Bill,
   This will really piss you off, in another articile they claim that
Kendall was the first to die on a cis-lunar. The First????? We all know the
Ian died while using this death-trap, but I guess Stone has forgotton all
about that. The Wak2 people said that a valve was in the wrong position,
are they now saying that the valve was "in" the correct position?? All in
all, I guess Stone will consider this a successful project, he has been
averaging one death per project so I guess they consider this as "standard
operating procedure". 

Barry



At 05:20 PM 2/19/99 -0500, Bill Mee wrote:
>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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