CAYMAN ISLANDS (21 Jan 2008) — A tourist has died after a scuba diving accident in the Cayman Islands. Authorities declined to identify the 47-year-old British woman who died while scuba diving off a dive boat owned and operated by a local dive shop. The Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS) said they responded to a call for help from someone reporting that a diver was unconscious aboard a dive boat. The caller told police the scuba diving accident victim was receiving CPR as the dive boat sped towards West Bay public beach. Paramedics met the boat and rushed the woman to hospital where she was pronounced dead. Authorities said the accident is under investigation and that an autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death. In 2007 five tourists died scuba diving in the Caymans, however, the accidents are still under investigation because there is no coroner on the island. Authorities acknowledge that the safety of tourists who scuba dive in the Cayman Islands has been compromised by long delays of up to two years before investigations into the causes of scuba diving accidents can be completed. But local dive tourism promoters dismiss such public safety concerns as "doom and gloom hysteria" and complain that it is unfair to single out scuba diving as an unusually dangerous outdoor activity. Pre-existing medical conditions Liquor store owner Steve Broadbelt, a strident local tourism promoter who also owns the Ocean Frontiers dive shop, equates scuba diving with golf and blames divers who get killed in the Caymans for what he says are their own "pre-existing medical conditions". "You know, just because somebody was having a round of golf and they had a heart attack, it's not considered a golfing accident," said Broadbelt. Unlike golf, however, scuba diving involves inherent risks of decompression sickness, lung embolisms, drowning and potentially dangerous encounters with marine wildlife. Participation in scuba diving activities also requires a medical examination and liability releases to which people who ride around in golf carts are not subjected. "Steve Broadbelt's assertion that golfing and scuba diving are equivalent in terms of how such fundamentally different outdoor activities stress human physiology doesn't pass the smell test—in fact, it leaves the foul stench of denial and deceit," said CDNN Editor Lamar Bennington. "It's a calculated attempt by a notorious Cayman Islands profiteer with his own skeletons in the closet to mislead travelers about the inherent risks of scuba diving and the obvious impact individual dive operators necessarily have in terms of diminishing or increasing the risks we face every time we go scuba diving," Bennington added. Once considered the best Caribbean scuba diving destination, the Cayman Islands is now synonymous with overdevelopment, exorbitant rates and lowest common denominator tourist trap gimmicks such as Stingray City where local dive boat operators harass marine wildlife to "entertain" cruise ship tourists. | | Another tourist died while scuba diving in the Cayman Islands where the unwritten rule is "always blame the customer" whenever somebody dies or gets hurt. "When young Justin Weber nearly lost his arm a couple of years ago while scuba diving with Ocean Frontiers, the accident clearly underscored why Broadbelt, who started the sleezy business of shark feeding in the Caymans, was forced to stop selling unsafe and eco-unfriendly scuba diving activities already banned in Florida and Hawaii." All scuba accidents are "scuba-related" Increasingly, tourism promoters and dive industry insiders in the Cayman Islands, Florida and other popular tourist destinations attempt to suppress and distort information about scuba diving accidents by blaming fatalities on "pre-existing medical conditions" and arbitrarily denying that diver deaths are "scuba-related". Despite such misleading information that aims to protect tourism revenue by denying the obvious — all fatal and non-fatal injuries that occur to people while they are scuba diving are "scuba-related" — it is simply not clear to what extent stress factors unique to the use of underwater life support equipment (SCUBA) affect pre-existing medical conditions such as heart disease and obesity. "The question that needs to be answered is whether scuba diving is killing people who otherwise would go on to lead long and productive lives despite their health issues," Bennington said. Until such time as peer-reviewed medical studies conducted independently of the dive industry provide conclusive evidence that stress factors unique to scuba diving activities do not trigger heart attacks and other medical complications that can be fatal underwater, Cyber Diver recommends that all certified and uncertified divers including tourists involved in "Discover Scuba" resort courses pass a thorough physical examination within six months of diving. People with pre-existing health issues such as coronary disease and obesity are advised not to participate in scuba diving activities, which could cause severe injury or death. © CDNN - CYBER DIVER NEWS NETWORKSCUBA FORUMDISCUSS THIS TOPIC - Dive in and have your say at Scuba ForumCDNN RELATED NEWSCAYMANS - Red Sail Sports customer died from embolismCAYMANS - Diver-fed eel nearly bites off scuba diver's arm |
