Man Dies Following Diving Incident
A man died following a diving incident this afternoon [Jan 13] in the waters off of Castle Harbour, the police have confirmed.
A police spokesperson said: “Marine Police and Fisheries responded to a report of a diving incident that took place in the waters off of Castle Harbour in St. Georges at around 1:30pm today [Sunday].
“It appears that a man was diving with two other individuals in the aforementioned area when he came into difficulty and began a rapid ascent to the surface.
“He was placed aboard a private dive vessel and that vessel was met by an emergency service vessel and the man was then taken to KEMH where he was pronounced dead.
“No further information will be given until the next of kin is notified. The two other individuals appear to be fine however they attended the hospital as a precaution,” the police spokesperson concluded.
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Diving seems dangerous just saying.
It’s not at all when you’re taught the correct techniques and safety precautions (that is in no way a comment on this incident). Unfortunately there will always be accidents. RIP to the man who died and condolences to the family.
@Logic76
Your statement….”it’s not at all when you’re taught the correct techniques and safety precautions”….. is offset by your next statement….”unfortunately there will always be accidents”….. What a contradiction.
How many diving deaths have there been over the years.
Scuba diving and rented mopeds are the biggest killers of our visitors. Duh…scuba diving is not a safe sport.
My heart and prayers goes out to the family and friends of the person that lost their life today.
Its actually not really a contradiction if not crash tests and safety ratings in cars are a contradiction. Eating or chewing gum you risk choking, using stairs you risk breaking your neck, using a firearm you risk it blowing up in your face. Nothing in life is 100% guarenteed safe. With Logic76′s statement and the statement from the press I would guess the rapid ascention to the surface may have killed him. I’ve never scuba dived before but I know if you hold your breath and ascend to the surface too fast, the air in your lungs expands and your lungs burst. I’m not saying this is what happened, he could have been stung by a lion fish or a combination of both for all we know. I don’t think the venom from a lion fish causes resperatory failure but if it does, combined with a rapid ascention, there’s your answer. Panic in general can cause the same thing. There can be unforseen circumstances in everything you do, like simply rolling your ankle on a rock and falling forehead first on an upright nail. If you avoid everything with danger you end up living in a bubble and actually not living at all. You only live once. Things happen. RIP and condolences to the family.
Driving is safe when you’re taught the correct techniques and safety precautions, unfortunately there will always be car accidents. My statements were in no way contradictory. Educate yourself before you make ill-informed responses and comments. Diving is an extremely safe sport when safety precautions are observed and individuals participating are properly trained. There are currently four dive shops on the island. I know for a fact that three of these companies run two trips a day during the summer. That’s 3 dives per person diving, per day. Multiply that by the amount of people on board (I’ll assume an average of 12 not including crew/instructors) then multiply again by 100 (roughly the length of the main tourist season in Bermuda in days) and you arrive at 3600 dives per season. Of these 3600 dives per customer/visitor (as I haven’t included staff in my count) how many have died in the past 5 years? I have not heard of a paying customer passing on a SCUBA excursion for a long time. To my recollection there was one instructor who passed away while using a re-breather closed-loop system (completely different to SCUBA open-loop systems), and a woman who died of exhaustion after her and her companions’ privately rented boat dragged anchor and eventually drifted away while they were still underwater. There have been noted cases of tourists dying of heart-attacks while snorkelling on tours in Bermuda. May they all RIP and my personal condolences to all of their families.
@ logic76 & Come correct
Well I worked for a dive company over twenty-five years ago and I stopped diving and stick to snorkelling now as it is much safer.
Since you are obviously still diving and it appears that you are still in the industry – how many diving deaths are there annually on average?
As for you saying that some people died of heart attacks while on a dive; do you consider that the exhersion and excitement (or fear) may have contributed to the heart attack. People in their 70s shouldn’t be diving for their first time unless you know that person is physically fit enough.
Seems like at least one death a year, but lets hear the statistics. I know that there was a cruise ship passenger that died in 2011. Comparing car accidents, gum chewing and things that many people do everyday is rediculous and missleading. As you have already stated there are 3,600 dives per season; how can you compare that to vehicle accidents when 40,000 people get in vehicles everyday in Bermuda….come on – get real.
Uh, statistics? I pulled this off e-how, I can’t vouch for the actually numbers but I do know that diving is a pretty low-risk sport in comparison to other activities:
The Risks of Scuba Diving in Comparison With Other Activities:
1 out of every 211,864 dives endsin a fatality.
• 1 out of every 5,555 of registered drivers in the US died in car accidents in 2008 (www.cenus.gov).
• 1 out of every 7692 pregnant women died from pregnancy complications in 2004 (National Center for Health Statistics).
• 1 out of every 116,666 skydives ended in a fatality in 2000 (United States Parachuting Association).
• 1 out of every 126,626 marathon runners died of sudden cardiac arrest while running a marathon between 1975-2003 (National Safety Council
So is walking down the road!!
Diving like anything not done right can be … But accidents happen….
I get your point Nok,perhaps it is dangerous in the winter time. However my sincere condolences to his family
I agree that is why I have never tried it. I will be anxious to find out what happened if the cause will ever be known.I only know that he has been on many dives in Bermuda so lack of experience does not sound like it is an issue.I am comforted by knowing that my cousin died doing something he loved at a location he loved. Life is so full of risks.
SMH its dangerous to walk out ur house its dangerous to drive ur car but u still do it… He was having fun and probally loved doing it rip and sympathy to the family
My condolences to the family.
I agre with all of you, and I know how much he loved that sport. He was coming here for that,
He knew what he was doing but the fatal accident happened and took the life of a wonderful man.
I’ll miss him, RIP my friend and my deepest sympathy to his family.
I hate that diving sport!!!
Diving is an amazing sport but like anything it has its risks. Something had to have happened or gone wrong for the poor man. RIP and my condolences to his family.
Diving is a wonderful sport. I became addicted the first time I slowly sank to the bottom and then glided slowly over stunningly beautiful submerged reefs alongside the fish who seem to accept divers swimming amongst them more easily than snorkelers swimming above them. And Bermuda is an amazing place to dive – clear water; colourful fish; lots of ship wrecks; beautiful reefs and water which is a lot warmer than in many other great diving locations. The water in winter is often much clearer than it is in summer.
I don’t think the incidence of diving accidents are proportionally as great as motorcycling. However when there is an accident – it is often tragic, as it was in this incident.
My sincere condolences to the family of the gentleman.
Of course like many others on here my thoughts are with the friends and family of the deceased at this stage one would hope that they should be the primary issue.
However I think some people have commented unfairly on the inherent dangerous nature of diving. I fully agree that diving is a techinal and sometime physically demanding sport but that does not make it dangerous. We have no idea yet what happened and until a proper investigation is made by the regulatory authorities then its far too early to jump to conclusions. As for Diving worldwide a quick review on the internet turned up this statistic:-
“The American Academy of Family Physicians in a report (dated June 2001 so it’s a bit out of date) stated that there are an average of 90 scuba deaths reported each year worldwide.”
I agree its an old statistic but most likely is still apt. The Dive shops here take great pride in both their service levels and committiment to safety . If you had a look on Tripadvisor the glowing reports of most if not all of the Dive shops on this island show this.
He was a great man and loved by many.
@whatever
Do you have some more up-to-date statistics.
My condolences to the family. Hope he knew Jesus as his personal saviour.
Hey I have a solution!! Why don’t we all stay in our houses and do absolutely nothing…seems like whenever someone dies someplace other than in their bed its because they were doing something “dangerous”.