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Let's assume that George is right - just for a moment ;-) Deep air is stupid.. and peer pressure to dive deep on air is also stupid. But maybe that wasn't the cause of Rob Palmer's death and maybe it wasn't the whole story of Exley's death. I was not fortunate enough to meet any of the above, who are surely among the best and brightest of our time. But I have read what some of them have written and tried to get details of their final dives. Rob Palmer had written, lectured extensively against deep air, as well as counselled and taught people not to do it. There is one controlling factor that may have played a big part in these deaths - buoyancy control. Oh sure, they were expert divers who were in complete control at all times. Then why did they die? I've not been diving for long - about 20 yrs and only intermittently until the last five. Although I have never seen a first stage fail, I have seen a low-pressure hose fail at least 2-3 times a year. On every liveaboard I've been on, someone has had a BCD hose fail during the week. Most of the time, when people are diving shallow reefs, this is no big deal. Occasionally, the hose inflates the BCD and the (usually) newbie rockets to the surface. Otherwise they swim up at the end of the dive. After all many people dived without a BCD for many years. Here's the point, with the advent of tech diving, BCDs became much more important and relied on. They've "evolved" by adding glistening hardware, but they basically work the same way the old horse-collars do. A week ago I saw someone (a very experienced diver) dive a very complex rig with no LP hose connected. "I'll just mouth inflate if I need it", he said. At >200 fsw!!?? Also tech divers, esp when there may be current, will add lotsa weight. 20-30 lbs is not unusual, even in warm waters. Sure you can dump that weight, but do people? No. DAN stats show that almost all SCUBA bodies recovered are still wearing their weight belt. Besides, if you've just plummeted to 160 fsw while fiddling to reconnect your LP hose to your BC, do you really want to rocket to the surface? Nah, I'll get it connected before I get to a "serious" depth. Maybe. A week or so ago, my friends(!) were giving me a hard time for being concerned that if the loop floods on my CCR1000, I will go 10 kg negative and where was I going to get the gas or lose the weight in a hurry at depth. In summary, I don't think that divers think/plan enough about what will happen in a fanshit situation if their buoyancy suddenly changes - they lose a belt, a loop floods, the BC springs a leak or the LP hose blows or is too weak to deliver enough gas at depth. I wonder if these were not among the controlling factors that allowed Palmer and perhaps Exley to arrive at these depths breathing the wrong gas. pH At 02:40 PM 8/28/97 -0400, George Irvine wrote: >Palmer - died deep on air > > Parker - died diving deep on air with stroke rig. > > Exley - died trying to set deep record > > McFaden - died diving deep on air > > These people were considered accomlished, experienced divers, and >they were killed diving narcotic mixes combined with other stupid >things. Exley dropped to 400 feet on air before switching to trimix for >the rest of his decent. I call it a narcotic , or deep air death. > > McFaden got silted out at 220 and lost, and by the time he found >his way to the line, he was low on gas. He ran out, and ran Bill Gavin ( >who went back to find him from the entrance - Gavin was solo diving in >another part of the cave) out of gas. > > Parker ended up dead following some kind of charlie foxtrot on >air, and Palmer died diving deep on air in the Red Sea, despite the >bullshit stories about him having a heart attack and falling overboard - >we have that from the people who were there who later changed their >story - look in the archives for yourself. > > Deep air is stupid -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send list subscription requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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