather then running guidelines, and to further mark their path with strobe lights. My impression is that this technique for penetrating a wreck is one that is commonly taught to wreck divers in the Northeast (NE Wreck Divers, please correct me if I'm wrong). It appears that these divers had done this same dive the day before without incident, but that on Friday's dive they silted the place out, and (not being able to see their strobes or having a guideline to follow) lost their way and ran out of gas.

It's entirely possible that they planned this dive based on what they had been trained to do, and if that is true, then I believe that a discussion of the training is absolutely relevant to understanding what happened and why.

If their OW training did not cover the use of proper propulsion and anti-silting techniques, then that may have been a contributing factor to the accident. If their Wreck training taught them to mark their way by relying on a system that fails when visibility is lost (strobe lights) or the diver's judgement is impaired by narcosis (memorizing the route), then that may have been a contributing factor to the accident. If their Mixed Gas training taught them that Nitrox was an appropriate choice of breathing gas to use for this dive (deep, dark, silty, confined space), then that may have been a contributing factor to the accident.

If those things are true, then it is incumbent upon us all to examine the training programs, try to determine if they may be deficient, and if so, demand whatever adjustments need to be made to correct the deficiencies. From that standpoint at least, I believe that a "discussion of training in general" is absolutely germane to this topic.

Apologies if the above wording seems a little too strong. Everyone seems to be focusing on "mistakes that were made", based on some assumed frame of reference. I'm just trying to allow for the possibility that these divers did "everything right" according to how they were trained, and still paid the ultimate price. And if that is the case, then we as an industry need to find a way to fix it.

[WreckWench]

As these details unfold it is quite apparent that almost all early assessments were wrong. It is with this hindsight that we need to be careful about our assumptions and presumptions when discussing something like this. The words we initially spew are not quite as tasty when we have to eat them.

Again, please keep the families and friends of these lost divers in your hearts, thoughts and prayers.

[WreckWench]

It's entirely possible that they planned this dive based on what they had been trained to do, and if that is true, then I believe that a discussion of the training is absolutely relevant to understanding what happened and why.

Absolutely it is. However our typical response is that they exceeded their training and/or failed to properly follow their training and/or did not have proper training.

If their OW training did not cover the use of proper propulsion and anti-silting techniques, then that may have been a contributing factor to the accident. If their Wreck training taught them to mark their way by relying on a system that fails when visibility is lost (strobe lights) or the diver's judgement is impaired by narcosis (memorizing the route), then that may have been a contributing factor to the accident. If their Mixed Gas training taught them that Nitrox was an appropriate choice of breathing gas to use for this dive (deep, dark, silty, confined space), then that may have been a contributing factor to the accident.

If those things are true, then it is incumbent upon us all to examine the training programs, try to determine if they may be deficient, and if so, demand whatever adjustments need to be made to correct the deficiencies. From that standpoint at least, I believe that a "discussion of training in general" is absolutely germane to this topic.

Apologies if the above wording seems a little too strong. Everyone seems to be focusing on "mistakes that were made", based on some assumed frame of reference. I'm just trying to allow for the possibility that these divers did "everything right" according to how they were trained, and still paid the ultimate price. And if that is the case, then we as an industry need to find a way to fix it.

When you put it that way...the discussion of training does make sense. However most of what we can discuss is speculative regarding the accident. You have however opened some good ground for positive discussion on various ways to handle the same situation.

And I agree...we do tend to focus on mistakes made from some perceived or assumed frame of reference. This is where we all fail. Let's take Jim's approach and assume for a moment that they did everything right in theory but in context...one day its fine and the next its not.

Let's look for positive take aways both on an individual level as well as on a more global level. Great thoughts and insight Jim!

[PerroneFord]

I have little to add to the discussion as details coming out seem to confirm many things we thought, though refute others.

Volumes have been written about the dangers of progressive penetration, and in most areas and agencies, it is no longer done. I am very sad to see this process is still followed by some despite the inherent dangers.

Truly shocking.

[shadragon]

Perhaps this already exists and I don't know about it.

Is there a quick way for a DM, Asst. Inst, or Inst to look up a divers quals through their training agency?

[Basslet]

I have little to add to the discussion as details coming out seem to confirm many things we thought, though refute others.

Volumes have been written about the dangers of progressive penetration, and in most areas and agencies, it is no longer done. I am very sad to see this process is still followed by some despite the inherent dangers.

Truly shocking.

Well, you certainly know more about this stuff than I do. I had never even heard of using strobe to mark your path. In fact, in some other post you mentioned something a bubble check and Mod-S and I have no idea what those things are.

[PerroneFord]

Perhaps this already exists and I don't know about it.

Is there a quick way for a DM, Asst. Inst, or Inst to look up a divers quals through their training agency?

For some agencies, yes. But not all.

[JimG]

In fact, in some other post you mentioned something a bubble check and Mod-S and I have no idea what those things are.

A "bubble check" is used to determine if there is any leakage from the valve or first stage. It must be done by your buddy in the water, since you can't really see behind you.

A Mod-S or "Modified S" drill is something adapted from cave diving, wherein buddy teams do a practice deployment of their long hoses to ensure that they are not encumbered. It typically takes place at whatever location the gear was assembled (parking lot, picnic tables, or on the boat if boat diving), and is usually done as one of the final steps of a "buddy check" before entering the water.

Edited by JimG, 19 March 2007 - 12:06 PM.