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Seven Years Ago Once again those feelings catch up with me each year about this time. The North East dive season is closing in fast, the sky gets dark by 5 PM, and that erie feeling runs through me. I find I don't sleep the night as I didn't tonight. It's cold. But contact with important people in my life seems to make it survivable. A small group of us make contact with each other in the days that surround this one day, insignificant calls, "hey how are ya' types, but important nontheless. If this note seems familiar you probably saw something similar from me last year and the year before. It just seems to stick in my mind. For those who are new to technical diving, my old company Sub Aqua, went from a newsletter in 1991 to a popular dive magazine specializing in technology and exploration. It was the idea of Sub Aqua that we would provide information that other magazines were afraid to talk about. My competitor and colleague, Michael Menduo was also publishing the acclaimed aquaCorps Journal during the same time. We both took publishing risks in an industry where they avoided the word "risk" at all costs. As Michael and I battled the prices of paper so we could grow so was the internet growing at a pace neither of us could keep up with. Whether good or bad the need for paper magazines in this field dwindled and both Aqua Corp and Sub Aqua ceased publication in 96 and early 97. What the Internet and news-groups don't have however is vision, and direction, goal setting, and that face to face interaction that we sometimes need to strike home reality. During the early years of technical diving (�90-�94) there were a lot of changes, growth and interaction among the players. There were conferences, and meetings, battles and arguments about how and who should be doing it, if at all. - The VBTech meetings, next weeks IANTD conference, small conferences and even some of the larger ones that continue today just prove that the battles and arguments continue, and will continue for many years to come - it makes for a good learning forum. 1992 was a banner year. DEMA battled about nitrox, Ed Betts and Tom Mount "agreed" on a purity standard for mixing oxygen with air and technical diving was coming of age. Of most significance, however, during that year were the deaths. Before this date that year more than ten had occurred. (If my numbers are correct 1998 met those death tolls as I believe has this year. 1999- has been a tragic year. The back to back fatalities on the Doria by divers with little experience in places they have no business being. And other divers who just made mistakes. Tony Smith comes to mind at the moment, he was my friend. But all the fatalities in 1992 were a result of a variety of errors, but all dubbed technical accidents due to their depth. As the post-incident analyses were done, the conclusion was always people error. Plain, ordinary people that made mistakes. The death toll that summer was more than 10. 1992, July - Alachua Sink, FL, Andrea Doria, Nantucket, Arundo, NJ, Chester Polling, MA, Devil's Ear, FL, La Jolla Canyon, CA., In addition a varied amount in the UK and Europe. There were also some injuries, June 92, the U-Who - DCI blowup, Aug 92, Andrea Doria, DCI blowup, Lake Jocasse, NC o2 tox, but survived. Was deep air the culprit then, quite possibly, but then trimix was really just getting started. And there were more fatalities and accidents around the world that I cant recall . The community, and yes, there was a community then, was upset and concerned that what we had unleashed in the interests of fun, and exploration, and challenge had become a nightmare. This nightmare tore at each of us, and we could take no more. NAUI was having their International Conference on Underwater Education (ICUE) in Philadelphia in October (long before NAUI Tec was a glimmer.) This could be the chance to pull together the people who needed to speak. This old-line diving agency whose roots were not in risk or technology but in education granted us some space at their conference for a workshop. Accident Prevention a Community Workshop. This session which ran more than two hours in a scheduled 90 minute session brought together the people who were at the forefront of North East diving, training, technology and science, all on one panel to discuss the issue. People dying. The list of panelists included, Menduno, Chowdhury, Garvin, Hendrick, Bielenda, Deans, Betts, Bohrer, Butler, Hamilton, Mount, Emmerman, Gilliam, Lander, Cush, and myself as organizer. The audience (over 250 and standing room only) were the seasoned and the novice. Mind you, when I say seasoned I mean divers with thousands of dives to their credit. We discussed issues that were important to life and the survival underwater. This was Saturday. October 10, 1992. During the next day small groups got together to discuss issues and learn more about what we talked about and ultimately we produced a White Paper. Satisfied that we had accomplished our goals we continued that weekend seeing our friends and colleagues. We went home in the hopes that we may have learned just one thing that will save ourselves or just one other. Issues we battled with then were PO2 limits, buddy systems, solo diving, and how many dives a diver needed to have before entering a trimix course. Back then one needed 650 dives. (Probably because it was so new it would discourage the novice from wanting deep too soon, I don't really recall. Still, you see as we were there in Philadelphia, the city of freedom, independence and hope, there were some others out there diving. As we sipped our coffee during brunch Sunday in the hotel there were screams of fear and terror not more than a hundred or so miles away the way the crow flies.. Two young men, a father and son team. I knew their names, I may have even met them once or twice, I can't remember. 235 feet below the surface of the New Jersey Atlantic ocean struggled to live. While they gasped for breath, we were probably laughing, while a father tried to save his son, we were probably telling a joke. While the crew and the people onboard that vessel, tried to breathe life back into them we were probably thinking that the work we had done was good. Barb Lander, one of our panelists left the conference Saturday to be on that charter. She saw the death first hand. Another panelist who had lost her long time lover that summer was best friends with the woman who has just lost her husband and son. Except we didn't know this happened until we got home and the phones were ringing and the email on CompuServe were flying.. The news hit home. So as we throw out the names of people who have died while diving in conditions far more dangerous than your bathtub, take a moment and realize that the last time you were diving you got lucky. Whether it was because you were trained well, were doing it right or doing it wrong or just doing it, you got lucky -- your name was not on that list. But while you argue about which way is better and which way is right - use some common sense and help yourself and the people who love you. If you know it's stupid just don't do it. If you do jump in and become one more name to add to the list, someday after the pain has subsided among those that knew you, someone may remember your fateful day. In Memoriam for Chris Rouse Sr. and Chris Rouse Jr. October 11 1992 Joel Silverstein -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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