Kirvine,

From everything I hear, Tony Smith was a first class well liked guy. This
only compounds the unnecessary tragedy of his death, which by all accounts
was horrible. Certainly, Tony bears some responsibility here, but I see the
real sinister culprits are still lurking out there. You can be dead on the
money sure that the root causes of his death are alive and well and ready to
claim the lives of new and innocent victims

Let’s look at the situation and you tell me where the key fits:

1. Diving steel tanks offshore in deep open water with a wetsuit or dive
skin.
2. Wearing a cumberbun style “tech” BC which prevented the diver from
loosening the bc to reach the tank valves or get rid of his weight belt.

Now what agency do you know of that recommends this idiotic practice or
endorses dangerous products that don’t work and has several deaths which
validate the stupidity of this, yet continues to recommend it?

Let’s look at some additional facts, which are so obviously moronic, that
even the agencies would not openly endorse such nonsense:


3. Diving solo from a charter boat, far offshore in the Gulf Stream.
4. Paying zero attention to diver preparation, diver fitness (physical and
mental – i.e. stress level), buddy teams or dive planning.
5. Paying zero attention to diver condition following initial water entry
(i.e. give ok sign on surface before descent), where most problems occur.
6. No emergency response plan.

If  dive charter boat captains think that they have no responsibility to
their paying customers and there role is no more or no less than simply a
seagoing taxicab, they are sorely mistaken. I  suggest they only ask Alton
Hall (i.e ahall@di*.co*) just how much their excuses will hold up in
court in light of the gross negligence described in items 3,4,5,6.
Completely aside from the issue of civil liability this dangerous level of
negligence is morally and ethically wrong and borders on criminal
irresponsibility.  On top flight charter boats, such as the Wahoo (ask
captain Jan) Tony would have received the sort of attention from the crew,
prior to his getting in the water to at least have averted his gas being
turned off.  Tony was obviously so stressed out, either from the sea
conditions, lack of sleep, unfamiliarity with the non drysuit scenario, etc.
that he totally forgot to deal with the most obvious of pre dive
preparations. There appears to have been  a huge amount of pressure to be
first in the water and down on the wreck, for whatever reason I have no
idea, and this compounded the stress level.  Think about it. Tony was so
stressed that he forgot every basic premise of his dive training and learned
experience (and we are told that he was not new to this)

I also smell a high degree of twelve inch dickery here. A bunch of gun
slinging every man for himself tough guys doing a “work-up dive” to 240. I
can just imagine the scenario. The pontification and tough talk was probably
right out of Soldier of Fortune.  Nobody paying any attention to anyone
else. It was so bad that no one noticed that Tony was missing until after
the dive.  Think about it. A stressed out 350 lb guy and no one notices him?
What?  Wait till these boneheads actually attempt to dive to 240 you can
expect a real multiple killing.

Each 12” la penga  wanted to be first in the water to get down on the wreck
and come back with the loot (some rusted light fixture or similar heroic
junk for a coffee table).  The problem is you have a lot of guys all trying
to prove something and this is a recipe for trouble and the charter boat
captain needs to be able to spot this situation and take measures to control
it.

The sad part is that Tony was familiar with the DIR tapes, which
specifically address issues such as tank types and over weighting in open
water tech diving. He either ignored this information or was receiving
contradictory input from someone or something else.  I would like to know
who or what that is, because when we do they will have to publicly explain
why they consider this bs to be right.

We are sick of this and you have not heard the end of it.

Bill Mee





-----Original Message-----
From: kirvine@sa*.ne* <kirvine@sa*.ne*>
To: Cost effective home improvement <freeattic@co*.ci*.uf*.ed*>
Date: Tuesday, June 29, 1999 6:38 AM
Subject: Tony Smith Accident


>By the way, if you ever did jump into the water without your tanks
>being turned on, the first move is ALWAYS to undo the waist buckle, and
>then go for the valves. You have no breath to waste finding out out if
>you can turn them on without them being free to move.
>
>   Been there, done that courtesy of an officious boat monkee dive
>master who turned my tanks off at the back of the boat without me
>knowing. Seems right and left are well beyond dive industry
>understanding.
>
>   Also, even if you checked your inflator, it can pop off. Weightbelt
>has to go in this case first, get back up and get another one .
>
>   However, in the logic of DIR, the inflator is the third backup reg.
>Always be sure it breathes before geting into the water. If you check
>all three regs, it is unlikely that you will miss turned off tanks.
>
>   Parker Turner, "It is the basics that keep you alive". Practice them.
>
>
>--- Freeattic list subscriptions/removals should be sent to
>--- sallot@mi*.co*.
>

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