As reported:
SEATTLE -- A man died Saturday evening while scuba diving with a friend in the water near Alki Point in West Seattle.
Seattle fire department spokeswoman Sue Stangl said two divers were in the water when they were separated by a wave about 8:20 p.m.
One of the divers surfaced, but the other remained underwater.
Someone finally called 911 almost 30 minutes later, and the missing diver was located by Seattle fire department rescue divers in about six feet of water 50 feet from shore.
The diver's regulator was not in his mouth, and he was unconscious and not breathing.
Medics began CPR and rushed the man to Harborview Medical Center where he was pronounced dead.
The man's diving partner told investigators that his friend had about 45 minutes of air left in his tank when they were separated.
"The diver went underneath the water and tried to find his buddy," Stangle said. "After a certain amount of time -- 20 to 30 minutes -- decided that he'd better come to the surface and get help."
Other reports vary slightly including the divers being on a surface swim when a large freighter came by causing a large wave and specificly pointing out that the divers BC was not inflated.
I'm posting this more for the lesson/reminder therefore I'll post what I'm pretty sure actually happened and the lesson to be learned is to inflate your BC before getting into the water unless you are sure it's not appropriate due to some local condition. This is nothing new but since a death occured I'm posting this as the lesson/reminder I gleamed from this story.
This is a fairly benign, shallow site. I believe they had just gotten into the water and were preparing to dive. I believe they were is chest high water, masks off, regulators not in mouth, and in the case of one diver BC not inflated. A large wave created by a passing ship knocked one diver over and since his BC was not inflated he went under and in the surprise inhaled enough water for him to be rendered unconscious. For whatever reason his buddy did not see exactly what happened to him and therefore submerged on scuba to look for him. This was at night/dusk and the viz was probably less than 10'. He looked for his buddy for 20 minutes or so and never found him.
This was bad luck all around as you wouldn't expect this outcome at this location. Without being holier than thou about the whole thing the reminder to be taken from this to me is to make sure your BC is inflated anytime you get into the water in any other than perfect conditions. Someone died under similar conditions at another dive site about a year ago.
Of course the textbook answer is to never get into the water without your mask on, reg in mouth and BC inflated but most of this is just to keep new divers from killing themselves. Exceptions to this are done all the time without these results. I think the best that we can take from this particular situation is to just make sure that your BC is inflated anytime conditions are tricky at all. I can't help but believe that the diver in question also probably wasn't a frequent diver and may have panicked or just experienced extremely bad luck/bad set of circumstances.
Edited by gcbryan, 04 July 2007 - 05:16 AM.
