Bill, you are absolutely correct. It is amazing how often I see the same things
over and over. Perhaps someone will learn from this, but it is, as with most of
my cases, a dammed expensive lesson. Too expensive if you ask me.

Alton
http://www.divelawyer.com/

Bill Mee wrote:

> Kirvine,
>
> >From everything I hear, Tony Smith was a first class well liked guy. This
> only compounds the unnecessary tragedy of his death, which by all accounts
> was horrible. Certainly, Tony bears some responsibility here, but I see the
> real sinister culprits are still lurking out there. You can be dead on the
> money sure that the root causes of his death are alive and well and ready to
> claim the lives of new and innocent victims
>
> Let’s look at the situation and you tell me where the key fits:
>
> 1. Diving steel tanks offshore in deep open water with a wetsuit or dive
> skin.
> 2. Wearing a cumberbun style “tech” BC which prevented the diver from
> loosening the bc to reach the tank valves or get rid of his weight belt.
>
> Now what agency do you know of that recommends this idiotic practice or
> endorses dangerous products that don’t work and has several deaths which
> validate the stupidity of this, yet continues to recommend it?
>
> Let’s look at some additional facts, which are so obviously moronic, that
> even the agencies would not openly endorse such nonsense:
>
> 3. Diving solo from a charter boat, far offshore in the Gulf Stream.
> 4. Paying zero attention to diver preparation, diver fitness (physical and
> mental – i.e. stress level), buddy teams or dive planning.
> 5. Paying zero attention to diver condition following initial water entry
> (i.e. give ok sign on surface before descent), where most problems occur.
> 6. No emergency response plan.
>
> If  dive charter boat captains think that they have no responsibility to
> their paying customers and there role is no more or no less than simply a
> seagoing taxicab, they are sorely mistaken. I  suggest they only ask Alton
> Hall (i.e ahall@di*.co*) just how much their excuses will hold up in
> court in light of the gross negligence described in items 3,4,5,6.
> Completely aside from the issue of civil liability this dangerous level of
> negligence is morally and ethically wrong and borders on criminal
> irresponsibility.  On top flight charter boats, such as the Wahoo (ask
> captain Jan) Tony would have received the sort of attention from the crew,
> prior to his getting in the water to at least have averted his gas being
> turned off.  Tony was obviously so stressed out, either from the sea
> conditions, lack of sleep, unfamiliarity with the non drysuit scenario, etc.
> that he totally forgot to deal with the most obvious of pre dive
> preparations. There appears to have been  a huge amount of pressure to be
> first in the water and down on the wreck, for whatever reason I have no
> idea, and this compounded the stress level.  Think about it. Tony was so
> stressed that he forgot every basic premise of his dive training and learned
> experience (and we are told that he was not new to this)
>
> I also smell a high degree of twelve inch dickery here. A bunch of gun
> slinging every man for himself tough guys doing a “work-up dive” to 240. I
> can just imagine the scenario. The pontification and tough talk was probably
> right out of Soldier of Fortune.  Nobody paying any attention to anyone
> else. It was so bad that no one noticed that Tony was missing until after
> the dive.  Think about it. A stressed out 350 lb guy and no one notices him?
> What?  Wait till these boneheads actually attempt to dive to 240 you can
> expect a real multiple killing.
>
> Each 12” la penga  wanted to be first in the water to get down on the wreck
> and come back with the loot (some rusted light fixture or similar heroic
> junk for a coffee table).  The problem is you have a lot of guys all trying
> to prove something and this is a recipe for trouble and the charter boat
> captain needs to be able to spot this situation and take measures to control
> it.
>
> The sad part is that Tony was familiar with the DIR tapes, which
> specifically address issues such as tank types and over weighting in open
> water tech diving. He either ignored this information or was receiving
> contradictory input from someone or something else.  I would like to know
> who or what that is, because when we do they will have to publicly explain
> why they consider this bs to be right.
>
> We are sick of this and you have not heard the end of it.
>
> Bill Mee
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: kirvine@sa*.ne* <kirvine@sa*.ne*>
> To: Cost effective home improvement <freeattic@co*.ci*.uf*.ed*>
> Date: Tuesday, June 29, 1999 6:38 AM
> Subject: Tony Smith Accident
>
> >By the way, if you ever did jump into the water without your tanks
> >being turned on, the first move is ALWAYS to undo the waist buckle, and
> >then go for the valves. You have no breath to waste finding out out if
> >you can turn them on without them being free to move.
> >
> >   Been there, done that courtesy of an officious boat monkee dive
> >master who turned my tanks off at the back of the boat without me
> >knowing. Seems right and left are well beyond dive industry
> >understanding.
> >
> >   Also, even if you checked your inflator, it can pop off. Weightbelt
> >has to go in this case first, get back up and get another one .
> >
> >   However, in the logic of DIR, the inflator is the third backup reg.
> >Always be sure it breathes before geting into the water. If you check
> >all three regs, it is unlikely that you will miss turned off tanks.
> >
> >   Parker Turner, "It is the basics that keep you alive". Practice them.
> >
> >
> >--- Freeattic list subscriptions/removals should be sent to
> >--- sallot@mi*.co*.
> >
>
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