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Dan, Excellent response. It is worth noting that what motivated Tri-Gas to reconsider their policy was the newspaper press converage about the accident. The newspaper articles contained detailed descriptions of depths, decompression profiles and other relevant facts about mixed gas technical diving. This is what clued these folks into the identity of their helium customers. Since these guys are the primary gas supplier down here I guess they figured that sooner or later a subpoena would be showing up at their door if they do not screen their gas customers. My guess is that you will still be able to purchase gas, but it will be the more expensive "medical grade" (as averse to balloon grade :)) helium or you will just have to sign off on a liability waiver. Regards, Bill Dan Volker wrote: > > I saw each TV broadcast. The BIG point George raised was that Andre > should have offered the long hose to the student, rather than either giving > the student a nitrox reg ( belonging to the student) , or allowing the > student to do this to himself. Discussion about running out of gas and > methods of handling OOA emergenices at depth are not going to have a direct > effect on helium sales. What will have a direct effect is a situation > where some store ( lets call this a hypothetical store called "Dive > Doughnuts" ) is involved in a major coverup, where improper mixing > percentages, sloppy instruction standards, and sales of unsafe equipment > are all potentially contributing causes of a multi death tragedy. In this > situation, anyone the store does business with may be pulled in to ensueing > litigation. > > If someone like George exposes the criminal negligence that "Dive Doughnuts" > had perpetrated, blaming the resultant loss of helium to the tech crowd on > George would be a simple case of "Shooting the messenger of bad news". In > this case, the dive public would need to know, or many more deaths would > ensue from a continuation of unsafe practices, and denial of any > responsibility. > > Surely you are not thinking about the scale of recent events. We are faced > right now with the largest tragedy in tech diving history. If your wife or > sister just died in a new 787 jumbo jet, on take off, my guess is that you > would want to know WHY the plane crashed-----and you'd say, "Fuck the > airlines ( who want to say this was just a freak accident) , I want to know > what happened". And you'd be right to demand this, and the answers may save > many future lives. > Regards, > Dan Volker > > -----Original Message----- > From: Tim Olson <underh2o@ex*.co*> > To: Bill Mee <wwm@sa*.ne*> > Cc: techdiver@aquanaut.com <techdiver@aquanaut.com>; cavers@ww*.ge*.co* > <cavers@ww*.ge*.co*>; gmirvine@sa*.ne* <gmirvine@sa*.ne*> > Date: Friday, January 23, 1998 11:49 AM > Subject: Re: BAD NEWS: Fallout from the WPB tragedy > > > > >> Predictably, we are now beginning to observe the inevitable fallout from > >> the single worst technical diving accident, ever. Independently, one of > >> the largest gas suppliers in the Southeast, Tri-Gas, has reported that > >> they are considering a total ban on the sale of Helium and other gases > >> for the purpose of diving. This, they say, is a direct result of > >> liability issues raised following the well publicized WPB tragedy. > > > >Leave it to Irvine to publicize things until they are banned for > >everyone. The fallout falls on us all. If only all the IDIOTS > >who go on TELEVISION publicizing all this crap would just shut > >their little midget pip-squeak mouths when talking to the GENERAL > >PUBLIC, maybe things like this wouldn't happen. > > > >While I agree with many (most) of his safety concepts, anyone > >who would TRY to publicize diving accidents to the general > >public and TRY TO INVOKE LITIGATION definately earns > >the "Farm-Animal-Stupid" badge. Slam and preach all you want > >if you have divers listening, but when you speak to the general > >public, you have to realize that most people find the simple > >idea of a 20' scuba dive to be "daring", so if you publicize > >the accidents that happen deep diving, you will of course > >bring about these types of problems. > > > >Learn a lesson, Irvine you idiot! > > > >Tim Olson > > > > > >-- > >Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. > >Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'. > > -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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