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Maureen, first let me send you my condolensces. I am truly sorry about
your recent loss. I wish you, and your family, the best.
Unfortunatly, what happened to your husband is becomming an all to
familiar occurance these days. In the past 5 months we have had over 8
people die diving deep on air, and two of them were well known "pioneers"
with many years of experience in technical diving.
Diving on compressed air past a depth of 100' produces a state known as
"nitrogen narcosis". Any basic open water 1 scuba diver knows about this
state, as it is taught by all of the training agencies. Nitrogen narcosis
is similar to being drunk, and the deeper you go, the drunker you get.
Recreational training agencies (PADI, NAUI, SSI, YMCA, NASDS) limit the
maximum depth recreational divers can go to on air to a depth of 130'. One
of the reasons for this limit is nitrogen narcosis.
Now, some people believe that nitrogen narcosis is quite managable. Just
as if one was to sit on a sofa and drink a six pack of beer while watching
their favorite football team. Now, take that person and have his wife tell
him to take the kid and to drive to the corner mickey d's to pick up dinner
for the family, and while he's driving there's sirens going off, the kid is
screaming, the radio is blaring the notorius B.I.G., and he blows a tire.
Chances are he will not be able to deal with the situation very well,
because he is already incapacitated with alcohol. Now, probably if nothing
went wrong (the kid was quiet, the tire didn't blow, the radio was only
playing the best alice in chains, and there were no sirens) then he would
have successfully driven to mickey d's, picked up the cheese burgers, and
gotten home in time to see the final quarter.
Diving deep on air is just like our six pack toting football fan.
However, the diver is already tasked with the fact that he's underwater, and
has to monitor life support equipment. As soon as something goes wrong (poor
visibility, cold water, high current, equipment failure) his perception
narrows and he becomes focused on one thing. This is when accidents are
made, because the diver can not respond correctly because he is too
impaired. All too often the result is a fatality.
There is a very cheap alternative to diving deep on air. Helium,
although it costs about $0.50 per cubic foot here in the states (estimated
retail price), reduces narcosis to the point of effectively removing it, and
has some other benefits as well.
Unfortunatly, there are training agencies which insist you must first
dive on air to depths of at least 180' before you can learn to dive helium.
This is like saying you must first learn to drive drunk before you can learn
to drive. I do not know what the reason for their mistaken belief is, the
conjecture I have heard is that they wish to make more money by teaching
more classes (a typical "deep air" class runs around $300 per person), but
their officially stated reason is people need to learn how to handle
narcosis.
The sad thing about this is the "deep air" portion is often taught as an
"end to itself", not a step in the process to dive on helium, but also as a
way to just extend the depth you dive. Quite often you see instructors who
teach deep air just so their students can learn how to dive deep on air.
I'm, by nature, a cave and deep wreck diver (I live near Tampa), and quite
often have heard and seen instructors trying to teach people to dive air to
depths of 240' or more. Most diving agencies have a simple guideline to base
the depth/narcosis level scale, 100-130' mild impairment, some mathmatecal
functions/communication/coordination, 130-150', moderate impairment, poor
communication, mental narrowing, 150-180', impaired, limited communication,
limited motor response time, 180'+ out of control, 250'+ hallucinations,
danger to other divers. These people who promote deep air diving believe
that narcosis can be tolerated by repeated exposure, and that people can
build up a defense to it. The fact of the matter is that divers do not build
up a tolerance to deep air diving, they just build up a feeling that they
can handle it. It's like the drunk, once again, when he started drinking he
might have gotten a buzz on one beer, now it takes six to notice a mild
buzz, but when he has that tire blow out he's drunk.
The worst part about the deep air controversy is that the people who
continue to promote deep air as being safe (God only knows why it's
called safe, the body count behind this practice goes as far back as
compressed air scuba diving) forget about people like you, the survivors of
those that die doing this.
I truly wish you the best, I also hope that you are the last surviving
family member of a deep air fatality but I know in reality the next one will
be around the corner (it sounds like there was just one in France).
Good luck to you and your family - Richard Todd
On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Douglas Missavage wrote:
> I am the wife of the diver that died in Lake Wazee a week and a half
> ago. As a non diver, would you please expand upon your ideas with deep
> diving on air or other thoughts in response to the various stories
> related to the accident.
> Maureen Missavage
>
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