A 41-year-old biology professor from New York apparently drowned Tuesday while scuba diving at Lameshur Bay, according to police.
Walter W. Faber Jr., who taught marine biology and other subjects at Manhattan College in Riverdale, just north of New York City, was on St. John with nine students and two other instructors. He was scuba diving Tuesday morning when something went wrong; he was pulled from the water between 9:30 and 10:30 a.m., according to police spokeswoman Sgt. Annette Raimer.
Several attempts were made to revive Faber, Raimer said; CPR was performed on him at the scene, but to no avail. He was transported by boat to Cruz Bay, where Dr. Joseph DeJames Maldonado pronounced him dead at 11:15 a.m., Raimer said.
Faber was a thoroughly experienced and certified diver. It was reported that his fatal Tuesday dive was his 399th.
It was not known whether police would probe Faber's death pending the results of an autopsy.
Faber's research interests included environmental microbiology, but it was not known whether he and his group were conducting research on St. John at the time of the accident. He held a doctorate in biology with a concentration in ecology and evolution from the City University of New York.
