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My wreck rig is composed of a primary and safe with the primary in my mouth and the safe suspended from surgical tubing around my neck. The primary at this time is a D-400 and the safe is a Air I. My deco mix is carried as side mounts with the deep mix on my left with both regs attached to the cylinder via tubing. The O2 is on the right via tubing. Previously I carried O2 between the twins with the 109 regulator clipped to the side of the right cylinder of the twin. All regulators are shaped differently and located apart from each other. I do not dive trimix, so I'm not faced with the additional task of switching from a travel mix to a bottom mix and back. However, for what it is worth, I can see how a mistake could be made under various circumstances and a person grabs the wrong regulator. The fact hat I physically isolate the location of my regulators so much no doubt has been a factor in never having had this problem. That said however, I plan on a formal tri-mix class in the near future and the potential of this is bothersom. To me redundant is just that, y valves on all critical gas supplies and if my understanding of the physics of trimix are correct, then all gas supplies are critical, then I'm looking at a fairly healthy number of regulators to contend with. I have to think that along with absolute familiarity of equipment location must go an almost rote understanding of the dive. I've had more than a few people wonder about me as I sit for anywhere between 15 and 60 minutes before a dive working through the entire thing with my eyes closed feeling my way around all my gear. It may be paranoia, but it works for me. I understand from some postings that there were some problems of a similar nature before the fatal dive. If that is true, I can only say that being a very very conservative person, I would have probably gone back and reworked the entire system until I was sure I had corrected the situation that caused the problem. This is no criticism of the people involved since they may have done just that and it is all too easy to armchair quarterback these things, but I would speaking for myself have gone back and probably spent a number of hours working on the system. Really, a lot of these problems might be solved if we could get past the almost automatic fatal nature of seizures due to O2 CNS. I agree with one person that the present "De Natura Rerum" is lacking in a reliable and simple switch system between gases using full face masks. I know that we could design a block manifold and that purging between switches could insure almost immediate transfer of gases but that doesn't address the redundancy requirement of the primary regulator. My own experience of having logged a couple of hundred hours with both AGA's and EXO's and no failures would mean little should such a failure occur without a complete and immediately available backup. The obvious answer therefore is a full face mask with a redundant regulator system (easily said naturaly). I think this is a question that ultimately has to be adddressed from a acceptable risk standpoint and it would be nice to say that it is an individual decision. Unfortunately, the effects from each death adds fuel to the anti tek feelings which I think in good faith must be considered. It would be nice if all parties concerned could sit down an address this problem without the typical political hyperbol. The tek community has achieved standards on gas preperation, perhaps the issue of accidental gas switching should be the next subject addressed. RW
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