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Hello List A few coments on the recent pontificating with regard to Tony Smith's demise. Bill Mee wrote: 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....... You ARE imagining the scenario, since you weren't anywhere near the divers that day. I don't think you have ever met any of them. You have some imagination. Stick to the science, that is your forte. Tony and a couple of the divers on that trip had been to 240 lots before, your imaginary group stress out is a bit exagerated, I think, but I am used to that from you. My imagination tells me that these guys were all excited about the dive, too eager to get in the water due to the great conditions which have eluded the northeast this year, and so mistakes were made. JoeL wrote: This accident we have here doesn't top out the Stupidometer, but it's up there. First, 300 pounds?!! If I'm overweight and out of shape I don't dive. What I wonder is, what did this diver's instructor teach him? What did his peers/buddies say to him about his health and his rig and how forcefully? These are questions I'd be asking myself if I had been an instructor and dive buddy for this guy. I pity his family and friends and I feel sorry for this guy who will miss the rest of his life. We certainly do not need your pity. I was glad to know Tony, he helped me out more than once while kitting up on the boat, pointing out things that were not right and helping me sort it out. It is a real loss he is gone and I will miss him. I am very comfortable with the fact that he was an intelligent, very capable diver who didn't need me jamming "my way or the highway" down his throat. Let me ask you this (especially with regard to his weight which you seem to focus on): How do you speak, in person, to capable diver and great guy about his "health" (and how "forcefully") without sounding like an even bigger asshole than you do when I read what you wrote? Once you have him looking good and configured right do you then move on to his belief in Jesus or Buddha? Get real. His "health" had zip to do with this. Except for the weight belt, his rig was ok too, and nothing to do with this. Yes its a real shame that he died of simple mistakes and no one, not even himself, caught them. We all do need to learn from this. Lets look at the real issues. As Irvine likes to quote Parker: basics keep you alive. This is the lesson here. Test your bouyancy when you make changes to your config (like dropping the drysuit for a skin) before you are in open water. And do a predive check of your equipment and prebreathe right before every dive. Tom -- The Guns and Armour of Scapa Flow 1998-1999 Underwater Photographic Survey of Historic Shipwrecks http://www.gunsofscapa.demon.co.uk/ -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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