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Hey Paul, wake up and smell the coffee. Do you know anything whatsoever
about diving rebreathers. If you do, tell me what the most common accident
involving them is? I'll give you a hint. It happens in shallow water.
The point here Paul is that Dr. Noel Sloan, the Wakulla 2 diving
physician, called this from the beginning. Hypoxia leading to
unconsciousness and then to death. Now enter an untrained, uninitiated
Wakulla co. medical examiner and you have the cause of death ="natural
causes". How can that even be feasible when the guy is dead in 8 ft. of
water with that deathtrap strapped to his back. It's a convenient way for
Nordstrom, Stone and Cis-Lunar to dodge the bullet. Hence the retractment
statement by Stone.
Get a clue or better yet go buy one of these things and find out the hard
way.
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Davis <p.e.davis@wo*.at*.ne*>
To: Bill Mee <wwm@sa*.ne*>
Cc: rebreather@nw*.co* <rebreather@nw*.co*>; cavers
<cavers@cavers.com>; techdiver@aq*.co* <techdiver@aq*.co*>; "Cost
effective home improvement" <freeattic@co*.ci*.uf*.ed*>
Date: Saturday, February 20, 1999 3:18 PM
Subject: Re: Natural Causes = What Next?
>Bill,
>
>I often find it interesting that whenever a death is mentioned on
rebreathers
>the mud starts to fly at the Atlantis unit and I go down this path all the
>time? On what do you base this information? If you have knowledge, then
please
>share it openly on the forum. If you are working on hearsay then please
check
>you sources.
>
>Paul Davis
>
>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
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ônatural causes
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ö. 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
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ôdrown
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ö. 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
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ônatural
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ö.
>>
>> People get killed using rebreathers. Should you be forgetful of this
>> unhappy reality just whisper the words
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ôInspiration
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ö or
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ôAtlantis
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ö 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
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ôphysical evidence
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ö. 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
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ôhealth problems
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ö 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
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> Æs
>> case the idea of a spontaneous
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ôheart attack
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ö 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
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ônatural causes
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> ö excuse was correctly
>> discounted.
>>
>> As in the Jane Ornstein case here was a death which was preventable if
>> somebody wasn
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> Æt asleep at wheel. She died because the people responsible
>> for
>> her safety were not there to help when they were needed. In Henry Kendall
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
>>
>> Æs
>> 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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