beware the tourist boats

[gobfish1]

when you take load,s of boats and fill them with load,s of numpty divers your going to have diver error.

so best to see if there is a way to still get the 50 quid of the numpty and not have them swim in to the props of the dive boats ,,

and if by chance this guy was not a numpty .. its still best to see what can be done to stop the same thing happing to often ,,


i hope this wont put the guy of diving ,, i wish him well ,,

[Cheeky Monkey]

Had you been the guy in question, who had no choice over his participation.....

He did appear to pose for pics and give a story to the paper though ..... I don't think you can give your story to the media and then be surprised when people who have read it discuss it

[bythesea]

He did appear to pose for pics and give a story to the paper though ..... I don't think you can give your story to the media and then be surprised when people who have read it discuss it

Funny thing the media, you tell them your story and they publish something else, it is a bit like your story but not.

discussion is fine, criticising people who are not here to defend themselves directly and speculation, IMO, is not. Recently a diver down here, 40+ years under the waves, more dives than hot dinners did not surface successfully, no body knows why and it is likely we never will. Around the local clubs condolences were offered to his family along with words of appreciation for the knowledge he passed on over the years. I don't recall one single person shouting about 'well, did he do this' ' he should have don that, if he had followed his training he would be alive' etc..... It is a little thing that gets forgotten about on the internet, it is called respect....

A couple of us have a pretty good idea what happened, we discussed it quietly and sensitively, no one ran around guessing...

[Stevie H]

Just to clarify, none of my posts on here have been meant in a way to disrespect Maurice, I hope he makes a full recovery and continues to dive. My problem was with people changing the "facts" and then slating YD for all the speculation - speculation which they had caused by changing the facts as they went.....

Personally I think that a discussion about how to prevent future, similar accidents is most appropriate on a thread like this. We've had the debate before and I know others' view vary, but people learn best they can relate what they are being taught to a real incident, rather than a hypothetical situation.

Agreed 100% We need to learn what happened so that we can ensure it doesn't happen again, so, we need to hear facts!

As it happens, Moz was about to get on the ladder after safely ascending when the boat next door to theirs started their engine after having a row with another captain and Moz was sucked under into the propeller so we should just all be grateful that he is alive.
Until you know the true facts of an incident, I would save the pontifications for then.
Chinese whispers and hearsay have no place when a man with a wife and 2 children almost lost his life.

So he was on the surface then!

Hello

I have just joined this YD site to reply to some of the quotes on here. I was with Maurice when the accident happened, There was about 12 of us in the group. I realise that the MEN have used words like oxygen tank but the is because the journalist isn't a diver so wouldnt use terms we would use. Our boat was moored approx 10 mtrs from a reef on our right. The bottom was apporx 12 mtrs. Another boat came and moored alongside ours and while we were on our dive the boats started banging together. The tide was running in an unusual direction that day which caused this. The two captains had an argument with our captain telling the other boat to go. witnesses say it was quite a heated argument. We started our accent a few mtrs from the reef unware of what was happening on the surface. Both boats were on our left, with the reef to our right . We were not surfaceing under the boat at all. Although I can see from the MEN is does come across that way. The boat that hit Maurice reved his engine, moved forward a few mtrs and the reversed back over Maurice who was at appprox 8 mtrs. Think of a 3 point turn . The boat came in towards the reef and over Maurice. The fact that he was in reverse cause him to be sucked up like a rag doll. He is an experienced diver and was in no way at fault or careless. It could have been any one of use. What we need to do is raise awarness of these propeller accidents which mostly result in instant death and brushed under the carpet by the Egyptians so as not to damaged the diver/tourist industry . If they fitted propeller guards allot of lifes would be saved . They wont because it takes more fuel, cost and maintenance . This is a regular occurance, I have diver friends who live in Hurguarda who have confirmed this .

Ah, so he was at 8m now, and not about to get on the ladder as we were told - well I routinely swim under boats at 5/6m and it is perfectly safe to do so, it is rather unpleasant I will grant you but still safe - as Jim Dowling and Divebunnie can testify boats are always driving over the top of divers at Ras Katy every single day and no-one has ever been sucked up from 5m.

Hi Stevie,

I will try and clarify for you. We are at the same dive club and were in Hurghada on same flights etc, but we were on a Blue O'Two liveaboard trip, not the land based trip that this accident happened on so only met on the way out and way back. This was the account I had from our friends on the plane so will double check if necessary. It's not a case of lying, just the first hand account that we got from our friend, the leader of the trip and Moz's friend. I don't know Frosty, but I imagine the panic at the time could have affected the account of the incident. The dive leader of the trip said (and direct quote) "they had finished their safety stop and were on their way to the ladder when the other boat started it's engines and Moz was sucked up into the propellor." The use of the SMB is unclear at this point, but I guess even they had used it, it would be wound back up if you were on your way to the ladder, ours usually is, but that's my personal opinion, not an actual account.

1. So you weren't there, despite the fact that you allured in your firsts posts to being present, and could give us "an eye witness" account

2. So, "they had finished their safety stop and were on there way back to the ladder when Maurice was sucked up"..... I'm sorry, very sorry, but to me that reads
"we were swimming underwater to the back of the boat when Maurice was sucked up"

Why were the divers below the boat? Which was it? Near the reef? A few metres from the reef? 8m under the boat? On the ladder?

In order to prevent it happening and learn then the exact facts are needes, as from above the story seems to change each and every time. Yes boat captains have responsibility and yes there are some terrible boat skippers there but divers also have a responsibility. The problem with this incident is the "facts" about what happened keep changing making it impossible to work out what really happened.

Agreed.

If you want to put this to bed, then get a full and accurate description of events, its a fact of life that people will speculate if they dont have the full details and Mrs D started the speculation when she changed her story.... Mrs D is also outraged as to the comments made on here by people - trust me Mrs D, if the commenst were deemed to be bad or any other such misdemeaner then Mal B would have closed the thread.

Frosty1 wants to raise awareness of propeller accidents - I've worked in Sharm for 8 years now and know of only 2, the one when the Polish muppet swam under the jetty and this one, I have seen a tonne of close calls, all caused by idiots swimming underwater to the back of their boat, so I dont think "Awarness of an issue" is relevant to such a rare occurance.


Once again, I hope the fella makes a full recovery.

[Georgina]

My friends back in the UK were underwater at the same time and close to the boat and shaken by what happened. I will send them the link to this discussion to see if they want to add something.

[Lou]

10 dives makes him a beginner. And quite probably not trained in the use of a DSMB.
At least he's thinking rather than just arguing.

I was discussing, and specifically referred to, ascending whilst looking up and around. The DSMB is a red herring here.

[Scuba Stew]

The DSMB is a red herring here.

Ah, that'd be why it didn't inflate properly.

[Janos]

I was discussing, and specifically referred to, ascending whilst looking up and around. The DSMB is a red herring here.

Lou, your good at your risk assessments. Imagine you were the centre manager here. I think it's likely that someone [1] with 10 dives is going to pop to the surface [2]. So you tell your boathandlers to be really careful around divers and consider fitting prop guards. Except that in Egypt many boathandlers are bloody awful and there are no prop guards.

Of course you can argue that people shouldn't pop to the surface and they go vertical, rotate, and look around, but after 10 dives many people (including me) are still amazed you can breathe underwater.

Janos

[1] - Emphatically NOT referring to the specifics of the Original Post -I'm confused as to how experienced or not they are.
[2] - Missus Janos and I did on our PADI AOW, so dive 8 or 9. We got disorientated by some bubbles, the instructors were at 40m dealing with someone who was a bit too sinky. Then suddenly Missus Janos and I were on the surface. We looked around, saw the waves breaking over Shark reef, thought "this is a bit scary" and so popped down to 20m. Not exactly recommended practice but I think we escaped a bend!

[Janos]

Frosty1 wants to raise awareness of propeller accidents - I've worked in Sharm for 8 years now and know of only 2, the one when the Polish muppet swam under the jetty and this one, I have seen a tonne of close calls, all caused by idiots swimming underwater to the back of their boat, so I dont think "Awarness of an issue" is relevant to such a rare occurance.

One more for your close calls: Less than six weeks ago, I rolled backwards off a rib. The rib drifted a bit and the guy put it into gear when the prop was about 1m from me.

Janos

[Janos]

Whats the point of accident analysis if its too cuddly and ignores everything in case of offence? Imagine aircraft safety if any probing questions were ignored. Or driving. Or anything in fact. It was a public incident, it made the news. I see no reason there why it cant be publicly discussed. It could happen again - there may or may not be safety lessons to be learnt which will benefit others.



Fluffy does get anyone anywhere. Facts are important and once they're known THEN lessons can be learnt. Being afraid to question gets people nowhere.

I can't see a single post accusing the diver of doing anything stupid - plenty of posts trying to see what actually happened and pointing out the constantly changing "facts" of the case. The speculation is purely a result of that.

1) You're assuming that people learn the right lessons from an incident, when actually reading some of the reports makes me "facepalm"
2) Aggressive questioning can make people not submit an incident, but prefer to keep quiet about it. Then no-one learns from it.

Janos