Tourist dies after diving in West Bay
(CNS): A 70-year-old man who was visiting the Cayman Islands from the USA died Thursday following a dive trip off North West Point. Police said that at around 2:45pm today (19 March) emergency crews were notified that the diver was in need of medical attention. Stephen Edward Van Buren from Conroe, in Texas was diving in the company of other divers and experienced difficulties while he was in the water, an RCIPS spokesperson said. He was helped to get to the shore for medical attention and then taken by ambulance to the Cayman Islands Hospital in George Town, where he was pronounced dead.
Van Buren arrived in the Cayman Islands on Wednesday and was travelling with his son, police stated. The incident is under investigation by officers from the RCIPS Joint Marine Unit.
Category: Local News
Condolances to the family involved but also spare a thought for the boat crew who worked tirelessly to save the man and now will never forget that day…
I’m not sure you can do anything to prevent a person from dying. If you notice, many of the people are older. One recently was lost. Based on the millions to the Cayman Islands, many of whom enjoy water time, the number who pass away is incredibly small. I’m not sure you you determined that this is “far too often”. Compared to what?
*millions coming (typo)
I’m not sure that you can do anything to prevent the death, and he was 70 years old: Yes you can, what if there were rules/ laws that those of certain age could not get a tank of air to go diving on his own, what if there were some other reason that he lost his life, then a good investigation could have uncovered the causes of his death . Then we would learn how to prevent these tragic from happening to our visitors to the Islands.
One of the problems in the Cayman Islands is that the inquests take so long to be held that the official cause of death won’t be determined for at least another year.
As for the age factor and screening? Some years ago I worked in an area where diving medicals were mandatory. All certified divers had to produce a valid ‘fitness to dive’ medical before they could sign up with us and all our OW students had to undergo a full medical (including an ECG if they were over 40) before training started. It didn’t make any difference at all. We still had numerous incidents including one where one of my colleagues had an apparently healthy 37-year-old female student suffer a fatal heart attack in six metres of water.
I stopped diving in my early 60s on a ‘better safe than sorry’ basis. There were no real health issues, I just figured that after doing it for almost half my life without any problems I had nothing to prove and there was no point in pushing it.
So you think that people shouldn’t be able to decide for themselves what personal risk they are comfortable with?
I am very sad to hear about a other man dies in the Cayman Islands waters. I give the family my condolences. This is just happening far too often for us not to be more proactively in trying to prevent these tragic from happening . I wonder how far do police officer takes the investigation in these case’s . What we can learn from the investigation to better understand what we can do to help prevent tragic to our visitors.
He was 70 years old, I think the investigation can stop right there.