Diver missing, feared dead

Multiagency search for SF surgeon resumes today

Monday, November 29, 2004

A San Francisco surgeon who disappeared Saturday while abalone diving off the treacherous Mendocino Coast was still missing late Sunday and feared dead.

William C. Krupski, 56, chief of vascular surgery at Kaiser-Permanente in San Francisco, was diving with his wife in the waters off Van Damme State Park.

The ocean turned rough, and Ann Krupski swam off to retrieve the couple's inflatable tubes.

When she returned to the place she had left her husband, "all of a sudden he wasn't there," said Lt. Don Miller of the Mendocino County Sheriff's Department.

Ann Krupski called 911 shortly after 4 p.m. and a Coast Guard helicopter was there and searching within 30 minutes, said Petty Officer Steve Brown at the Fort Bragg Coast Guard Station.

The U.S. Coast Guard and the Mendocino Fire Department searched by boat, helicopter and truck Saturday until it was too dark to continue, Miller said.

Search and rescue teams from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Department joined the search when it resumed at dawn Sunday.

The hunt for Krupski was called off again at about 1 p.m. when the ocean became too rough for the boat and divers.

Air and land searches had revealed by that time that Krupski was not clinging to rocks in the ocean or perched somewhere along the shoreline, Miller said.

The agencies have not given up hope of finding Krupski and may pick up the search again this morning, Miller said.

But the chance of finding the physician alive after more than 36 hours in the cold ocean water is very slim, Miller said.

"All the rocks have been searched and the shoreline has been searched. If he was on a rock somewhere, we'd probably have found him," Miller said.

Krupski is an experienced diver who has fished for abalone in those waters before, said Sheriff's Sgt. Dennis Bushnell.

Krupski is a professor of surgery at UC San Francisco and chief of the Vascular Surgery Section of San Francisco's Kaiser Permanente Hospital.

He has lectured at medical symposiums nationwide and was a professor of surgery at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver before moving to San Francisco.

He has been with Kaiser for about 1½ years, said Bruce Blumberg, physician in chief of Kaiser's San Francisco medical center. "He has a national reputation as a wonderful surgeon," Blumberg said.

Five people have died so far this abalone season in the inviting but unpredictable waters off the Mendocino Coast.

Longtime friends Gregory Peeler, 33, and Marion Denzer, 77, died May 15 near MacKerricher State Park north of Fort Bragg.

Denzer was caught in an undertow and Peeler went to his rescue, but both men died.

Randall Fry, 50, of Auburn, a nationally known recreational fishing advocate, died Aug. 15 north of Fort Bragg near Ten Mile Beach. He was killed by a great white shark.

Two men died in separate incidents off Todd's Point at the mouth of the Noyo River when they suffered heart attacks while swimming.

Another abalone diver died north of Salt Point on the Sonoma County Coast.

Nelson Holl, 51, of Sebastopol, drowned Sept. 5 while diving with friends near Fisk's Mill Cove.

"This is not something new to us, I'm sorry to say," Miller said.

"Divers need to get used to kicking the weight belt off as soon as they get in trouble," Miller said.

"I'm a diver, I know it's hard for divers to do. But it makes a big difference. You can't sink with that weight belt off."