As important as this Big Step was for tek diving, I think Tom should hear
from his tek diving peers, that we "can" say nice things about IANTD
actions he initiates.  I'd like to see several more steps in this
direction, to follow it, to underline it, but right now Tom deserves a
"Well Done",  reaction from us.  
Tom, thanks for putting safety over more revenue. Thanks for calling a
moron a moron.
And thanks for listening to the collective on the list, and responding to
it in a way that can enhance the future of the sport.

Regards,
Dan Volker 


At 11:24 AM 8/18/99 -0400, Tom Mount wrote:
>Mark
>
>Having had the description of your dive read to me over the phone I would
>like to offer the following comments:
>
>1. First the dive sounded like the biggest screw up I have ever seen
>published. You were obviously out of it, lets see blind, overinflation of BC
>to the point of rupturing the bladder, estimates of 130 meter/min ascent
>rate due to loss of buoyancy control. etc etc.
>
>2. It sounds like you are damn lucky to be alive and that if anything this
>should have taught you the reason to avoid ultra deep air divers rather than
>have a desire to teach it to 70 meters.
>
>3. That your mental frame of mind as to the approach to do deep dives is
>outdated by 30 years or so and numerous deaths are proof of this outdated
>mind set
>
>4. You must be unaware that IANTD only offers air diving courses to a max
>depth of 51 meters and that a sister program to this course is Normoxic
>Trimix
>which is essentially the same program except all divers deeper than 40
>meters are made on trimix and it will allow dives to 60 m. With your goal to
>teach deep air to 70 + meters you certainly do not need an affiliation with
>IANTD where this practice is expressively FORBIDDEN
>
>5. After completing the dive you did and still wish to promote this type of
>activity as such you would represent everything IANTD is trying to
>discourage and avoid, thus you crossing over to IANTD is a little absurd.
>
>6.  While if you had learned from this experience and god knows you had some
>good clues dropped to you on the dangers of this type of activity
>A. Blind at 100 m (but you continued the dive to 158m) time for a sanity
>check,
>B. explosive ascent due to loss of control for whatever reason
>C. The need to do a omitted deco procedure because you could not recover
>your buoyancy on the dive and various other comments you made concerning the
>dive.
>
>As stated if you had learned instead of being intrigued by that dive, you
>may have had good rational to share with divers about avoiding ultra deep
>air diving but it seems your primary goal is to teach air diving to depths
>that exceed accepted oxygen and nitrogen limits, Sorry that is something
>that will not be done under the IANTD umbrella. I recommend you stick with
>your present training agencies maybe they will allow this but we will not.
>
>7. While I agree with your statement on the rights of an individual to take
>risk on a personal level I cannot share your enthusiasm about wanting to
>encourage others to do this type (ultra deep air)activity. Plus I find it
>difficult to see your logic in wishing to do a 158 m air dive in the first
>place when there are other ways to have adventure and take risk that are not
>proven both in theory and in practice physiologically insane endeavors.
>
>8.All you proved is for some reason on this one day, you as one person,
>survived a dive to 158 m. I hope you at least picked up enough warnings from
>the events that happened to you to avoid this kind of a dive in the future.
>
>9. Deep diving even on propre mixes has its share of danger why try to
>exceed well documented physiological risk limits.
>
>10. In closing while my philosophy agrees with a statement by Dr Gil Milner
>along time ago.
>
>�You Have The Obligation to Inform One Honestly of the Risk, And As a Person
>You Are Committed to Educate Yourself to the Total Risk In Any Activity!�
>�Once Informed & Totally Aware of the Risk, Every Fool Has the Right to Kill
>or Injure Themselves as They See Fit!�
>
>So if you really understand and accept the risk then you have the right to
>kill yourself, but Mark we do not want you to be responsible for training
>IANTD divers if you feel ultra deep air diving is something you want to
>promote and teach them. So as long as your stated goal is to teach air to
>great depths,
>then we really would prefer that you were not an IANTD instructor
>
>So I do not know at what part of your instructor crossover you are at or who
>with but I will have to prevent its completion at this time maybe when and
>if you "grow up we can reconsider this action".
>
>Respectfully yours,
>Tom Mount
>CEO IANTD World HQ
>http://www.iantd.com
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: bdi@wh*.ne* <bdi@wh*.ne*>
>To: Tom Mount <TOM.MOUNT@wo*.at*.ne*>
>Cc: techdiver@aquanaut.com <techdiver@aquanaut.com>; Christian Gerzner
><christiang@pi*.co*.au*>; Mark the Nark Andrews
><extreme@de*.fr*.co*.uk*>
>Date: Tuesday, August 17, 1999 11:46 PM
>Subject: Re: Darwin Award winner -'Mark the Nark'Andrews
>
>
>
>
>--
>Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'.
>Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
>
>
Dan Volker
SOUTH FLORIDA DIVE JOURNAL
"The Internet magazine for Underwater Photography and mpeg Video"
http://www.sfdj.com
 561-547-9685 
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