1 dead, 1 unconscious in Placencia

Hotel chambermaids occasionally walk into some strange scenes as they enter a guest room, but the one that greeted an employee at a Placencia resort Monday morning went far beyond rumpled sheets and damp towels. At around ten o’clock the startled housekeeper at Rum Point Inn discovered what appeared to be two lifeless nude bodies embraced in the bathroom of their room. A doctor was called and he found that the man, thirty-one year old Christian McCathern was indeed dead, but his wife, Courtney McCathern, though unconscious, was still breathing. Courtney was rushed by Wings of Hope to Belize City where she underwent a CAT scan. On the basis of the results she was flown to the hyperbaric chamber at San Pedro on the suspicion that she may have been suffering from the “bends” as the result of a SCUBA dive the previous day. At newstime Courtney McCathern remains in the decompression chamber and although in a stable condition, has not regained consciousness. Her brother has flown in and preparations are being made to have her evacuated by air ambulance for treatment in the States. But while some are writing off the tragedy as a diving accident, sources on the scene are skeptical. Reports from those aboard the dive boat say that Sunday’s dive was routine with no one going deeper than sixty feet and the conservative dive profile being scrupulously observed. Neither of the McCatherns, New Yorkers on their honeymoon, complained of any illness after the trip. Dive experts told News 5 that the condition known as the “bends” is usually accompanied by severe pain and the couple would have had ample time to ask the resort personnel for help. So what happened between Sunday evening and Monday morning? Police have not ruled out foul play, but evidence at the scene does not suggest robbery or violence of any kind. Christian McCathern’s body was transported this afternoon from Southern Regional Hospital to the KHMH where a postmortem will be conducted. It is believed that tests for various drugs will be conducted locally as well as sent abroad. Dive operators on Placencia are proud of their record for safety–no SCUBA diver has ever been lost on a guided dive there–and they strongly believe that the answers to Monday’s tragedy can be found in places other than beneath the sea.