Camila Storchi and husband save 5 stranded scuba divers in mystery circumstances off Hawaii coast. Questions linger over Aaron’s Dive Shop, diving company.
A tragedy averted… Five scuba divers stranded in the water for over and hour and half off the Hawaiian coast were rescued last Wednesday by a sailing couple who heard their desperate screams for help after having accidentally drifted away from their tour group.
Camila Storchi and her husband Ryan Sullivan, of Kaneohe, were sailing to Honolulu on Wednesday when Sullivan heard faint screaming near the China Walls cliff, they revealed in an Instagram post.
‘He heard screaming for help, and he started scanning the ocean, and we saw five little dots,’ Storchi told Hawaii News Now.
Dive operator arrives upon overhearing US Coast guard called
The sailing couple found five divers clinging to one another to stay afloat after having accidentally been separated from their tour boat some 90 minutes beforehand. The five were rescued about a mile off
One of the divers was already showing clear signs of hypothermia.
‘One of them was like gray, and he was throwing up,’ Storchi told the outlet. ‘My husband tried to pull him, and he couldn’t even hold the ladder. We tried to pull them up, but the boat was rocking back and forth.’
Unable to get the divers onboard, the couple called the US Coast Guard and circled the divers for 45 minutes until help arrived via helicopter.
In the meantime, they offered the divers, who were not identified, water and talked to them to keep them in ‘good spirits,’ Storchi said on Instagram.
When a Coast Guard helicopter arrived, the boat that the five scuba divers belonged to showed up at the same time.
As the Coast Guard helicopter reached them, the boat that the five scuba divers belonged to showed up at the same time, scooping the divers and taking off.
Lingering questions
The boat was identified as belonging to diving company, Aaron’s Dive Shop – who overheard the sailboat report the stranded divers and headed their way.
The divers later told Storchi after that there had been a sixth diver who stayed on the boat who told them the ‘captain was not monitoring anything.’
It wasn’t until the lone diver noticed the Coast Guard helicopter that he told the captain: ‘Look, there’s is a Coast Guard helicopter, maybe they are there.’
Aaron’s Dive Shop told Hawaii News Now that they are ‘grateful that all divers returned safely and without injury following last week’s incident.
‘We are currently reviewing what occurred and our current protocols with our dive and boat staff to prevent similar incidents in the future.’
Shop owners said the dive location had been changed last minute and protocol was ‘not followed.’
‘The dive leader took responsible steps to maintain safety, including having proper surface marker buoys and keeping the group together while separated from the boat,’ they said in a statement to the outlet.
‘Aaron’s Dive Shop is proud of our excellent safety record, and we remain fully committed to upholding our high standards through consistent training and rigorous oversight.’
Not immediately clear is how the divers came to be stranded and why hours had passed for the dive company recovering the abandoned five divers who were only located after the sailing couple fortunately coming across them.
Of disconcert is whether the tour captain decided against calling the Coast Guard for help and if so, why?
