A daily compilation for DWR personnel of significant news articles and comment
July 12, 2007
1. Top Item
Investigation shows slow, confused response to divers deaths
Associated Press – 7/11/7
By Samantha Young, staff writer
The California Highway Patrol investigation report obtained by The Associated Press ruled out criminal activity in the deaths of divers Tim Crawford, 50, and Martin Alvarado, 44, instead classifying their deaths as an accident.
But the 20-page report, dated July 3, reveals that plant employees delayed calling 911 for about an hour as they contemplated whether the divers were in trouble and whether a nearby pump should be shut down.
Crawford and Alvarado drowned on Feb. 7 while doing a routine search for mussels on the metal trash grates at the Dos Amigos Pumping Plant, about nine miles from the Central Valley town of Los Banos.
The report offers no conclusion about what caused them to drown. Highway Patrol Sgt. Bill Bowers, who led the investigation, said he ruled out criminal intent.
Still, the report found that no employee working at the plant that morning, other than the two divers, was trained in diving techniques or procedures, making it nearly impossible for them to know how to respond.
"It's quite clear more could have been done to help Martin and Tim when they were in the water," said David Balch, an attorney for Alvarado's family. "That hour of activity was critical and could have made a difference between life and death."
The California Occupational Safety & Health Administration is still investigating the deaths. That agency, as well as the CHP, is also waiting for tests by the U.S. Navy on the diving equipment the two used, Bowers said.
A spokesman for the Department of Water Resources, Ted Thomas, declined to comment on the report Wednesday, citing the department's pending internal investigation. Thomas said neither DWR director Lester Snow nor any of the employees named in the report were available to comment.
Three state employees who were at the plant the morning of the accident and a department diver who was called to the scene after the divers were missing for more than an hour were interviewed for the report.
They said Crawford and Alvarado were left without a "diver tender," a trained official who could monitor their movements during what was scheduled to be a 30-minute dive. The original diver tender was called to meetings.
Crawford asked a plant worker who lacked dive training to watch over them.
"Don't worry about a thing, this is an easy drive," Crawford allegedly told Mark Mederios, who agreed to do the job but later told an investigator he was uncomfortable that the men were diving without safety gear.
The divers knew one of the six pumps at the facility was running when they went into the water, according to two workers who oversaw the pumps that day, but Crawford assured them it was "no big deal to swim in front of a running unit and I've done it before."
The men were tied together when they entered the water at 10:10 a.m., but they were not tethered to the shore and did not spend the estimated extra 10 seconds it would have taken them to attach a communications line so they could talk to their tender.
When they failed to surface after 30 minutes, plant employees were unsure what to do. They either assumed others had called 911 or did not feel it was urgent to do so.
One senior plant operator said he did not call because he "didn't think it was an emergency," and did not "know of any policy or procedures directing him on what to do for a dive emergency."
Meanwhile, the fill-in dive tender assumed plant operators would call 911 while he went to bang on the trash grates to try to communicate with the divers.
Initially, plant operators also kept the pump running because the force of the water turning off could have propelled the divers some 50 feet. It was the first public explanation for why the pump remained running at the bottom of the aqueduct where the men's bodies were recovered between noon and 1 p.m.
"It looks like employees didn't know quite what to do," Alvarado attorney Balch said. "It raises very troubling issues that need to be further investigated by the state."
Crawford and Alvarado are the first members of the department's dive team to die on duty. The department has convened a task force to study the safety of the program, which some professionals have criticized for relying upon recreational scuba gear even in treacherous conditions.
The CHP investigation also confirmed previous reports that an hour passed before a rescue diver went down. The rescue diver had to wait for the necessary weights to make the dive, according to the report.
In an interview in February, Crawford's wife Roxanne said she was concerned it took so long for the rescue effort to begin. She did not immediately return a telephone message from The Associated Press Wednesday. #
http://www.sacbee.com/114/story/267966.html
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