here is what the Australian Press is saying about the accident

“The fit and healthy 46-year-old had spent Mother’s Day diving with another woman when she began experiencing difficulties shortly before 2pm.

They were returning from a recreational dive on a reef off the southern end of Terrigal Beach on the Central Coast and planned to come ashore at an area known as The Haven, where hundreds of people had gathered for Mother’s Day at the beach.

Her dive buddy told police the woman, from Wyoming, near Gosford, signalled urgently that she needed to get to the surface and get to shore.

But by the time the pair surfaced the woman had lost consciousness and also stopped breathing.

Inspector George Bradbury said her friend had tried to drag the woman to shore before screaming for help to onlookers.”

A Russian tourist was cut in half by a speedboat’s propellers off Pattaya coast yesterday afternoon and another tourist is missing, police said.

Police said at 2pm the two scuba divers were hit by a two engine speedboat near Koh Larn, about 300 metres off Pattaya’s coast in Bang Lamung district.

One of the victims, later identified as 40 year old Poliakov Oleg, was cut in half, while his companion is still missing.

Police said Oleg was visiting Koh Larn along with four family members and friends. He had been swimming in the scuba diving zone but resurfaced as the speedboat was passing by and was struck by the propellers.

Police arrested boat driver Ritthirong Phanla, 47, who said he was transporting ten tourists from Koh Larn to Pattaya Beach’s Hard Rock Cafe plaza when the swimmers suddenly surfaced and he was unable to stop.

Police initially charged Ritthirong with reckless driving, checked if he had a legal license and submitted him to tests for drug abuse and alcohol level, said Provincial Police Region 2 deputy chief Pol Maj Gen Suwira Songmetta.

Spiegel, a commercial dive student, was found 105 feet below the surface of the 40 Fathom Grotto in Northwest Marion County on Sunday at around 8:15 p.m.

On November 15 at approximately 3:46 a.m., the Marion County Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call from The Grotto, located at 9487 NW 115 Avenue in Ocala, in reference to a missing diver.

Spiegel was staying at a log cabin at the 40 Fathom Grotto with Matthew James Berry, 22, of Attica, Mich.; Nicole Wilkerson, 23, of Brooksville; Doug Masters, 24, of St. Augustine; and William Sanders, 29, of Garnerville, N.Y., when the group decided to take a late-night dive.

According to a report by Deputy Francisco Perez of the Marion County Sheriff’s Department, Masters, Wilkerson, Spiegel and Berry put on their scuba gear and went diving, leaving Sanders behind for safety reasons. The four divers, with the aid of a rope, went under water and descended about 104 feet.

The boat, which has two people on board, drifted away from the men earlier today, with police receiving an alarm about 10am.

A spokesman from Emergency Services Management said the EMQ rescue helicopter had been dispatched to help search for the drifting boat and locate the three divers.

The helicopter will guide police boats to the drifting craft when it is located, and remain in the air to search for the divers and winch them to safety if seas are too rough for police boats to reach them.

“We’ll be keeping an eye out for when they surface,” the spokesman said.

“It may be a difficult retrieval in a 4-metre swell.”

A spokeswoman from police said a distress call was received from the boat, but police were not aware of why the boat had drifted away from the dive site.

NSRI spokesperson Craig Lambinon said the 54-year-old man’s goggles apparently filled up with water when he was about six metres under water.

“He started to panic when he could not get his belt off. Soon after that he was found floating in the water unconscious,” he said.

The man’s wife, whose age is unknown, is also believed to have started panicking and swallowing water. Both were pulled out of the water by two divers from the Simon’s Town diving school.

The man received pulmonary resuscitation and began breathing again. Lambinon said Cape Medical Response, the NSRI Simon’s Town, the Simon’s Town Naval Ambulance, Fire and Rescue and ER24 responded to the call-out and found the man semi-conscious.

His wife was found to have symptoms suggesting she had almost drowned.

The couple were taken to a hospital for observation.