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Mike,

It's just common sense that someone who has had heart surgery is not a good
candidate for a sport like ours that is:

--Stressful
--Dangerous
--Physically demanding
--Has moments of easy swimming and low stress punctuated by extreme
   physical effort and high stress.
--Requires good flexibility.
--Requires good blood perfusion and low blood pressure.
--Requires a clear head at all times.

I'm not here to specifically criticize Bill. I don't know enough about his
condition. He's devoted a lot of effort to cave diving and has done some
good things for cavers, like the steps at Peacock. However, I know that if I
required heart surgery in my 50s, that'd be it. It's very likely I'd give up
cave diving altogether, but I KNOW that were I an instructor, I'd give up
in-water teaching. 

Tom makes a point about airline pilots:

>There are numerous airline pilots who have had heart attacks
>and have been returned to their jobs as Captains on airlines
>with a hell of a lot of responsibility.

This may be true, I don't know. But I do know that at age 60, healthy or
not, no matter if the guy's running marathons in his off-hours, all
commercial pilots must retire--no exceptions.

And flying an airliner is no where near as physically demanding as cave
diving routinely is.

The point is that we all will have to stop someday. Some sooner than others.
We all die. But it's the responsibility of those who hold other's lives in
their hands to take a hard look at themselves every time they go out. To me,
overweight might be passable (though not really acceptable), but overweight,
advanced age and heart condition/surgery is not.

This is why as cave divers we have a higher responsibility to keep fit if we
really want to pursue our sport responsibly. The problem is that the
physical demands are negotiable even to a totally out of shape diver until
the shit hits the fan. Then that diver just might die and take a buddy,
endanger a recovery diver and leave a family in grief and financial
hardship. Responsibility is something that maybe just doesn't get taught
enough in the cave course. And Responsibility is 99% of characterizes the
instructor's job.

Later,

JoeL

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