Another year, another list of divers death. As many rec.scuba
subscribers know I have been monitoring diver deaths for close to 15
years.  Started collecting reports on scuba deaths after assisting the
Ontario Underwater Council in their annual fatality reports. I gather
information through meda clippings ... and only reports in English
(qu'elle domage, I am one of those Cdns with limited French
abilities).  I do not collect information from dive websites.  Very
unscientific, I know, but, as a writer who writes about scuba, it
gives me a bit of a glimpse into what is happening underwater.
So, what happened in 2007?  I noted over 330 seperate incidents,
almost all were fatal and some included more than one diver dying.
Well the trend for older experience divers to die underwater continues
to grow. More women seem to be dying in 2007 than in 1997. More free-
divers are dying then ever before and as more people try their hand at
tech-diving and there are more fatalities reported.  As well, a number
of new divers in training or just finished - for the most part Asians
- have died underwater.  Very few of the deaths are a result of dive
equipment failure.

2007 - First dive death I noted? Paul Lewis Parkinson, 38, from
Kohimarama in Auckland Australia, died while spear fishing alone off
Little Barrier Island. January 6, 2007.

First multiple diver dive death?  Three Russain tourists went to the
Efl-Stone island in the Red Sea to dive at about 8 a.m. on January 6.
The three went missing and a day later one body was found. The other
two bodies were not recovered. There was a report of sharks in the
water near their dive site.
Strangest death of 2007? Joe Steffen, a well know, highly respected
tech diver died in less than 15 feet of water while part of a team of
divers (including a columnist for Diver Magazine - who I work for)
exploring a flooded mine on Bell Island, Newfoundland.  Later reports
indicated that Mr. Steffen was unaware that he had lung cancer and
that his disease had caused an air blockage/trap that proved fatal at
such a shallow depth.
First Nevada diving death I have recorded -- A scuba diver who died
August 6th at Lake Spaulding. Richard Davis III, 56, of Auburn, was
planning to dive to about 90 feet near a boat dock. His dive buddy
Nicholas Griffin, 23  told authorities Davis motioned he was going
back to the surface at 50 feet and he apparently ascended too quickly,
Last death of the year?  December 30th, New Zealand. A 49-year-old
from Opotiki had been diving with his family at a spot below the Cape
Runaway lighthouse (Te Kaha  NZ) say he had been found by the family
shortly after he began his dive, floating and unconscious.
Last American death? December 29, 2007. 39 year old  Edward Diaz of
Las Vegas was found floating face down and unconscious in the water at
the North California Monastery Beach. Diaz, described as a master
diver used to live in the Monterey area, worked at Colorado River
Divers dive shop in Las Vegas. He was  shore diving with two other
men.  The  ocean conditions at Monastery Beach, about a mile south of
the Carmel River Lagoon, were, according to officials "super
dangerous,"