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Re: Time to grab the 2 x 4. Steve, Just imagine yourself in the following situation. You are with your instructor for your first serious deep trimix dive. This dive is offshore in open water. The surface current is 5 mph, the surface temperature is 72F, the weather is clear and the seas are running 2 - 4. You are going to drift dive a wreck in 250 - 260 fsw. You have 17/40 trimix in your back tanks, which are steel 100s and you are carrying two steel stage bottles for decompression. Your instructor who is known to be "good on air" has an indeterminate mix in his back tanks. There are no markings on the stage bottles other than the standard mod and analysis tape, which has already fallen off anyway. Since the surface temp is 72F your instructor has you wearing a wetsuit. You are equipped with a bungee style bouyancy compensation system and your instructor has decided that carrying a float is an unnecessary inconvenience. Your wife, who is along for the ride and has an open water certification is the designated "safety diver". She is seasick and huddled in the cabin down below, but so what. This safety diver baloney is just that. Unnecessary malarkey for a dive which is "routine" according to the pros . You are more than a little nervous about this, but hehÂ… so what? Nothing to worry about here. Your instructor "wrote the book" on deep diving and the standards and procedures are those dictated by a well recognized agency. The "dive, dive dive!" command is barked out by the boat captain and you clamber across the deck stumbling several times under the huge gear load .. You are sweating profusely and very red in the face. Finally, you pitch off the dive platform and begin to fall into the deep blue waters of the Gulfstream. As you sink deeper and deeper your rate of descent becomes increasingly more rapid. You try to add gas to your BC, but the inflator is merely leaking it out and not adding it to the wings. It is getting darker and colder. No one told you that the bottom temperature was 59F. Your wetsuit is being compressed to paper thinness and the feeling of panic is becoming more oppressive. At this point you try to signal your instructor, but he doesn't seem to notice you or that you are even having a problem. Finally, you hit the bottom. It is very dark and bone chillingly cold. Your breathing rate has reached an extraordinary high level and upon checking your back gas you notice that more than half of it is gone. The instructor still does not seem to be aware of you, but one of the other divers has come around to help you out. Additional attempts to inflate your wings seem to be futile. The gas just escapes and the "bungee" restraints restrict the addition of the reduced inflation pressure. The biting cold is making you hyperventilate. In short you are going nowhere real fast. Your "buddy" recognizes the dilemma and tries to help, but you are impossibly overweighted and it never crosses your mind to ditch your steel stage bottles. You would never do that, because it has been drilled into you over and over the tremendous danger of aborting the decompression on even a short bounce dive. Heck, after all decompression is what this "socalled" technical diving is about. Isn't it? Now you are really low an air, you are paralyzed by extreme panic, your instructor is still oblivious and your buddy is starting to get you up a little bit off the bottom. You run out of air and grab one of your stage cylinders, even though it is still 200fsw. What the hell, breath anything just to save yourself. This is the last thing you remember. In fact several minutes later you sink back to the bottom unconscious and your body is never recovered, although six weeks later your instructor surfaces from the dive. Steve, tell me what is wrong here. Certainly, you would have learned something from this experience. Right? Might you have modified procedures and standards to prevent just such a thing from occurring again? Now let's just say that you are not a hasty fellow and like to mull things over for a while before doing anything. While you are mulling things over essentially the same thing happens again 4 months later and then again and again in rapid succession. Would you take any action now? After all it is not one of your loved ones or friends who is dead. . Would you get upset or would you just keep on being nice and non- provocative? At this point would you listen to the common sense and practical measures being offered by other well informed and experienced individuals or would you simply discount this information because it wasn't candy coated? Steve, there is nothing polite about death and the consequences of hubris date back to the earliest recorded literature. Regards, Bill Mee Steve Orrell wrote: > > Hi Katherine V. Irvine > > On Mon, 20 Jul 1998 06:14:45 -0400, you wrote: > > > Steve, how rude is three deaths in one week? How rude is fifteen dead > > instructors in eighteen months. How rude is the continuous uniterrupted > > flow of misinfomration, stupidity, and dangerous practices that are > > getting these people killed? > > I cannot argue against you here, in these precise circumstances... and would > not dream of it. > > There's no way I could even suggest that there is anything, anything at all > that I can do about these needless deaths, apart from feel deeply for those > who's loved ones are lost under ridiculously tragic circumstances and I'm > thinking about Alan Pelstrings' partner Jane here. > > Oh crumbs, its difficult for me to express myself without resorting to > something resembling an expression of personal animosity, which is the last > thing I want to do (although I may have already done this in my first > post).... perhaps now I'm experiencing a very little of the frustration I > realise you must feel given your deeper involvement in all of this. > > There are a very few people who can actively and positively act to redress > the training inadequacies the even I recognise exist at the moment. What I > would dearly love is for some forum to be established where mutual > chin-punching is put to one side and change is made for the better. > > > Like you say, you are new, and you do not know that this is all > > emamating from a few really, really stupid people who are able to > > influence our whole sport. > > This I am aware of but from my distanced perspective it also seems that > there is a stand-off between those who have the need for change and those > who have the thoughts and skills/practices needed to redress the > deficiencies that most accept are there. > > > You go do a few recoveries, you go to court to get people declared dead > > while their wives sit their crying, you talk to the families of the > > victims, the fathers of the dead sons with a promising full life ahead > > of them, you ride around on a boat all day with the dead bodies and the > > cops, you talk to the Coast Guard, etc, > > This is an experience I would never want to have. Perhaps its because of > that that I'm asking in my own way that another means of instigating change > be found; after all there's (always) more than one way to skin a rabbit). > > > and then you can kiss my ass. > > Er, no, do mind if I pass on that one ;-) > > > It is the atittute of tolerance of dive shop monkeeism - the act of > > learning a dangerous sport from the equivalent of a roofer, that will > > get clowns like you killed. This is a serious sport, and it is being > > taught by primates who could not make a good batch of fries or a Double > > Whopper without screwing it up. > > I agree with your sentiment here, well, up to the point about me being a > clown... > > I mentioned earlier that I am relatively new to diving, this also means that > in my own diving circle I am a newcomer and yet I see within that those > self, same deficiencies you describe. I am also trying to pass on what I can > in terms of improving practices to my new-found circle of diving friends. > Most of those changes/ideas I have gleaned from this list and none of which > anyone has argued against... However, since I am a newcomer, no-one will > listen to me if I stand up and beat my chest, so I approach things a little > more diplomatically, I have no choice. > > > There is nothing new in any of this, except that fifty years of polite > > by the likes of Jaques Cousteau and many others has not worked nearly as > > well as publicly humiliting the usual suspects. Now they are aftraid to > > screw up, since their insurance agents are wathing closely. Anyway to > > slow these mongoloids down is fine with me. > > But precisely because of the way they have been forced to change, i.e. by > humiliation, they are also most resistant to acknowledging their _real_ > deficiencies and publicly seeking change, no? > > Steve... > -- > 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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