Posted by Melvin Pasley on April 30, 2004 at 08:18:23:
In Reply to: Yes but . . . posted by Ken Kurtis on April 29, 2004 at 23:48:32:
I also was not there. But since when has that stopped anyone from commenting.
Based upon what I have seen on TV from the diver himself (ok, it is edited comments for a sound byte) and from a diver on the boat (witness), I must also say the diver has some degree of responsibility. Why did he not make an effort to swim toward the boat? Why did he not at least make an effort, if he could not see the boat to swim toward the oil rig? His I see the boat 400 feet away, but I will wait for them to miss me and come and get me strategy, did play a part, albeit a small one (counting him back on the boat and again into the water is a huge mistake). If he could not see the rig, he should have at least had a compass bearing on it. If he is as inexperienced as has been claimed, why did he dive the oil rig?
I consider myself to be an experienced novice (maybe bottom of advance) diver. I have only 118 dives (2001-2004)todate. I am just now thinking that in a few more dives, I might start to think about the oil rigs. It is an advanced open water, ocean current dive for the physically fit. If this guy has been diving only 2 years, and as he says dives an average of once a month (but it is his first dive this year) then at 24 dives, well, all I can say is I would not have been diving the oil rigs or wreck.
Just my $0.02, but I need them back, my wife says I don't have it to spare. ;-)
Bottom line, there is error here, on the part of the diver, and the dive partners (big time) and the DM (most likely catching the blame for another diver answering the roll call for the missing diver). The DM catches it heavy for counting the missing diver back into the water at the second dive spot (my guess, he did not show him back in the water, could not find him on the boat when checking his roster so he assumed he had missed marking him back in the water and "corrected" his records while the dive was in progress).
Bottom line, stuff happens. Lets learn from it and move on.