This Editorial is further to the one I wrote and published here on May 16 2018 sub-titled “Seventh water related death”.

I have received a number of correspondence about the Editorial and, although they have given me permission to publish their comments, all wish to remain anonymous. This is because they still have or have had dealings here in the Cayman Islands.

Before I start we have received a report of a man on Cayman Brac, Linvol Smith, who apparently went diving* [see UPDATE below] last Friday (18) around midday and at the time of writing this Editorial (two days later) he has not been found. Searches, both land and sea, the police helicopter and members of the newly-formed RCIPS Dive Team have been conducted and are ongoing. Inclement weather has hampered the search.

I pray there will be good news.*[see UPDATE below]

In my aforementioned Editorial I spoke about the issue of full-face snorkel deaths in Hawaii. The UK’s Daily Mail headlined a number of deaths involving snorkelers but only two of them it afterwards turned out involved full face masks.

In italics are the correspondence quotes.

That is not to say “there aren’t potential problems with them. Since the original design was launched in 2014 the market has become flooded with sub-standard Chinese knock-offs. A top-of-the-range full-face mask costs about US$100 but you can find the knock-offs for US$15. The big difference is usually the material they’re made off. It’s the same as with normal masks – the expensive ones use top quality silicone, which forms a good seal on your face, the cheap ones are plastic, which doesn’t seal at all. If the mask doesn’t seal round your mouth and nose potentially you could get CO2 build up but my guess is more like water leaking in and triggering a drowning reflex. When that happens you can’t just spit the snorkel out, the whole mask has to be pulled off to let you breathe. Put it this way – if I was still going in the water I wouldn’t use one despite the fact that I’m an experienced full-face commercial diving mask user.”

Some years ago, (at least ten), the Safety of Small Commercial Waterborne Vessels report was released. “Despite the damning conclusions in the report it was pretty much buried by the general watersports operators. The Stingray City operators in particular had a very effective lobby that blocked a lot of proposals for moves that would have really tightened up safety requirements on their boats. One issue that I don’t think was ever addressed is that while all certified scuba instructors and dive masters have to be current in first aid and CPR there doesn’t appear to be any similar requirement for crew involved in any other watersports. Quite a few of the ex-pat dive boat skippers also have boat handling and other safety-related qualifications but, in my experience, a lot of people who were employed to run snorkel boats in the past didn’t even understand basic first aid.”

“Apart from the crewing issues, back in 2006/7 I identified two other distinct problems. The first was simply that it takes at least a year to convene an inquest into any watersports fatality. In simple terms that means all the relevant documentation about this recent spate of deaths will be sealed until they go to court sometime next year. That’s a heck of a delay and without that information it’s very difficult to properly review the safety issues. Relating to this have been difficulties tracing any equipment the deceased was using at the time for examination and testing. It’s all supposed to be secured for RCIPS but in at least one case we found that all the rental scuba gear being used had been dismantled, rinsed off and put back in the dive centre. On another occasion the snorkel gear was thrown back into a big box with all the other rental kit so couldn’t be identified. This isn’t anybody’s fault, it’s just the operator’s normal routine but it’s indicative of a lack of proper protocols or rules relating to fatalities.”

“The other problem, which seems to come out in just about every watersports inquest report I’ve read, is that the deceased had pre-existing medical conditions that they were aware of, being treated for and taking medication for.”

The writer stopped scuba diving because of mild symptoms of peripheral oedema and pulmonary oedema – in plain English swollen feet/ankles and a persistent non-productive cough.

“As far as I was concerned it was a complete no-brainer and although both problems have since cleared up without medical intervention or medication I’m not rushing back into the water because there are plenty of other activities out there. Sadly, other people have different attitudes to life and that’s something it’s impossible to regulate properly. Realistically, when unfit visitors go out on their own at places like Smith Cove there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it – as the saying goes, ‘You can’t fix stupid.'”

“What does disturb me, and it was mentioned at an inquest earlier this year, is how many of these fatalities occur at sites that have some form of supervision or on boat trips to places like Stingray City. This is probably simply because there’s so much pressure, particularly from the cruise operators, on the watersports operators in the Cayman Islands to get people in the water regardless of the safety issues. It’s about 11 years since I did Stingray City but even back then it was chaos – there was no way the boat crews could properly supervise anything and to make it worse there were boats moving through areas with people in the water. Stingray City isn’t even a naturally safe location. It’s in the middle of a tidal lagoon that can experience some pretty rough conditions but people seem to be encouraged to regard it as nothing more than a dip in their hotel swimming pool – there’s no risk assessment and more often than not no proper safety briefing. The customers are treated like ‘teabags’ – drop them in, get them wet, get them out again.”

“The real danger here is that Grand Cayman will end up in the same position as the Cozumel and the Bahamas have in the past. As their watersports incident stats increased both destinations suffered a huge drop-off in tourism from the USA as travel operators refused to take bookings for fear of being sued if their customers got killed or injured. Around 1996 I was on the Brac and did several dive trips with a group from the US tourism industry on a ‘FAM trip’. They were telling me that ‘Coz’ was pretty much off limits for most of them because of the potential litigation issues. The same applies to the cruise lines. If someone they sign up for a snorkel or dive trip and doesn’t come back the family’s lawyers won’t mess around trying to sue some piddly little operation on Grand Cayman, they’ll go where the money is and sue the cruise line.”

“I almost hate to suggest this but there’s a clear case here for a repeat of the watercraft safety report – an outside expert needs to come in and try to work out what the heck is going wrong here because if you leave it to DoT and the watersports operators it isn’t going to happen.”

Another correspondent referred me to a Compass report: https://www.caymancompass.com/2018/03/26/elderly-snorkelers-inquest-raises-questions/

I am obviously not going to quote from that but it does contains a lot of interesting comments.

The final correspondent says: “When I worked in Israel all our watersports activities came under Israeli Law. If I taught scuba diving in the UK for profit or reward (I never did) that came under Health and Safety legislation. It’s doable if you want to. In the Cayman Islands this always seems to end up as an argument between government legislation and self-regulation with the watersports operators saying they can look after themselves without the law interfering – the problem is they may be able to look after themselves but they can’t look after their customers and that’s not a good road to go down. In the Bahamas it got so bad the US Embassy banned their staff from using the watersports (particularly jet ski) operators in some areas.”

All of the above gives more weight to my previous conclusion:

With the seventh water* related death now recorded here this year, surely the authorities must start taking all this very seriously!!!

UPDATE:

• RCIPS now say man on Cayman Brac, Linvol Smith was snorkelling and NOT diving.
• RCIPS – “We believe that we have searched as completely as possible in the location, especially given current weather conditions,” said Acting Superintendent Brad Ebanks, Head of Specialist Support Operations, “our officers report that the undertow is carrying them to the wall at present.  Given these conditions, we must reluctantly admit that further underwater searches are unlikely to be successful and we have concluded these efforts. Our thoughts are with Mr. Smith’s family at this time.”
• The figure would now seem to be EIGHT