Visitor dies after snorkelling in West Bay
(CNS): A 72-year-old man who was visiting the Cayman Islands from Illinois, USA, died on Wednesday morning following a snorkelling trip off Cemetery Beach, West Bay. The emergency services were called to the scene around 11.30am. When the police arrived, EMS and fire officers were administering CPR to the man, who was lying on the beach.
“It was reported that the man was snorkelling with friends when they decided to return to shore, and he got into distress on the way in,” the police stated in a press release.
People on the beach also helped to bring the man ashore and conducted CPR before the emergency services arrived and took over. He was then taken by ambulance to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead by the attending doctor.
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Category: Local News
I think it’s time life savers need to be on the beaches. Most countries have these in place.
200 lifeguards on shore aren’t going to save any elderly person having a heart attack out snorkeling.
If you’re at risk, stay in the pool where people can get to you or charter a boat to follow you.
Well that seems further down the priority list considering we still can’t manage traffic cops on Friday pay-days, or to quell ritual Sunday drag racing. By all means, go to Cemetery for the beach, for an internment, or to pay anniversary respects, but nobody should be directed there for the snorkelling. There should be a large sign on the street-side pedestrian Beach Access, advising that contrary to whatever someone might have represented, it’s not a great snorkelling site. Then redirecting to a list of better, safer sites – many with ladders, trained staff nearby, with safety and first aid gear. A $200 sign.
The Royal Life Saving Society does not operate in the Cayman Islands. Specialised water safety training has to be sought somewhere else. We also have different attitudes about beach safety, in particular the high levels of acceptance of epidemic alcohol and drug use that would not be permitted on the beach, or in public, in a lot of countries. Where would that even start?
The Bermuda Chub at Cemetary “Reef” are notoriously aggressive and nippy from years of unnatural human feeding interactions, boosting anxiety and stress levels on arrival at that reef, already a disappointing swim from shore. When not under attack, the small blanket of coral heads are uninteresting, too deep to appreciate, and really not amenable to novice snorkelers or photographers. To the front desks that keep directing years of tourists there as though it’s a hidden snorkeling gem it will never be: please do it yourself and then reconsider. Instead, kindly redirect our valued guests to one of the hundreds of more approachable, biodiverse, and enjoyable colored reefs and/or shipwreck landmarks along our laddered coasts. Anyone far beyond their age of youth and fitness, considering a high exertion swim, might think about, or be advised to hire a licensed local guide with safety training and equipment. Let’s try to give everyone the best show possible and also get them home safely. Rip to this site’s latest victim.
I am very sorry for two things.
1) I am very sorry yet another elderly American visitor died here snorkeling. I so wish that everyone visiting here that wants a water experience uses a guide of some sort. Perhaps these people did, I don’t know. I want our visitors to be protected and cared for. This should not happen, but it does happen here much too often.
2) I am sorry that someone saw fit to click on the ‘happy’ icon. Your life must be pretty poor and without spark to be happy about a stranger to you dying in our waters. I will pray for you, because I don’t think you have anything left.
Let’s hope #2 was a fat-finger error.
Yes. That is a pure thing to hope for.
I haven’t had anything left for a long time.
You want to talk about that? I am here.
No sah, I’m good.
Yea, I was weirded out by the “happy” icon. OTOH, as an older American who spends several months a year on the island, and a lot of time in the ocean (I’m a diver), I’ve told both my spouse and my dive shops not to feel guilty if I die in the ocean. I will die someday, and when it comes, that’s where I’d like it to happen.
I hope your interpretation is right. ;o)