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On a dive boat with a swim platform & transom door, an incapacitated dive buddy can be managed. However, what does one do if divers are materially mis-matched in size, and diving from something like a small Boston Whaler? Suggestions for the smaller diver?? I have a friend who does bridge inspection for DOT in Florida. Her boat used to have a side cut-out, making retrieval of a partner rather simple. With their present boat she has lost that option (ladder over side). Please read the attached article from Chicago: PANIC, FATIGUE CALLED FACTORS IN JUNE DEATH OF POLICE DIVER By Diana Strzalka Tribune Staff Writer August 16, 2000 Rough waters, exhaustion and panic contributed to the drowning earlier this summer of a 50-year-old diver with the Chicago Police Department's Marine Unit, according to the findings of the Cook County medical examiner's office and a U.S. Navy doctor. The information was provided to the Chicago Police Department, which is reviewing the circumstances of the June 2 death of Sgt. Alane Stoffregen, who drowned during a diving exercise 1 mile off the Lake Michigan shoreline. Chicago police spokesman Pat Camden said Tuesday that proper procedures were followed, "but anytime there's a death in a training exercise, obviously, you need to look at the causes." Dr. James Caruso, a pathologist with the U.S. Naval Hospital in Pensacola, Fla., studied the autopsy report and a police report and concluded that Stoffregen probably was exhausted as she tried to board a boat bouncing in 2 to 3 foot waves. At the surface, she failed to follow a standard safety practice of keeping her oxygen regulator in her mouth, and she likely panicked as she tried to breathe while waves were beating at her face, he said. "She took a bit of a beating trying to get into the boat," Caruso said. Serious scrapes and bruises on her head and neck were apparently caused from her body colliding with the boat, said a spokesman for the medical examiner's office. Her rescue was also delayed by a few minutes because the officer on the boat was unable to lift Stoffregen, who weighed almost 200 pounds, out of the lake until another boat was summoned to assist, he said. Stoffregen was a master diver, and she met the swimming qualification to work with the Marine Unit, Camden said. Employees with the Police Department are not required to meet any height or weight standards, Camden said. Stoffregen, a 22-year police force veteran, had joined the Marine Unit a month before her death, Camden said. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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