Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff B
I was on the boat when this happened and I can tell you for a FACT... She did not fall overboard and get hit by the prop!!
Here is what I know.
There were 6 divers on board. 3 of us were more experienced and the other 3 were beginners. The girl who got hit was there with her husband and both had recently got certified and another girl was getting certified. Were were to split into 2 groups the experienced divers were going to do a deep drift dive and the beginners were going to go with the instructor (Buri??) Big older guy with long grey hair) We ALL got in the water except one girl was going to maybe snorkel while her husband dovw with my group. We went down and about mid way through the dive I noticed that Tito (think thats his name) had caught up to us. We got done with the dive and came up. I was looking for the boat when Tito told me we may have to swim to shore and wait for the police boat to come get us as there had been an accident. Byt the time we got back to the dive boat via the police the girl was gone and from what the eyewitnesses said this is what happened. When we arrived to the dive site we couldn't anchor as the anchor line had broke. When we got in it was fairly shallow (less than 20 ft) The beginners group was down on the bottom when the driver of the boat was needing to move the boat as it was being pushed towards shore. The girl who got hit husband had started to go up for some reason. The instuctor (Buri?) signalled for him to come back down but he didn't. He swam up and grabbed the guy and forced him down. From my understanding no one actually saw the girl get hit all they saw was she was at the bottom mask and reg gone and air line cut. She was unconcious. Buri grabbed her and rushed to the surface and into the boat and started CPR as she was not breathing. They all said she was breathing when the ambulance finally got there but there was a while she was unresponsive and everybody thought she was dead. The prop cut her on the head but they said it wasnt real deep. I am not a fan of the owner of Mermaid but I do like the crew. They were all excellent divers and good people. I am not sure why she went up, I think it may have been inexperiece and bouancy problems. but that is just a guess. I was told the girl was stable in the hospital but would like an update if anyone knows for sure. For the record Tito was not driving the mermaid when this happened. another guy was.
You can say what you want about the mermaid crew but that instructor saved that girls life!! She was basically dead when she got on the boat and was breathing but still in serious trouble when help arrived. And as far as running the motor with divers down that seems to be a common occurance in Aruba as on wednesday we dove the Antilla and I heard several motors starting while we were down. Kinda scary looking up and seeing 2 props spinning at 2000 + rpm directly above you.
PS do you have a link to that article in english?
JEFF BENHAM
CONROE TEXAS
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Jeff's account is pretty much what was told to me by a person that was in the water at the time it happened.