I was quite willing to drop discussion of the highly publicized and tragic
death of Henry Kendall at Wakulla Springs this past week, until the most
recent USDCT press release ascribing his death to “natural causes”.  The
calls from friends and relatives inquiring about this death and the
coincidental connection by place (not organization) with the WKPP were
getting very tiresome. Despite this I was still willing to suppress open
debate on the subject until today.

Everyone on this list knows the killing modes of rebreathers and the most
potent of these, hypoxia, will make the victim appear to have died of heart
stoppage if they do not aspirate water and “drown”.  You go hypoxic, your
brain shuts down, you stop breathing, you lose consciousness and then you
die.

The well publicized death of Jane Ornstein, last summer from a technical
diving accident (of which our organization was involved in the recovery
effort), was ruled by the medical examiner to be the result of a hyperoxic
seizure.  This conclusion was based on circumstantial and physical evidence
(i.e. the deco gas had been breathed at depth) and not on medical evidence.
Basically, the coroner could not determine what had killed her except for
the fact that her heart had stopped. Since the facts surrounding the death
were well documented it was not hard to conclude the most probable cause of
demise and it most certainly was not “natural”.

People get killed using rebreathers.  Should you be forgetful of this
unhappy reality just whisper the words “Inspiration” or “Atlantis” to
yourself. Generally speaking, somebody makes a mistake (diver error) or the
rebreather makes a mistake (machine error). Either way the result is the
same. Death.  Both Noel Sloan and Richie Pyle initially confirmed that diver
error was probably to blame based on the “physical evidence”.  It is an
insult to all of us and an egregious disservice to all of us with an
interest in SCR and CCR technology to obfuscate what we all know to be true.
Starting up with the “health problems” nonsense is just the worst sort of
lie.

The death due to health problem excuse is not a new one. In the case of the
Cis Lunar this convenient excuse was used to explain the death of Ian
Rolland (he was diabetic). It was also a convenient (and equally absurd)
excuse used cover up the real cause of death of Rob Palmer.  In Palmer’s
case the idea of a spontaneous “heart attack” in mid air as he rolled off
the boat at Hurgada was so patently ridiculous that when it came to light
that a deep air fest was going on the “natural causes” excuse was correctly
discounted.

As in the Jane Ornstein case here was a death which was preventable if
somebody wasn’t asleep at wheel. She died because the people responsible for
her safety were not there to help when they were needed. In Henry Kendall’s
case it would seem that the same level of irresponsibility and negligence
were also in force. There also was nobody on hand to render life saving
assistance after the accident occurred.  If you recall, Richie Pyle
documented a near fatal hypoxic incident at Madison Blue Springs during the
preparation phase of the Wakulla II project. In that case Richie was very
clear and up front about the man/machine rebreather problem and that
correctly was the truth of the matter.

I can tell you now that neither I, nor any of my colleagues, are going to
stand by and swallow such an insulting explanation.

Best regards,

Bill Mee

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