DAILY STAR - Negros Oriental

Russian scuba diver
drowns in Siquijor
BY ALEX PAL
A Russian scuba diver, who claimed to be a professional free diving spearfisher, drowned and died in Siquijor while spearfishing recently.

A belated report by Renan Ansing from Siquijor said Dmitrii Shchipachev, 28, drowned off Cang-alwang, Siquijor town on March 26.

Juvy Pinero, 20, who accompanied the Russian national, told the police that he had refused to go back to the water for a second dive when Shchipachev insisted on going below 50 meters (150 feet). Shchipachev went back into the deep to catch a big fish he had seen earlier, the report continued.

Pinero said the Russian may have been caught in strong currents and drowned.

Divers scoured the area for six hours and found the Russian. He was brought to the Siquijor Provincial Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival by Dr. Rommel Masing.

Siquijor town physician Rodulfo Cinco listed the cause of death as asphyxia, secondary to salt water drowning.

Shchipachev’s brother arrived in Siquijor two days later to retrieve his body.

Shchipachev was the second foreigner to meet an accident in Siquijor in the last four months. On December 5, Chinese national Song Mingzi, 51, a widower from Shenzhen, Guangdong, China, disappeared and was presumed to have drowned off San Juan town. Efforts to locate his body have failed.*ALEX PAL