Mailing List Archive

Mailing List: techdiver

Banner Advert

Message Display

From: "Dan Volker" <dlv@ga*.ne*>
To: "Bill Mee" <wwm@sa*.ne*>, "Tim Olson" <underh2o@ex*.co*>
Cc: <gmirvine@sa*.ne*>, <cavers@ww*.ge*.co*>, <techdiver@aquanaut.com>
Subject: Re: BAD NEWS: Fallout from the WPB tragedy
Date: Fri, 23 Jan 1998 13:25:40 -0500
 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'.

Navigate by Author: [Previous] [Next] [Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject: [Previous] [Next] [Subject Search Index]

[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]

[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]