Hundreds Attend Eulogy for Diver : Funeral: Memorial is held in Glendora for undersea expert Darren Douglass, who died with his 14-year-old son while exploring a shipwreck.

Darren Douglass, the nationally known diving expert who died last weekend with his son in a scuba accident off San Pedro, was eulogized on Friday in a standing-room-only memorial service as a devoted father, a devout Christian and a dedicated outdoorsman.

The funeral--so widely anticipated that it was posted on the Internet--drew a crowd of several hundred people to Glenkirk Presbyterian Church near Douglass’ Glendora home. As friends and family comforted Douglass’ widow and children, the youngest of whom is 2, authorities sought to complete their investigation of the Sunday afternoon accident.

County lifeguards said Douglass, a 34-year-old father of five, had been leading an expedition to a sunken shipwreck about six miles from shore when the anchor line of the charter dive boat, the Atlantis, snagged on the wreckage below.

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Lifeguards said Douglass and his 14-year-old son, Jeremiah, had gone under with fellow divers to dislodge the anchor, but were low on air and the wreck was a daunting 140 feet below. In a series of escalating catastrophes, they said, the son ran out of air, one of the other divers blacked out and Douglass, who went to the bottom to try to rescue his son, died with the boy on the ocean floor.

Lifeguards issued a report on the incident Friday but shed little light on the deaths. Witnesses have said the gauges on the breathing tanks may have been malfunctioning.

Mourners at the memorial service spoke only in hushed tones of the tragedy. One familiar with the case, who asked not to be identified, said the boy had signaled that he was out of air and was being towed to the surface by diver Jeff Highley, 32, of Long Beach, when the boy suddenly lost buoyancy and slipped from Highley’s grasp. Highley, the mourner said, clawed for the youth’s air hose and tried to tug him to the surface, only to see the hose break loose and the child float into the murky water as the diver blacked out.

Highley was hospitalized but released earlier this week.

Darren Douglass, who had apparently gone after the boy, was later found with his son on the sandy bottom. Lifeguards said the two were on their backs an arm’s length apart, the father reaching for the son. His arm was outstretched, they said; his palm was up.

At the memorial service, Darren Douglass’ stepsister, Kim Bohlin, said that, in recent weeks, Jeremiah had been struggling with adolescence and had confided that he wanted to be closer to his father.

But a 1994 column in Douglass’ Dive Boat magazine indicated that the son had little to doubt. In the column, Douglass described his boy’s first open-water dive at the age of 13 and the emotions that welled up in him as he watched his child swim away.

“As we finned along the bottom, I extended my hand, and Jeremiah took it,” Douglass wrote. “We swam for several minutes over the eelgrass, hand in hand.”

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A number of mourners paid homage to Douglass’ expertise as a diver, recalling his years as an instructor and his livelihood as an author and leader of expeditions to the deep. Others spoke of the religious impact he had had on them. One woman, who later married Douglass’ brother-in-law, told the assemblage that Douglass’ compassion and concern had prevented her from committing suicide by bringing her into the Christian faith during a period of despondency.

Most poignant, however, was the written homage of Douglass’ wife, Stacey, left alone with four children.

“I will remember your deep blue eyes and the way your lip curled on one side when you were enjoying my words,” she wrote on a commemorative leaflet that carried photos of the bearded Douglass and his fair-haired son. “I will remember our arguments and how we stubbornly butted heads, thinking we wouldn’t last another day. I remind your daughters of how you thought they were so beautiful, so beautiful that you promised we would interview every boy that ever dared come to our door. . . . My arms will ache for you, and when they do, I will hold your children.”

Times staff writers Deborah Schoch and Kim Kowsky contributed to this story.