BAJA, Mexico (23 Nov 2003) -- Marilyn Hoover was the only scuba diving partner Katie Vrooman ever had. "They were inseparable," said Stan Kittleson, of Solon, Iowa, who directed the scuba diving program and taught physical education at Augustana College in Rock Island before his retirement. "They'd go on as many trips together as they could." It was in Kittleson's scuba program that the 72-year-old Hoover, who taught immunology and microbiology at Augustana, and the 77-year-old Vrooman, a retired business owner from Rock Island, both learned to dive. And it was Kittleson who took them on one of their first diving trips to Jamaica, said Hoover, of Bettendorf. But a horrible accident that occurred Nov. 9 while diving in the Sea of Cortez off Mexico's Baja California Sur ended Vrooman's active life. She had scores of close friends, and each remembers her as a vibrant and outgoing woman, Kittleson said. "She was so full of life," he said. "And she looked for the best in everybody." Hoover was Vrooman's dive partner that fateful day. That Vrooman died doing what she loved does not make the loss any easier to bear, Hoover said. "It's hard to think it was my dive buddy," she added. "We have been diving buddies for the past 13 years and have been on 25 dive trips together," she said. "We had a set of signals that we used along with the standard scuba hand signals. We always followed the rule of 'plan your dive and dive your plan.' That means, know ahead of time what you are going to do on the dive and do not change it once you get underwater." "Marilyn and Katie were very in tune with each other," said Scott Jones, the owner of Scuba Adventures QCA Inc. in Davenport, who was on the trip to La Paz and struggled to save Vrooman's life. Jones eventually spent nearly 30 hours clinging to a group of rocks and waiting to be rescued. Vrooman was an intelligent, careful and experienced diver who loved the sport and never took chances, Hoover said. "She loved life and lived it well. She would travel just about anywhere to go diving." Probably one of their favorite trips was to Egypt to dive in the Red Sea, she added. They also had traveled to Micronesia, Palau and Yap in the Pacific Ocean, to 13 islands all over the Caribbean and to the Florida Keys. "Katie always followed behind and slightly above me and thus could see where I was and where we were going," Hoover said. "We almost always stuck close to the dive master to be safe." It was a three-hour boat ride from La Paz to the dive site that Sunday. La Paz is about 600 miles south of Tijuana, Mexico, which is on the California border. There were six divers, including Hoover, Vrooman and Jones, himself a Professional Association of Diving Instructors, or P.A.D.I., master instructor. After the dive master provided a standard orientation, the group hit the water. On that tragic dive, Hoover said she and Vrooman were together until the last few minutes. They were following the dive master, who was pointing out the beautiful fish and sea life and checking for the "OK" sign from one another. "Our rigid rule, which we always followed, was that if either of us lost contact with our buddy, we searched underwater for a minute, or two if visibility was poor, looking up and down and around in a complete circle several times," Hoover said. "If we still could not see our buddy, we went to the surface and looked in a circular search pattern for another minute. If, after a minute or two, we still did not see her, then the rule was to go back to the boat." | | Hoover said her last contact with Katie was an "OK" sign. "Right after that, we ran into the strongest surge of current that I have ever experienced," she said. Jones said the dive master never warned them about the possibility of such a powerful current. "All of us struggled to get through it, clinging to rocks and kicking as hard as we could," Hoover said. "The dive master had to help several divers by pulling them along by the hand. Finally, we made it around a corner of rocks where the current was not quite so strong." Clinging to a rock, Hoover searched all around for Vrooman, but she could not see her. "I signaled to the dive master that I could not see my buddy," she said. "Then I searched for a minute and a little more before going to the surface to look for her. I thought she would have surfaced to get out of that killer current. I continued to look until I had just enough air in my tank to get back to the boat. But Katie was not there." Jones, however, saw Vrooman alone, "and I knew something was wrong. Katie was never by herself." Surfacing, he saw the surge throw Vrooman twice against the rocks and boulders. Upon getting to her, Jones began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. All the while, the surge was pounding him into the rocks as well. Jones found a cove that he thought would offer protection, "but it acted like a funnel. I'm trying to remove my equipment and give her mouth-to-mouth and I'm still being banged up against the walls." The cove and the barking of sea lions muffled his cries for help. Little did he realize until he was rescued the next day that he was only about 500 feet from the original dive site. As the other divers returned to the boat, Hoover said, they noticed that Jones, too, was missing. And after realizing their two dive mates were long overdue, a search began. "The dive masters and two of the men divers searched the entire route the dive had taken," Hoover said. "The ladies were not allowed to participate in the underwater search." Numerous small boats and other dive boats joined the search, but they found nothing. "Steve Irwin of Animal Planet (a cable TV network) and the Australian Zoo happened to be in the area with a large boat and crew," Hoover said. "They were there to film the sea lions. Irwin immediately suspended his operation and his divers searched with ours and they took his boat all around the island where the sea lions were. Irwin used his satellite communications set-up to call in a search plane." By 9 p.m., after darkness had descended, they made a sad, three-hour trek back to the mainland. All the next morning, boats and planes searched, Hoover said. They waited with mounting dread until their worst fears were confirmed. A couple of kayakers found Jones and got help. Vrooman's body was discovered by the search plane not far from him. "It is a devastating loss for me and for her host of friends," Hoover said of Vrooman. "We will remember her with gratitude for the joy she brought to all our lives." The accident is a lesson for everyone, she added. "No matter how careful you are, how good your equipment, how complete your preparations, accidents can happen," she said. "Katie knew this, and she used to say, 'If I get killed diving, at least I'll be doing something I love to do.' " SOURCE - QC Times |
