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Richard - At 12:12 AM 8/30/97 +0200, Richard Lundgren wrote: >Would this buoyancy control problems that you describes be easier to manage >with or without being narced? The dangers of "deep air" are several: nitrogen narcosis and acute CNS O2 toxicity are among them. Your knowledge of Rob is greater than mine. Perhaps his death is the paradox of "Do what I say, not do what I do". Whatever, Rob has paid the price. >The narced person feels in control and the public runs for shelter. Divers >who claim that they feel ok during deep dives, do they also claim being ok to >drive after a sixpack? Sure, they do. *If* they make it back - which most of them do and so which reinforces the behavior in them and their peers. The death of a peer has been shown to be a powerful force for change in high risk behavior, (whether it's drunk driving by teens or unsafe sex) but the salutary effect is transient and comes at a great price. To be effective over the long term, it requires reinforcement by peer pressure. But deep diving on air is accessible to almost all divers and peers far from reinforcing that it's stupid, respect it (as you said) as a macho and "edge of the envelope" thrill. Part of the problem is that it does not kill every diver every time. Whether it's an O2 hit or a bad narc, it doesn't happen every time. It's the unpredictable magnitude of the risk for any one dive that makes deep air dives both thrilling and so dangerous. To successfully reduce (note, I did not say stop) this practice, you have to offer an alternative, at least as thrilling, but safer. If diving mix was as accessible as air and the "role models" *only* dived this way, many might not try the more dangerous alternative Being narced at depth adds to the O2 tox risk by eliminating the diver's ability to perform simple tasks safely or make good judgement calls (assuming that ability was present at sea-level). But the occasional lethal event is clearly not enough to deter even the best and brightest. We need something more from them. pH -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send list subscription requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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