DARWIN, Australia (9 Sep 2007) -- A young man scuba diving with Coral Divers was moments from death after he became trapped in the porthole of a wreck and ran out of air. The 23-year-old diver, who was not identified, nearly died while scuba diving under the supervision of IANTD instructor Suzie Lack, 52, and Coral Divers owner Sasha Muller at the Medkhanun 3 wreck, which was sunk as a scuba diving attraction in Darwin Harbour. Lack said they failed to notice that one of their customers had separated from the 10-diver group but fortunately the diver's buddy was on top of the situation. "He is a very lucky young man. And lucky that his diving buddy knew where he was," Ms Lack told reporters. "It was very frightening...there were stages where it was touch and go...he could have died." Lack blamed the diver for "doing something silly" by heading off into the small 25-meter wreck right under her nose. "He did the wrong thing," Lack told reporters. "He went into the wreck and stirred up all of the silt down there...he became disorientated and went towards the light but got stuck". Witnesses said that without help from other dive boat operators, the man certainly would have died. After the diver got stuck, Coral Divers sent out a Mayday call on the dive boat radio. Other dive operators in the area responded with divers who took air tanks down to the trapped diver. More than an hour after the man got stuck, divers finally managed to pull him out. | | Suzie Lack and Sasha Muller of Coral Divers harshly criticized a diver who ventured into a wreck while he was diving under their supervision. Although severely bruised and in shock, the diver is expected to make a full recovery. Lack said she thought the man had learned a lesson. And what did Lack and Muller learn? Apart from her observation that it was the scariest thing she had seen in 17 years of diving, Lack said nothing pertaining to anything she and Muller might have learned in terms of better supervision of customers that would help to prevent the kind of wreck diving accident that nearly cost the life of a Coral Divers' customer. © CDNN - CYBER DIVER NEWS NETWORKSCUBA FORUMDISCUSS THIS TOPIC - Dive in and have your say at Scuba Forum |
