Scuba Diving

A 24-year-old San Diego man drowned while scuba diving off La Jolla Sunday, the San Diego County coroner's office reported. James Jeffrey Ridinger was declared dead on arrival at Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla at 11:57 a.m., said Deputy Coroner Everett Mauger. Ridinger and a companion were diving when Ridinger became lost in about 120 feet of water, Mauger said. Two boaters later found Ridinger's body on the surface about 75 yards from the shore. The boaters notified lifeguards.

A preliminary study finds that scuba diving may help improve muscle movement, touch sensitivity and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in people with spinal cord injuries. The small pilot study, presented Saturday at the Paralyzed Veterans of America conference in Orlando, Fla., involved 10 wheelchair-dependent disabled veterans who had suffered spinal cord injuries an average 15 years earlier and who underwent scuba diving certification. Pre-dive tests checked the participants' muscle spasticity, motor control, sensitivity to light touch and pinpricks, plus depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms.

Jon Hardy, a scuba diving pioneer and diving industry leader who initiated the first consumer-oriented testing of diving equipment a decade ago and was a longtime fixture in the waters off Catalina, has died. He was 62. Hardy, who owned an Avalon charter diving boat and ran a light commercial operation, died Aug. 29 at his son's home in Carpinteria after a brief battle with cancer.

We all marveled at the hideous thing, trying not to gasp through our regulators. It was black, striped and about the size of a bass, fins fanning out in all directions. Scuba divers see a lot of weird-looking things but appreciate them all the same. But our dive masters told us that there were bounties on these lionfish, ugly creatures that destroy reef-cleaning fish populations. No one knows where they came from or how many threaten Curaçao's marine park. I had come to this small Caribbean island, 35 miles off Venezuela, in June with my father, Matt, a small-business owner.

Scuba diving is opening up an underwater frontier to many people but if safety rules are ignored, it could land them in a hospital with medical problems ranging from dizziness to paralysis, or even end in death. Among the fastest growing of outdoor activities, the number of certified scuba (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus) divers is currently estimated to be at least 750,000 and possibly as high as 1.5 million--up from just 213,000 in 1975.

The sleepy divers are awakening on the boat anchored beside the craggy cliffs of San Clemente Island. In the galley, Gordon Page finishes his pancakes and scrambled eggs, and plans his first underwater adventure of the day. It's going to be a deep one--120 feet--just 10 feet shy of the recommended maximum depth for sport divers. Ready to begin the arduous task of suiting up, Page makes his way onto the deck of the Charisma.

Vice President-elect Al Gore and his family went scuba diving and explored the coral reef off the Florida Keys Friday. The Gores arrived Tuesday at Little Palm Island, a resort about 28 miles northeast of Key West, and they've been sunbathing, para-sailing and learning to scuba dive, said Joe Roth, a general partner of Little Palm Island. "He told me the whole idea behind the vacation was to be able to spend some quality time with (wife) Tipper and the children," Roth said.

If you want to learn scuba diving, there is only so much you can do in the classroom. Sooner or later you must get wet. So, Gahr High School students who signed up for scuba training got their baptism at the Cerritos Olympic Swim Center. The first subject is safety. This was the first pool session in the 5-day-a-week class which lasts three weeks. The training is provided free by instructors from Scuba Safety Inc. of Downey, which conducts the course at 26 schools a year.

A 35-year-old physician was listed in critical condition Sunday night after nearly drowning while scuba diving off Point Loma. No pulse was detected for 50 minutes on Dr. Mark Rubin of San Diego, before paramedics were able to revive him, said Brant Bass, a spokesman for the San Diego city lifeguards. Rubin was one of six divers participating in a dive in the kelp beds off Point Loma, Bass said.

Glenn Townsley wants to dispel the belief that the ocean is a dark, dangerous place where hungry sharks snack on innocent scuba divers. "Diving is not dangerous as long as an individual has the proper learning, follows the do's and don'ts and a few basic rules," Townsley said. "It's very safe." A scuba diver for 17 years, Townsley, 24, supervises the instructors at Scuba Duba Dive, a Reseda store his family has owned for 27 years.

Daniel Carlock, a Santa Monica aerospace engineer, prayed to God not to let him die after he was abandoned floating in the ocean 12 miles off Long Beach by leaders of a scuba diving excursion. After nearly five hours, surrounded by thick fog, "I had this feeling my spirit was getting ready to vacate my body," he recalled. On Friday, a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury awarded Carlock $1.68 million in damages in his five-year legal battle against Venice-based Ocean Adventures Dive Co. and Long Beach-based Sundiver Charters.

Scuba shop owner David Swain and his wife of six years, Shelley Tyre, traveled to Tortola in 1999 for what was to be a romantic Caribbean getaway. Swain came back alone. Tyre drowned while scuba diving in what authorities in the British Virgin Islands called an accident. They allowed Swain to take her body home. Her parents sued three years later, accusing Swain of killing their daughter, saying he was romancing another woman and that the couple's prenuptial agreement denied him money if they divorced.

A submerged body recovered off the coast of Sonoma County was tentatively identified Tuesday as that of missing diver Jonathon Su of Sunnyvale, the eighth abalone hunter to die off the North Coast this year. Su, 29, was hunting for abalone with a cousin near Fort Ross State Historic Park on Nov. 9 when he dove underwater and apparently drowned.

A scuba diver abandoned off the coast of Newport Beach for four hours in 2004 can go forward with a $4-million lawsuit against the trip's organizers, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has ruled. Dan Carlock of Santa Monica was 46 when he signed up for the dive organized by Ocean Adventures Dive Co. aboard a boat operated by Sun Diver Charters LLC of Huntington Beach.

Divers headed into a murky river Tuesday and rescue workers dug through mountains of earth in search of victims after a rain-soaked hill collapsed, burying homes in mud and sending up a wall of water that one official described as a "mini-tsunami." Two bodies were recovered and 12 people were reported missing. Animals helped save the lives of some of those in the Chiapas state hamlet of San Juan Grijalva: Cattle, apparently sensing the impending slide, fled to higher ground Sunday.

Jim Gribble plunged into the water surrounding the Interstate 35W bridge wreckage to help families awaiting word of missing loved ones. But that overarching intention was superseded by the rules and realities of a recovery diver, which all underscore a basic fact: Before you can recover anyone, you have to stay alive yourself. "One of the first things you notice down there is that you can't always tell which way is up. There is no sun down there to help you.

A 50-year-old man drowned while scuba diving in rough waters north of Jenner, the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department said. Victor Smith of Petaluma got stuck Sunday in a crack of a rock at Stillwater Cove Regional Park, said Sheriff's Sgt. Eric Thomson. Large waves hampered efforts by a friend, a lifeguard and a helicopter crew to rescue him, Thomson said. Smith was the fifth diver to die in April on the North Coast. Four others died earlier in the month while hunting for abalone.

A 29-year-old Covina man died Sunday after taking a scuba lesson in Divers Cove, according to the Orange County coroner's office. Police received a call about a man in distress at 12:25 p.m. and took Carlos Garcia, 29, to South Coast Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 1:10 p.m., according to the supervising coroner's deputy. The cause of death is unknown, he said. An autopsy will be conducted today.