Diving Expert’S Girlfriend Drowns Post Falls Scuba Instructor Was Nearby During Accident On Lake Pend Oreille

A 48-year-old Post Falls woman drowned Wednesday while scuba diving in Lake Pend Oreille as her boyfriend worked underwater nearby.

Witnesses said the woman, a certified open-water diver, had been scuba diving while friends were working on a float house near several docks just yards from the Scenic Bay Resort office.

Kootenai County sheriff’s deputies, who responded about noon, said the woman had been doing recreational diving and later was found floating on the surface unconscious. Divers attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation but were unsuccessful.

Sheriff’s officials withheld the victim’s name until her family could be notified.

Wilhelm Dreyer, whose brown cedar float house was being worked on, said the woman was the girlfriend of expert diver Tom Michalski, a Post Falls scuba-diving instructor and dive shop owner.

Michalski is a member of the Kootenai County dive team and often is called after accidents like the one Wednesday.

Dreyer had asked Michalski and another friend to make an annual check of the house’s flotation and structure.

Michalski’s girlfriend had been diving away from the others, Dreyer said. She had enough air in her tank and wasn’t found tangled in anything, he said.

“He has no explanation of what took place,” Dreyer said of Michalski.

Michalski was the last person to see her alive, said Dreyer, who went to the float home to comfort his friend.

“There’s nothing you can say,” Dreyer said. “I feel so bad about calling him out. The Lord does these things. We don’t know why.”