Surviving diver recounts horror of Baja Mexico dive trip

Surviving diver recounts horror of Baja Mexico dive trip

http://www.cdnn.info/safety/s031114a/s031114a.html

"Dive News" <always@on.topic.always> wrote in message news:<3fb64599$0$27727$45beb828@newscene.com>...

> Surviving diver recounts horror of Baja Mexico dive trip
> http://www.cdnn.info/safety/s031114a/s031114a.html

Having been diving there two years in a row and my most recent trip
was with Ken Kurtis just 6 or 8 weeks ago... and having been diving
with the alledged guilty dive operation, Baja Expeditions, I am left
shaking my head at the account of this incident.

The diver who died was a woman named Vrooman, who was 77 yrs old. I
don't see the age of the person who was her buddy...a woman named
Hoover, someone who had been Vrooman's buddy for 13 yrs of diving
trips. The account is given by Scott Jones.

He says... "Marilyn and Katie were very in tune to each other. They
were never more than 5 or 6 ft apart." From the report : "Suddenly
there was a sea surge, he said, which the dive master never warned
them about. Suddenly Vrooman was separated from Hoover and Jones from
his dive partner, he said. "The surge was coming in and out", he
said. "I saw Katie by herself and I knew something was wrong. Katie
was never by herself." And then he said, Vrooman disappeared. Jones
said he went to the surface and inflated his BCD. It was then that he
saw the surge throw Vrooman twice against the rocks and boulders."

The account gets stranger and stanger by the minute from there.

After diving there, it wouldn't take a dive master's briefing for me
to understand that there was the potential of a strong surge in many
areas. I don't think that any diver would need a diver master to point
that out if the diver had a fair amount of experience with shore
diving. And this victim was a supposedly a woman who had been diving
at least 13 yrs ?? She was 77 yrs old... think maybe she just
shouldn't have diving in those conditions at her age ?? The witness
goes on to say how he took his gear off and tried mouth to mouth resus
with her, etc. Where was the boat at this time ?? This account is
beyond belief.

"Salty" <babette7401@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:e673a058.0311152039.2cb42b9b@posting.google.c om...

> The account gets stranger and stanger by the minute from there.

And it continually changes. I was just about to add your list of oddities
by remarking on Jones's inflating his "life jacket" when he surfaced, a fact
that a careful CDNN diver-reporter would normally be sure to edit when
plagiarizing a news story, when I re-clicked on your link only to find that
the offending "life jacket" had been amended to read "BCD (buoyancy vest)".
Amazing stuff.

"Greg Mossman" <mossman@qnet.com> wrote in message news:<vre89gsdtbtr58@corp.supernews.com>...
> "Salty" <babette7401@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:e673a058.0311152039.2cb42b9b@posting.google.c om...
>
> > The account gets stranger and stanger by the minute from there.
>
> And it continually changes. I was just about to add your list of oddities
> by remarking on Jones's inflating his "life jacket" when he surfaced, a fact
> that a careful CDNN diver-reporter would normally be sure to edit when
> plagiarizing a news story, when I re-clicked on your link only to find that
> the offending "life jacket" had been amended to read "BCD (buoyancy vest)".
> Amazing stuff.

Plagiarizing? No way! Really? A CDNN "diver-reporter" plagiarize?
Never happens.

Wait never mind I forgot they always plagiarize, steal then post
everywhere to get hits for CDNN so that advertisers pay and stay with
them.

CDNN is a parasite on the Internet.

On 15 Nov 2003 20:39:32 -0800, babette7401@hotmail.com (Salty) wrote:

>"Dive News" <always@on.topic.always> wrote in message news:<3fb64599$0$27727$45beb828@newscene.com>...
>
>> Surviving diver recounts horror of Baja Mexico dive trip
>> http://www.cdnn.info/safety/s031114a/s031114a.html
>
>Having been diving there two years in a row and my most recent trip
>was with Ken Kurtis just 6 or 8 weeks ago... and having been diving
>with the alledged guilty dive operation, Baja Expeditions, I am left
>shaking my head at the account of this incident.
>
>The diver who died was a woman named Vrooman, who was 77 yrs old. I
>don't see the age of the person who was her buddy...a woman named
>Hoover, someone who had been Vrooman's buddy for 13 yrs of diving
>trips. The account is given by Scott Jones.
>
>He says... "Marilyn and Katie were very in tune to each other. They
>were never more than 5 or 6 ft apart." From the report : "Suddenly
>there was a sea surge, he said, which the dive master never warned
>them about. Suddenly Vrooman was separated from Hoover and Jones from
>his dive partner, he said. "The surge was coming in and out", he
>said. "I saw Katie by herself and I knew something was wrong. Katie
>was never by herself." And then he said, Vrooman disappeared. Jones
>said he went to the surface and inflated his BCD. It was then that he
>saw the surge throw Vrooman twice against the rocks and boulders."
>
>The account gets stranger and stanger by the minute from there.
>
>After diving there, it wouldn't take a dive master's briefing for me
>to understand that there was the potential of a strong surge in many
>areas. I don't think that any diver would need a diver master to point
>that out if the diver had a fair amount of experience with shore
>diving. And this victim was a supposedly a woman who had been diving
>at least 13 yrs ?? She was 77 yrs old... think maybe she just
>shouldn't have diving in those conditions at her age ?? The witness
>goes on to say how he took his gear off and tried mouth to mouth resus
>with her, etc. Where was the boat at this time ?? This account is
>beyond belief.

Good post! The lack of information about any emergency response by
the dive boat involved is indeed puzzling. One thing is clear from
recent accident reports. There has been an increase in accidents
involving lost divers. Something to keep in mind when planning a
drift dive halfway around the world on the "MV Myopic Paradise".

"Alan Shepard's Tiny Penis" <fraudulent_gear_tests@rodales.com> wrote in
message news:e0ef0527139d1cd3c98f4556f84aa7ec@news.teranew s.com...

Carla, Carla, Carla . . . tch, tch, tch . . . off the meds again I see.

Alan Shepard's Tiny Penis <fraudulent_gear_tests@rodales.com> wrote in message news:<e0ef0527139d1cd3c98f4556f84aa7ec@news.terane ws.com>...
> On 15 Nov 2003 20:39:32 -0800, babette7401@hotmail.com (Salty) wrote:
>
> >"Dive News" <always@on.topic.always> wrote in message news:<3fb64599$0$27727$45beb828@newscene.com>...
> >
> >> Surviving diver recounts horror of Baja Mexico dive trip
> >> http://www.cdnn.info/safety/s031114a/s031114a.html
> >
> >Having been diving there two years in a row and my most recent trip
> >was with Ken Kurtis just 6 or 8 weeks ago... and having been diving
> >with the alledged guilty dive operation, Baja Expeditions, I am left
> >shaking my head at the account of this incident.
> >
> >The diver who died was a woman named Vrooman, who was 77 yrs old. I
> >don't see the age of the person who was her buddy...a woman named
> >Hoover, someone who had been Vrooman's buddy for 13 yrs of diving
> >trips. The account is given by Scott Jones.
> >
> >He says... "Marilyn and Katie were very in tune to each other. They
> >were never more than 5 or 6 ft apart." From the report : "Suddenly
> >there was a sea surge, he said, which the dive master never warned
> >them about. Suddenly Vrooman was separated from Hoover and Jones from
> >his dive partner, he said. "The surge was coming in and out", he
> >said. "I saw Katie by herself and I knew something was wrong. Katie
> >was never by herself." And then he said, Vrooman disappeared. Jones
> >said he went to the surface and inflated his BCD. It was then that he
> >saw the surge throw Vrooman twice against the rocks and boulders."
> >
> >The account gets stranger and stanger by the minute from there.
> >
> >After diving there, it wouldn't take a dive master's briefing for me
> >to understand that there was the potential of a strong surge in many
> >areas. I don't think that any diver would need a diver master to point
> >that out if the diver had a fair amount of experience with shore
> >diving. And this victim was a supposedly a woman who had been diving
> >at least 13 yrs ?? She was 77 yrs old... think maybe she just
> >shouldn't have diving in those conditions at her age ?? The witness
> >goes on to say how he took his gear off and tried mouth to mouth resus
> >with her, etc. Where was the boat at this time ?? This account is
> >beyond belief.
>
> Good post! The lack of information about any emergency response by
> the dive boat involved is indeed puzzling. One thing is clear from
> recent accident reports. There has been an increase in accidents
> involving lost divers. Something to keep in mind when planning a
> drift dive halfway around the world on the "MV Myopic Paradise".

> drift dive halfway around the world on the "MV Myopic Paradise".

Replying with a different nick and email but it's me...

LOL !! The M/V Myopic Paradise is very funny !! Great humor !! :)

Re: your statement about lost divers, well consider this : The man
named Scott was supposedly a Master Instructor, IIRC. The account
mentions nothing at all about him using a whistle, dive sausage, Dive
Alert, flare or any other signaling device that one might carry in an
area with dives such as this. Does that seem odd to you ??

Also... Scott was separated from his buddy. And Vrooman, the dead
diver, was separated from her buddy. Now... let's just assume that
the crew of the boat drank way too many tequlla shots that day and
didn't bother to take a head count of divers after the dive. Why
didn't Scott's buddy and Vrooman's buddy speak up and say that their
pals were a bit lost at sea so that the boat didn't just leave ??
Something isn't right here.

I know that many ppl hate CDNN. I don't think CDNN is that bad
though. They have reprinted the account as it appears in another
paper. If the first account is wrong, it isn't CDNN's fault now is it
???????

"Calamari" <Calamari_114@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:dd5ce96a.0311170736.65306f8e@posting.google.c om...

> I know that many ppl hate CDNN. I don't think CDNN is that bad
> though. They have reprinted the account as it appears in another
> paper. If the first account is wrong, it isn't CDNN's fault now is it
> ???????

They reprinted it? You can't tell from the article, which appears to be
written by Thomas Geyer of CDNN with no credit to another source. If CDNN
is merely a reprinter of unoriginal material, why don't they say so?

"They have reprinted the account as it appears in another
paper. If the first account is wrong, it isn't CDNN's fault now is it"

It is if they reprint it as if it was their own. "Responsible journalism"
and all that means that you verify the accuracy of your source material and,
if you can't, you don't print it. Something that CDNN seems to ignore a lot
of the time.

Sensationalistic reporting sure is popular these days, though...

--


Briggs Christie
Oahu Dive Center
Kailua, Hawaii
1-866-933-DIVE
www.oahudivecenter.com
"Greg Mossman" <mossman@qnet.com> wrote in message
news:vri1cs68smdsa9@corp.supernews.com...
> "Calamari" <Calamari_114@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:dd5ce96a.0311170736.65306f8e@posting.google.c om...
>
> > I know that many ppl hate CDNN. I don't think CDNN is that bad
> > though. They have reprinted the account as it appears in another
> > paper. If the first account is wrong, it isn't CDNN's fault now is it
> > ???????
>
> They reprinted it? You can't tell from the article, which appears to be
> written by Thomas Geyer of CDNN with no credit to another source. If CDNN
> is merely a reprinter of unoriginal material, why don't they say so?
>
>

When you ask a question like "Does that seem odd to you?", you seem to
belabor the obvious because that's precisely the reason why there was an
accident. There were a lot of "odd" things about the dive. We focus on
these "odd" things now because there was a fatality. Though I don't presume
to be an expert diver but in the majority of dives I've been in, there's
always something "odd" like the divemaster not having some sort of signaling
device or what not. Rare is the dive operator that is so meticulous that
they will do everything by the book. When the dive is uneventful, we don't
even notice or pay attention to such "oddities". However when something does
happen, the hindsight becomes 20/20 and we start noticing those odd things.

"Calamari" <Calamari_114@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:dd5ce96a.0311170736.65306f8e@posting.google.c om...
> Alan Shepard's Tiny Penis <fraudulent_gear_tests@rodales.com> wrote in
message news:<e0ef0527139d1cd3c98f4556f84aa7ec@news.terane ws.com>...
> > On 15 Nov 2003 20:39:32 -0800, babette7401@hotmail.com (Salty) wrote:
> >
> > >"Dive News" <always@on.topic.always> wrote in message
news:<3fb64599$0$27727$45beb828@newscene.com>...
> > >
> > >> Surviving diver recounts horror of Baja Mexico dive trip
> > >> http://www.cdnn.info/safety/s031114a/s031114a.html
> > >
> > >Having been diving there two years in a row and my most recent trip
> > >was with Ken Kurtis just 6 or 8 weeks ago... and having been diving
> > >with the alledged guilty dive operation, Baja Expeditions, I am left
> > >shaking my head at the account of this incident.
> > >
> > >The diver who died was a woman named Vrooman, who was 77 yrs old. I
> > >don't see the age of the person who was her buddy...a woman named
> > >Hoover, someone who had been Vrooman's buddy for 13 yrs of diving
> > >trips. The account is given by Scott Jones.
> > >
> > >He says... "Marilyn and Katie were very in tune to each other. They
> > >were never more than 5 or 6 ft apart." From the report : "Suddenly
> > >there was a sea surge, he said, which the dive master never warned
> > >them about. Suddenly Vrooman was separated from Hoover and Jones from
> > >his dive partner, he said. "The surge was coming in and out", he
> > >said. "I saw Katie by herself and I knew something was wrong. Katie
> > >was never by herself." And then he said, Vrooman disappeared. Jones
> > >said he went to the surface and inflated his BCD. It was then that he
> > >saw the surge throw Vrooman twice against the rocks and boulders."
> > >
> > >The account gets stranger and stanger by the minute from there.
> > >
> > >After diving there, it wouldn't take a dive master's briefing for me
> > >to understand that there was the potential of a strong surge in many
> > >areas. I don't think that any diver would need a diver master to point
> > >that out if the diver had a fair amount of experience with shore
> > >diving. And this victim was a supposedly a woman who had been diving
> > >at least 13 yrs ?? She was 77 yrs old... think maybe she just
> > >shouldn't have diving in those conditions at her age ?? The witness
> > >goes on to say how he took his gear off and tried mouth to mouth resus
> > >with her, etc. Where was the boat at this time ?? This account is
> > >beyond belief.
> >
> > Good post! The lack of information about any emergency response by
> > the dive boat involved is indeed puzzling. One thing is clear from
> > recent accident reports. There has been an increase in accidents
> > involving lost divers. Something to keep in mind when planning a
> > drift dive halfway around the world on the "MV Myopic Paradise".
>
> > drift dive halfway around the world on the "MV Myopic Paradise".
>
> Replying with a different nick and email but it's me...
>
> LOL !! The M/V Myopic Paradise is very funny !! Great humor !! :)
>
> Re: your statement about lost divers, well consider this : The man
> named Scott was supposedly a Master Instructor, IIRC. The account
> mentions nothing at all about him using a whistle, dive sausage, Dive
> Alert, flare or any other signaling device that one might carry in an
> area with dives such as this. Does that seem odd to you ??
>
> Also... Scott was separated from his buddy. And Vrooman, the dead
> diver, was separated from her buddy. Now... let's just assume that
> the crew of the boat drank way too many tequlla shots that day and
> didn't bother to take a head count of divers after the dive. Why
> didn't Scott's buddy and Vrooman's buddy speak up and say that their
> pals were a bit lost at sea so that the boat didn't just leave ??
> Something isn't right here.
>
> I know that many ppl hate CDNN. I don't think CDNN is that bad
> though. They have reprinted the account as it appears in another
> paper. If the first account is wrong, it isn't CDNN's fault now is it
> ???????