Bill, I hear Tom Mount is going to revise the IANTD rebreather test in
the question of "what kills the most rebreatHer divers" to include the
answer, "Natural Causes". In 100% of the Cis Lunar deaths, "natural
causes" is to blame, rather than the irresponsibility of Stone for
running a charlie foxtrot with no controls, no buddy system, and no
clue, and the usual situation of having people diving that should not be
doing so, as in the case of taking a diabetic a mile underground for
three months , letting him dive solo , and then calling it "diver error"
in the first round of excuses ( saying he turned off his oxygen ), and
then revising that to "natural cuases".

In my experience with Bill Stone, this is no suprise. The fact is he
screwd up, and he may have screwd it up for all of us, and trashed ten
years of our work. Excuse me if I continue to maintain the "uttermost
contempt" for this lying scum. We need to spend the next year convincing
everyone that we are not the "Wakulla Too" project, and that we have
nothing to do with this guy, and more importantly, WHY.




Bill Mee wrote:
> 
> I was quite willing to drop discussion of the highly publicized and tragic
> death of Henry Kendall at Wakulla Springs this past week, until the most
> recent USDCT press release ascribing his death to “natural causes”.  The
> calls from friends and relatives inquiring about this death and the
> coincidental connection by place (not organization) with the WKPP were
> getting very tiresome. Despite this I was still willing to suppress open
> debate on the subject until today.
> 
> Everyone on this list knows the killing modes of rebreathers and the most
> potent of these, hypoxia, will make the victim appear to have died of heart
> stoppage if they do not aspirate water and “drown”.  You go hypoxic, your
> brain shuts down, you stop breathing, you lose consciousness and then you
> die.
> 
> The well publicized death of Jane Ornstein, last summer from a technical
> diving accident (of which our organization was involved in the recovery
> effort), was ruled by the medical examiner to be the result of a hyperoxic
> seizure.  This conclusion was based on circumstantial and physical evidence
> (i.e. the deco gas had been breathed at depth) and not on medical evidence.
> Basically, the coroner could not determine what had killed her except for
> the fact that her heart had stopped. Since the facts surrounding the death
> were well documented it was not hard to conclude the most probable cause of
> demise and it most certainly was not “natural”.
> 
> People get killed using rebreathers.  Should you be forgetful of this
> unhappy reality just whisper the words “Inspiration” or “Atlantis” to
> yourself. Generally speaking, somebody makes a mistake (diver error) or the
> rebreather makes a mistake (machine error). Either way the result is the
> same. Death.  Both Noel Sloan and Richie Pyle initially confirmed that diver
> error was probably to blame based on the “physical evidence”.  It is an
> insult to all of us and an egregious disservice to all of us with an
> interest in SCR and CCR technology to obfuscate what we all know to be true.
> Starting up with the “health problems” nonsense is just the worst sort of
> lie.
> 
> The death due to health problem excuse is not a new one. In the case of the
> Cis Lunar this convenient excuse was used to explain the death of Ian
> Rolland (he was diabetic). It was also a convenient (and equally absurd)
> excuse used cover up the real cause of death of Rob Palmer.  In Palmer’s
> case the idea of a spontaneous “heart attack” in mid air as he rolled off
> the boat at Hurgada was so patently ridiculous that when it came to light
> that a deep air fest was going on the “natural causes” excuse was correctly
> discounted.
> 
> As in the Jane Ornstein case here was a death which was preventable if
> somebody wasn’t asleep at wheel. She died because the people responsible for
> her safety were not there to help when they were needed. In Henry Kendall’s
> case it would seem that the same level of irresponsibility and negligence
> were also in force. There also was nobody on hand to render life saving
> assistance after the accident occurred.  If you recall, Richie Pyle
> documented a near fatal hypoxic incident at Madison Blue Springs during the
> preparation phase of the Wakulla II project. In that case Richie was very
> clear and up front about the man/machine rebreather problem and that
> correctly was the truth of the matter.
> 
> I can tell you now that neither I, nor any of my colleagues, are going to
> stand by and swallow such an insulting explanation.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Bill Mee


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