Analysis of a death - some info on Zak Jones' accident (RIP)

John Rawlings · Post by **John Rawlings** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 8:39 am

Well....it's Thanksgiving and on a day that I like to take time to gives thanks for the many blessings in my life I instead happened across something quite troubling. As I waited for my family to stumble out of bed I got onto the web and clicked around some of my favorite sites. I just saw a link to this article on another board and thought that others may wish to read it:

http://www.browardpalmbeach.com/Issues/ ... _full.html

Despite the fact that this appears in a newspaper, it goes farther than anything else I have seen toward explaining Zak's unfortunate death. It goes far in pointing out that even highly experienced divers are more than capable of making extraordinarily poor decisions.

Zak was a friend of mine.....reading this was quite painful.....I kept finding myself tied in knots and wondering "why would he have done that?" or "how could that have happened?"

- John

Joshua Smith · Post by **Joshua Smith** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 9:08 am

Sobering read. Sorry your morning took a morbid turn, John. Sounds like we'll never know what really happened, like so many dive accidents- especially rebreathers.

John Rawlings · Post by **John Rawlings** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 9:52 am

Several things stood out for me in this rather long article, but the main thing was that there were no functional bail-out bottles for the planned depth.

- John

Zen Diver · Post by **Zen Diver** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 10:11 am

Yes, that stood out for me too. Very sobering and humbling.

-Valerie

Joshua Smith · Post by **Joshua Smith** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 10:35 am

I took particular notice of that as well- but the article also pointed out that there had been a break in the "chain of custody" with the dive gear- it may have been stored at the dive op he worked out of for several days. I'm suspicious enough to wonder who had access to it during that time. Also- his dilluent bottle valve was closed- does a Meg diver, or any rebreather diver, have the ability to turn that valve while wearing the unit?

Also- if he bailed out of his CCR loop- and found he had no regulator on his bail out, why didn't he go back to the loop? Maybe he'd already started to lose consciousness by then? Fear of the Caustic Coctail aside, it would probably seem better than nothing at all- or maybe it wouldn't. And the bailout had 38% EANX in it!

I still want to dive CCR one of these days, when I can afford it (there are numerous references in the article to a 20,000$ cost for this-

- I was hoping it might be a wee bit more affordable, but I guess buying the unit is just the first step- training and more training come next- but still....)
But when I read about all the CCR experts and instructors who have died diving them, it gives me pause.

Tom Nic · Post by **Tom Nic** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 10:50 am

John, my heart goes out to you my friend...

And to all who have lost someone they love and remembering on a day like today...

Thanks to you and so many others who do their utmost to make the sport we love a safer and saner pastime...

To all of us, please pull those that you love close to you...

and have a grateful and happy Thanksgiving.

Tangfish · Post by **Tangfish** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 11:42 am

Thank you for the article John. I'm sorry to know that you lost a good friend. This was a very long, but very good read. Stories like this are very sobering and make me think that diving simple, open circuit might be the way to go for awhile - at least until there is some more R&D and improvement of rebreather technology and practices. I just read about too many deaths of good divers using that gear. Please be careful with yours John!

DiverDown · Post by **DiverDown** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 12:58 pm

Wow its been a year already. I, as all of us remember hearing the terrible news about Zack.

thelawgoddess · Post by **thelawgoddess** » Fri Nov 24, 2006 6:06 pm

wow; that's a compelling article. thanks so much for sharing that with us.

diverdowntoday · Post by **diverdowntoday** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 10:16 am

I read this article, and learned some new things from the article. I also found out that I not only graduated with this individual, but I was taking class from the same dive shop that he worked at.
I feel a very close relationship with this family. Although are experiences are a bit different, the families and I share a big understanding of how the other family feels. I hope that they continue to be strong... It is so hard but what other choice do we have?

jeff98208 · Post by **jeff98208** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 8:20 am

brutal. on this holiday season, zack's family is in our hearts. not only zack himself, but his family as well.

thelawgoddess · Post by **thelawgoddess** » Mon Dec 18, 2006 12:40 pm

i met one of my boyfriend's coworkers at their holiday function last week and she wanted to talk to me about diving. at one point she asked me if i had ever known zak, and i told her i only knew of him from this article. i guess her family was pretty close to him - close enough that she went to florida for his funeral. it sounds like a lot of people looked up to zak and that he was a pretty cool guy. it was already a sad story, but it seems to be more poignant when there's some kind of personal degree of separation. i do hope his family is doing well.