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In a message dated 98-07-12 07:07:18 EDT, kirvine@sa*.ne* writes: << Bob, just for the scorecard, for which agency was this guy an instructor? The fact is that we have had more INSTRICTORS die in the last year than we have had total tech deaths in the previous four years. We have had more total "tech" deaths in the last year than in the previous six years. >> It's pretty pathetic when there are this many Instructors dying. Harvey was not an Instructor, heck, for all I know he may never have even been certified. Harvey was one of the old timers up here, been around forever, seemed like he'd be around forever too. Harvey was well known for diving till he was low on air then just come up and wing it as far as deco goes.I have been on dives with Harvey many times, and on two occasions I had to swim out after him and drag him back to the boat. Once after surfacing from 180 feet, 7 min btm time, dropped his weight belt just to get to the surface. Pretty scary if you ask me. Anyway, Harvey was not the most careful diver, but he was the most generous dive store owner anyone will ever meet. Bottom line, he was a nice guy. Harvey will be missed. IMO, Harvey died from one of three reasons: 1) Too much oxygen in his tank for the depth he was at. Harvey was careless about nitrox. He asked me to install a system for him back around 1992-93, but I refused simply because he ran a very careless operation. So too much Oxygen would not surprise me. 2) It has already been rumored that Harvey committed suicide. He had given his brother-in-law the keys to his store, something he never does. It was common knowledge that he was broke and business was poor. He lost his accountants, was closed once by the sherriff for failure to pay back taxes, and Con Ed (the electric company) had turned off his electric. His building has been up for sale. So who knows. He did die with gas left in his tanks. One of the local boat Captains in brooklyn may have better info on this than me, so maybe they can shed some light here. 3)Medical problem. He was 67, so a heart attack, stroke etc. cannot be ruled out. Lets wait for the autopsy. Again, Harvey was a friend to a lot of people, and a character to most. His death should not be lumped in with the recent deaths of a technical nature. Harvey should be allowed to rest in peace, regardless of the cause of death. I agree with you on the amount of Instructor deaths/tech deaths. It's getting pathetic. I have already begun refusing "referrals" from instructors that I either do not know or know they should'nt be teaching. If that means that I will brought up on BOA ethics charges, so be it. If the agencies cannot put there foot down, well, maybe some of the better instructors out there will. We do need support however from the boats. If a boat is willing to take anyone to any dive without requiring training, then the diver gets to bypass the instruction. So my point is we do need SOME TYPE of self regulation, but training agencies, instructors and dive boat operators need to be in sync. Regards, Bob PS - I guess I'll have to come down when your diving in Wakulla starts to get serious and show you how to dive :) -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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