Obituary: Flaherty

Woodinville resident Lynne Flaherty, an emergency-room physician, died Aug. 25 while scuba diving at Neah Bay. She was 61.Dr. Flaherty had just entered the water near Duncan Rock with her husband, Peter Rothschild, when they became separated. She did not surface. The U.S. Coast Guard was quickly summoned and combed the area around Cape Flattery for 33 hours before calling off the search.Although the answer to her disappearance may never be known, the circumstances suggest she may have experienced a medical calamity that rendered her unconscious.News of her sudden death has reverberated through local diving and equestrian communities, where she is well known as a knowledgeable and kind advocate for both sports.Lynne was born on May 16, 1954 in Flushing, New York and moved with her family to California in the 1960s. After graduating with a degree in mathematics from University of California, Davis, she enrolled at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine. Her general surgery residency was with the University of Washington Harborview Medical Center. Dr. Flaherty practiced medicine in several Washington state communities, including Moses Lake, and most recently commuted to Ellensburg where she was a part-time emergency room doctor at Kittitas Valley Community Hospital.Outside work, horses were a primary passion. She was an adult amateur dressage competitor and for the past several years was riding with Molly Martin at the Five Cs Farm in Woodinville, where she had many friends and mentored many other riders.Diving, however, was also a pursuit that brought her great pleasure. After taking up the sport a decade ago through the Bubbles Below shop in Woodinville, Lynne diligently improved her skills in dives around the world, leading trips to the Philippines, Mexico’s Riviera Maya and the Red Sea. She was a prolific online contributor to the ScubaBoard.com and Northwest Dive Club forums, where she extolled the virtues of practice, safety and joyful discovery.Online, Lynne enjoyed the fellowship of scores of kindred spirits, sharing her encyclopedic knowledge of underwater critters, her fastidious adherence to science-based safe diving practices and her insistence on civility in discussing contentious issues.As she worked in the hospital to save lives, Lynne worked outside the ER to savor life.In one dive post, she wrote, “This is what we go underwater for ... for the pure joy of being free in three dimensions, to pursue a diligent and detailed critter hunt if the circumstances warrant it; to gather scientific data if that’s the purpose of the dive; to document historical wrecks and answer questions that have lain unsolved for centuries ... and sometimes, just to dance.”Lynne’s diving adventures were shared with Peter, who she met on a blind date on the Fourth of July, 1987. They were married in May the following year. Peter introduced her to diving, and together they also raised horses on their farm in Woodinville’s Wellington neighborhood.In addition to her husband, Dr. Flaherty is survived by her sister, Carla Flaherty; stepdaughter Victoria Rothschild and grandsons Matthew and Aiden; mother-in-law Ulla Rothschild; sister-in-law Mary Logan Rothschild; brothers-in-law Harvey and David Rothschild and David’s wife Kate; niece Wendy Rothschild and nephews Toby and Sasha Aickin; Jay, Marc, Joel, Davin and J. Bradon Rothschild.A memorial service is set for 2 p.m. Friday, Sept. 18 at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 105 State Street in Kirkland. A reception will follow in the Fellowship Hall.Donations to honor Lynne’s memory may be made to the Can Do scholarship fund at the Washington State University Honors College/College of Veterinary Medicine ( https://secure.wsu.edu/give/default.aspx?Fund=Can-Do%20Scholarship%20Fund or to the Rubicon Foundation ( http://rubicon-foundation.org/), a non-profit that helps recreational divers and others find answers to questions on diving medicine and physiology.