Diving partner recounts accident

ANCHORAGE - A Ketchikan diver who drowned early this week while commercial fishing was using new gear.

• Photos

Michael R. Anderson, 33, and dive partner Lawrence Carson III, 32, were in 35 feet of water in Clarence Strait when Anderson removed his diving mask for some reason, losing his air supply.

Moments later, Carson saw his friend drifting downward, giving up the last air in his lungs before sinking to the bottom with 50 pounds in weights around his waist.

"So many things could have happened," Carson said Wednesday by phone from Ketchikan. "It's just a horrendous accident, and I lost a real good friend."

Anderson's death on Tuesday has been investigated by the U.S. Coast Guard and Alaska State Troopers. Troopers determined it was an accident.

"No one has any idea what happened," said Petty Officer Thomas McKenzie, a Coast Guard spokesman.

Anderson, Carson and an 18-year-old deckhand, Donald Doyon of Ketchikan, were fishing on the north end of the Blashke Islands from Anderson's 37-foot diesel-powered fishing vessel. They were participating in a two-day, 11-hour weekly fishery for sea cucumbers.

Anderson, who had done lots of recreational scuba diving, was getting used to what for him was a new kind of diving gear, a full-face mask whose air supply comes not from a tank of compressed air on his back, as in scuba diving, but from a compressor on the boat.

The air hose from the compressor is wrapped together with two other lines, a communication wire and a tending line linked to a harness on the diver. The communication line allows the deckhand and the diver to talk to each other.

The air hose splits in two, and after the split, each diver has about 100 feet of hose to move around underwater. Each man can talk to the deckhand but not directly to each other.

Carson has been using the same diving gear for 15 years, he said. He walked Anderson through its use for an hour on Monday before leaving Anderson on his own.

"Everything went really slick the first day," he said.

On Tuesday morning, they went down again. They walked along the bottom and among the rocks collecting the sea cucumbers and placing them in a bag.

About 9 a.m., Carson heard Doyon talking to Anderson, telling Anderson his line had gotten wrapped around the anchor chain.

"It's a common thing," Carson said.

Carson stayed on the bottom but walked toward the rear of the boat, where Anderson was. He signaled with his hands to Anderson that he would go topside to help with the line if needed.

Doyon was new to being a deckhand and might have needed help, Carson said. But there was no apparent distress from either of them.

"Michael's fine," Carson said.

A little later, he said, "I looked up and Mike is up at the surface at the back of the boat. I thought, 'All is hunky-dory.' And then I see Mike's cucumber bag is floating away."

He thought Anderson had dropped the bag, so he went after it.

"By the time I grabbed the bag, I heard Donald say, 'You got to get back to Mike. Mike's in trouble.' "

Anderson, weighted by his belt, began sinking.

"He was falling right to the bottom," Carson said.

Carson grabbed his friend at the bottom and tried to lift him to the surface. But neither man wore flippers, and about 15 feet up he had to let go.

Carson went to the surface, found the line to Anderson and handed it to Doyon, telling him to haul Anderson up. No sooner was Anderson on deck than Carson began CPR.

Another fishing vessel came alongside and a man later identified as Dustin Cox helped with the CPR. They worked on Anderson for two hours. Medics from Coffman Cove also helped, until a Coast Guard helicopter arrived with medics aboard.

The Coast Guard medics continued CPR, and staff at Ketchikan General Hospital worked on Anderson too. But he never revived.

Carson thinks the air line got pinched somehow, and Anderson got scared when the mask "sucked into" his face. He forgot that he could breathe through a "bailout" bottle of secondary air on his back by opening a valve.

Instead, he ripped off the mask and tried to reach the surface. But he also forgot to drop his weight belt by pulling an easy quick-release handle at his side.

"I think he panicked," Carson said.