Gypsy Blood, boat involved in fatal dive Sunday

By Stephanie Loder - Ashbury Park Press

A man who died Sunday while diving off the Gypsy Blood is the third person to either die or be injured in a dive since 2008 aboard the same ship.

The name of the man who died Sunday was not released by the Coast Guard because of the ongoing investigation, which involves two previous incidents in 2010 and 2008.

On July 31, 2010, a woman was pronounced dead at Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune after a diving accident in the ocean about 15 miles east of Shark River.

The woman, whose name wasn’t released, was found under water after she failed to surface from a dive from the Gypsy Blood.

A crew member aboard the Gypsy Blood contacted the Coast Guard in 2010 to say the woman had been missing for about 35 minutes. A dive master aboard the Gypsy Blood, which is home ported in Brielle, soon located her under water, according to the Coast Guard.

In the 2010 incident, the woman was administered CPR until a Coast Guard Air Station Atlantic City helicopter crew arrived and flew the woman to the hospital. She was transported directly from the Gypsy Blood, according to a statement by Jim Wilson, the boat’s captain in 2010.