Divers Alert Network  will not deal in the statistics of actual deaths in
tech diving, or the causes. They do recreational diving, and they have
sponsors that practically require them to make it look like diving is
getting safer.

The reality is more like diving is killing more people, because more
unqualified instructors are training more untrainable tech diver wannabe's.
Tech diving has too many untrainable, "Never Evers"  in it, in large
numbers. This will mean deaths.

While their is better gear available, there is also worse gear availble,
thanks to free enterprise ( ever hear of suicide or bondage wings??? ).
There is better training, but it is hidden effectively by an exponential
increase in dangerously negligent instructors---people like Andre Smith or
Derick McKnulty---each held in a system like IANTD, pending either their
death by diving ( as with Andre --who took two with him) or in Derick's
case, after a student death at his hands  I can only explain as culpably
negligent manslaughter, we see him still prospering as an IANTD instructor,
many months after he proved how dangerous he could really be.

All this underscores that you can find a dive instructor today who could
kill you and continue to kill others after you, and do so with impunity.

For the average new diver, diving is getting MORE DANGEROUS. Absolutely.

Regards,
Dan



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Gale.Arnie.Warshawsky [mailto:gwaw@ix*.ne*.co*]
> Sent: Thursday, August 20, 1998 7:07 PM
> To: Dan Volker
> Cc: 'Cavers'; techdiver@aquanaut.com; Jan Faust; Katherine V. Irvine
> Subject: Re: Fitness envy and more Wrolfing stupidity
>
>
> Dan Volker wrote:
> >major snips:
> >
> > If you have not noticed, the tech list is embroiled in deaths on a scale
> > never seen before in diving.
>
> I don't quarrel with the gross number of deaths attributed to technical
> diving has been increasing. I wonder, however, how the number of deaths
> per dives has been changing. I don't propose to know the answer, but it
> is certainly possible that the death rate (deaths per dive) is going
> down, which I would expect due to improved equipment and better training
> (or at least more widely available training), while the absolute number
> of deaths increases. Do you think DAN might be able to get a handle on
> this?
>
> Blow gentle bubbles,
>
> Arnie Warshawsky
>

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