LATIMES.COM S SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2019B5
Breeze that she was a funny, un-
orthodox person who sometimes
wore red high-top sneakers inside
her fins.
“The best part about diving
other than going down and being
underwater is the people you
meet,” Wilson said. Guiney, he said,
was “just living life to the very full-
est.”
— Brittny Mejia
and Laura J. Nelson
Caroline McLaughlin,
Kristian Takvam
Caroline “Carrie” McLaughlin
and Kristian Takvam worked at
Brilliant, a website that creates
interactive science, technology, en-
gineering and mathematics
courses. Both “brought immense
passion, talent, leadership, and
warmth” to their work, the compa-
ny’s chief executive, Sue Khim,
wrote in a statement.
Takvam, the company’s vice
president of engineering, grew up
in Austin, Texas, and knew by age 6
that he wanted to be a physicist, his
sister Katrina Takvam said. He
studied physics at the University of
Texas at Dallas and met his wife in
that city three years later. The cou-
ple often shared “brainiac banter,”
she said, but stayed down-to-earth
and thoughtful.
Takvam, 34, loved cave diving,
his sister said, and “felt more at
home in the water than on the
land.” He met up with his college
friends from across the country
once or twice a year to explore
underwater worlds together.
McLaughlin, 35, a senior soft-
ware engineer, graduated from UC
San Diego in 2005. On her Insta-
gram page, she described herself
as a “painter of living beings,” dis-
playing work that included water-
color portraits, paintings of nature
and ceramics. McLaughlin wrote
on her blog that she had recently
started taking a portraiture class
at a community college.
— Colleen Shalby
and Laura J. Nelson
Kaustubh Nirmal,
Sanjeeri Deopujari
Kaustubh Nirmal and Sanjeeri
Deopujari, who married 2^1 ⁄ 2 years
ago, were “the perfect couple,” said
Nirmal’s cousin, Rajul Sharma.
“He found a soulmate in San-
jeeri,” Sharma said in an email, re-
calling their endearing and infec-
tious smiles. “Their love for each
other was apparent even without
them speaking about it.”
Sharma said he had known Nir-
mal since the day he was born. An
avid animal lover, Nirmal was sen-
sitive and polite, he said, never
wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings.
The couple lived in greater New
York City, where Nirmal worked in
finance and Deopujari was a den-
tist. Nirmal grew up in Jaipur, and
Deopujari was from Nagpur in cen-
tral India, the Times of India re-
ported.
“God took them away from us
untimely and unfairly, but even he
didn’t have the heart to separate
them in death,” he said.
— Laura J. NelsonMichael Quitasol,
Fernisa Sison,
Angela Rose Quitasol,
Nicole Storm Quitasol,
Evan Michel Quitasol
For the Quitasol family, the La-
bor Day weekend scuba diving trip
was supposed to be a celebration
at sea.
Three sisters — Angela, Nicole
and Evan Quitasol — set out last
weekend with their father, Michael,
and their stepmother, Fernisa Si-
son. The family was celebrating
Michael’s 62nd birthday with a
three-day excursion that included
dives in the kelp forests, nature lec-
tures and gourmet meals.
“They were the most kind, most
loving people I’ve ever met, and I’m
not just saying that because
they’re family,” said their stepfa-
ther, Chris Rosas. “The way they
interacted with anyone they ever
came across, they were wonderful.”Evan, 37, was a nurse who
worked in the emergency depart-
ment of a Stockton-area hospital.
Sison was a nurse practitioner
at Kaiser Permanente Central Val-
ley, a spokesman said.
Nicole, 31, worked as a bartend-
er in a lounge in Coronado, which
allowed her to live near her beloved
ocean, Rosas said.
Angela, 28, was a science
teacher at Sierra Middle School in
Stockton and was “wonderful with
kids,” Rosas said. She had played
roller derby with the Port City
Roller Girls in Stockton, where she
skated under the name Hermione
Danger, the team said.
Angela was the maid of honor at
the wedding of another sister,
Evita, who was recently married.
Evan and Nicole were bridesmaids,
too.
— Matthew OrmsethSunil Singh Sandhu
After 24 years in the United
States, Sunil Singh Sandhu still
called his family in Singapore every
week, and visited his father and
two sisters at least once a year.
When Sandhu visited his family, he
loved to eat barbecued stingray at
one of Singapore’s ubiquitous
open-air food centers.
“I never had to worry about my
son,” his father, Soji Singh, told the
New Paper in Singapore. “He was a
nice boy who had no bad habits.The only thing that I worried about
was him not being married.”
Sandhu, 46, earned master’s
and doctoral degrees from Stan-
ford University and worked as a sci-
entist at a Palo Alto research com-
pany. He was a newcomer to scuba
diving, picking up the sport two
months before his death.
“I didn’t know that he was going
for another trip,” Singh said. “I had
been trying to persuade him to
come back to Singapore.”
— Laura J. NelsonTed Strom
Ted Strom, 62, of Germantown,
Tenn., was dedicated to medicine
and science.
Strom worked for a decade as a
staff physician at the Memphis Vet-
erans Affairs Medical Center and
an associate professor at the Uni-
versity of Tennessee’s health scien-
ce center. His work and teaching
encompassed pathology and lab
medicine service.
Strom’s “exceptional service to
veterans as a staff physician is a
testament to the type of person
that he was,” medical center direc-
tor David K. Dunning wrote in a
statement. “He will certainly be
missed.”
Strom received his medical de-
gree from the University of Chi-
cago, in addition to a doctorate in
biochemistry and bachelor’s de-
grees in human biology and chem-istry, according to his LinkedIn
page.
In a Facebook photo from 2010,
Strom is seen scuba diving, sur-
rounded by a school of fish.
— Colleen ShalbyWei Tan
Wei Tan boarded the Concep-
tion because she had moved to
Santa Barbara just four months
earlier and wanted to explore her
new home.
When Tan was 10, she and her
family visited Tioman, an island on
the east coast of Malaysia known
for its coral, sea sponges and ship-
wrecks. Wei insisted on going div-
ing, so the whole family went with
her.
Tan graduated from UC Berke-
ley in May with a master’s in engi-
neering, and attended the Uni-
versity of Michigan as an under-
graduate, her sister said. She had
recently taken a job as a data scien-
tist at Evidation Health, a health-
care technology company.
“Our hearts are broken,” said
Christine Lemke, the company’s
co-founder and president, in a
statement. “Her smile lit up the
world and she’ll be sorely missed.”
Tan, 26, was excited to buy new
furniture for her Goleta apart-
ment, said her sister Cheerin Tan.
Their parents had promised to vis-
it and check out the apartment
over Christmas.
Cheerin Tan said she hopes her
sister, who loved spending time
outdoors, saw beautiful coral for-
mations and chased some sea tur-
tles before settling down to sleep.
Her family is comforted, some-
what, knowing Wei “was doing
something she loved in the last few
moments of her life.”
— Matthew Ormseth
and Colleen ShalbyVaidehi Williams
On Earth Day and at the Santa
Cruz County Fair, Vaidehi Williams
—who went by “Vai” —was a famil-
iar sight, wearing a bright blue wa-
ter droplet costume as she taught
the public about water conserva-
tion and recycling. Colleagues at
the Soquel Creek Water District in
Santa Cruz recalled Williams, 41, as
joyful and enthusiastic.
“May we always remember her
infectious smile, kind heart, vast
knowledge, and adventurous spir-
it,” employee Melanie Mow Schu-
macher said. “Vai will forever be
our ‘Water Princess.’ ”
In a fundraiser for Williams’
husband and two children, friends
wrote that she had “touched so
many people from so many walks of
life. Anyone who has spent just a
little time with her has been en-
chanted by her energy and felt the
instant warmth of her friendship.”
— Laura J. NelsonTED STROM, one of the victims of the boat fire, worked for a decade as a staff physician at Mem-
phis Veterans Affairs Medical Center and as an associate professor at the University of Tennessee.Maggie Strom[Victims,from B4]