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A guy I know was snorkling in Antigua when a cruise ship pulled up and disembarked passengers via longboats powered by an outboard motor. He was struck in the head by the outboard's propeller which peeled his scalp off in an S shape and knocked him senseless. He survived and was stitched up by an artisan on the island who left him with minimal scar. In looking into a lawsuit, he discovered that there has been an effort for several years to have manufacturers put a cage around outboard propellers to prevent just such disasters as Wim and my friend. Apparently even the most wireless cage (six strands) reduces engine efficiency so no one wants to be the first to do it. Turning the motor off while in the water around a motionless boat will do the same thing as a cage. Other than the fact he died after being struck by a propeller, facts haven't been forthcoming. Was he struck by an outboard propeller? Was the boat idling and accidently put in gear? Did someone start the boat and move forward nopt knowing he was in the way? I think it can be called a diving accident for this reason- on a boat dive, the dive begins and ends on the boat and anything in between is part of the dive. Divers, divemasters and boat operators operating trips to North Carolina wrecks singularly loath any boat that would pull up to them while divers were in the water- and no dive operator should move a boat if divers are diving off that boat and are in the water- the engine should be turned off. Get two engines if that bothers you. I can tell you- without even knowing all the facts- that Win's death was utterly senseless. I just saw him in New York and he was very up about the magazine. Three weeks later he's dead, hit in the head by a fuckin' boat propeller. The dive industry does talk about this problem indirectly- by showing pictures of manatees sliced up by outboards. They ought to show a picture of my friend's head (the one who survived) as well. Rod On Fri, 12 Apr 1996, George Irvine wrote: > > Rule number one applies to boat operators as well . The "silence" is a > function of the fact that this is really a bad situation with no diving > solutions we can learn from, other than the plain obvious, and it is such > as sad deal that nobody wants to discuss it. I would not even call this a > "diving" death. I would just call this ridiculous. > > > On Fri, 12 Apr 1996, "Christopher M. Parrett" <chris@ab*.co*> wrote: > > > >> > >> > >>The list has been notably silent on the loss of Win Remly. I am aware of > >>the incident only because I was sent a copy of the local paper by a > >>fellow diver. > >> > >>Is anyone able to share/comment on the details? > >> Jerry > >> > > > >Because of the nature of his death there looms the possibility of a lawsuit > >against the boat. > >Untill that is cleared up, don't be tooo surprised if you don't see all of > >the nitty gritty details. > > > >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > >Christopher M. Parrett, President > >Abysmal Diving Inc. 6595 Odell Place, Suite G. Boulder CO, 80301 USA > > > >Makers of ABYSS, Advanced Dive Planning Software. > > > >Phone: (303) 530-7248 > >Fax: (303) 530-2808 > > > >File Transfer Site: ftp://abysmal.com/users/abysmal > >World Wide Web Site: http://www.emi.net/gulfstream/abyss/abyss.html > > > >-- > >Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@terra.net'. > >Send subscription/archive requests to `techdiver-request@terra.net'. > > > > > -- > Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@terra.net'. > Send subscription/archive requests to `techdiver-request@terra.net'. >
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