Dear All,
Correction Regarding the Circumstances of the recent Crystal Bay accident: The back roll was from unspecified height. 5 meters was the depth where the victim appeared to witnesses to experience panic (probably having a heart attack it looks like). Ended up lifeless on the surface basically deceased at that point I understand.
Sorry about my dis-information on this as I have extracted the information incorrectly. The rest of the information is accurate. The operator I prefer not to name in the interests of in this case it seems there being no real blame I can see on their side and it seems likely this one was a very unlucky accident however I understand that he went diving against family wishes so perhaps this had some bearing. Either way after a past heart attack he did state this on his form and did not try to hide this from the operator.
I rechecked this earlier as one of the posts is quite right in that there are no dive boats that they or I know of that have a 5 meter entry and a back entry is thereore not correct. It does though seems that there was a degree of stress the person was under and can only at this stage suggest that conditions are usually the primary generator of the stress however with no further detail this is pure conjecture.
This one seems a sad case of someone that loved diving despite the heart attack of past. Again I would state again that anyone over 40 years of age should have an annual medical as standard. Diving after a heart attack also does seem to not be a good idea in general as there is always going to be a high probability of stress in many dives especially where you may need to swim hard to reach the boat after the dive and/or you have to try to get back onto the boat when it is pitching heavily and timing is important sometimes.
sliver2c: Regarding recommendations for a beginner I would say that spend some time in the bay at Lembongan around the platform there. Get used to the colder water (it gets much colder on many of the sites though so beware) and make sure you have enought wet suit thickness. Suggest 5mm. Dives such as SD are great BUT you do need to stay above 20-30 meters if not so experienced and also be comfortable in current. SD is a great dive and when you surface you pop the sausage and then relax and get back onto the boat. Issues with any of these dives are that if you are in current then you must be comfortable with this. Current diving is a lot of fun and on SD pretty predictable and a bit like flying in reality as you do not need to expend much energy swimming. Manage depth and orientation and just relax and let the current move you along. The poster Suhaimi with so many years experience there might also suggest some easier dives for the less experienced. Places like Jurrasic Point are in no way suitable for any divers that are not very seriously experienced as this dive can be like something most divers have ever experienced.
Anyway again sorry for the mis-interpretation of data coming from sources. The accident is a sad sad one and at this time it is clear that the guy made a call based on his own reasons that turned out to be not a good one. As far as the operator in this case goes, there is not much they could do unless the conditions were very bad and they had perhaps needed to single out this person based on his stated prior heart attack however this to me is not realistic. If they made the decision to dive and all the rest were okay then it comes down to bad luck on the heart attack and the individuals choice to take the risk.
It seems like a personal call that was not made based on realism perhaps with a touch of peer pressure not helping at all. That said you would have had to be there to make any real call on the causes as to why he did the dive and that would be not easy to do for anyone let alone an operator regardless of who they were in the heat of the moment. Having said that and knowing that someone on board had had a heart attack then experienced Instructors and Divemasters would or should make sure the dive conditions and potential physical stress in particular possible due to the conditions, matched and were as benign as possible so the guy was not likely to have serious stress. That said all dives should be considered as possible to go wrong resulting in a physical stress situation. The clue here is that the accident appears to have happened early in the dive suggesting a prior stress situation was the case. careful Pre-Dive observation of diver behaviour on the boat leading up to the dive often gives a clear indication of abnormal stress. Signals are often there to observe however this is ultimately not the responsibility of an operator and comes down to the individual and their ability to realise they are not matched to the conditions mentally as well as physically. Allowing an individual to stay on the boat is easily done with no loss of face just by for instance stating that you feel sick/ill. Nobody in a group will have issue with this and it is a lot better to do this than go ahead. Heart Attacks however can give a warning or they can happen with zero warning so we will never really know here.
To close, sorry again for the details error wise however I apologise and need to read information more closely next time
