Scuba Diver Found In Tree… Myth Or Fact? March 30, 2010 by lukesheppard

The Myth… 

A man dressed in his scuba gear; wetsuit, mask, fins and tank was discovered in a clean up of a Californian forest fire. The strangely placed victim, yes in the branch of a tree, suffered severe burns from the forest fire. However, an autopsy revealed that he didn’t die from the fire, but from bad internal injuries. They used the divers dental records to identify him and contacted his family in an attempt to find out how he could have ended up there.

The family, horrified, said that the victim had set off diving in the sea about 30 miles from the forest on the day the fire got out of control. Investigators started to piece the information that they had gathered together. It appeared that the scuba diver had been accidentally caught in amongst thousands of gallons of water by a heli-tanker which had been called in to help the fire-fighters put out the forest fire. So, caught up in one of the massive buckets of water, the diver had been dumped with the sea water in an attempt to extinguish the fire as quick as they could.

The Facts…

Even though this story has been told time and time again since the 1980’s, there has never actually been any record of a diver in his scuba gear being accidentally dumped by a helicopter tanker on a forest fire.

Authorities have also pointed out that although water is often taken from lakes and the sea in an effort to put out forest fires quickly, the heli-tankers suck up water by hoses which only measure a couple of inches in diameter. So no one could be sucked in to such a small opening and pulled in to the tank.

Here are some other fascinating scuba dive myths debunked: