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At 04:30 13/10/99 , kirvine@sa*.ne* wrote: >Joel, seven years ago I was appointed Director of the Woodville Karst >Plain Project, and there has not been an accident or death since while >the most extreme cave diving on record was executed flawlessly. > >Screw the "community", they don't understand why. If they did, we would >not be having these conversations, now would we? > >Nothing has changed in the "commmunity", and nothing has changed at >WKPP. > >Beat goes on. As fast as we get the word out, the training agencies >multimply your "nightmare". What we end up with is an elite group >worldwide and a lot of accidents happening or waiting to happen with the >rest ( a much larger and growing group). The agencies are now engaged in accelerating the killing process by inducting people into technical diving who can barely be trusted to leave the house on their own, much less get in the water and go diving. You know how when we make major equipment changes we check out our bouyancy and adjust our trim in controlled conditions in shallow water? Well it didn't occur to IANTD last month to ensure a student did that. Instead, on a technical deep air or technical nitrox course they just let him jump off the boat into 50 metres of water with steel cylinders & steel stages and horribly over- weighted. Now this guy isn't a great candidate for technical diving in the first place. He's not so good in the water and is a big time hoover. He must be particularly free with his credit card or something. Anyway, when he realised he was pinned to the floor at 50 metres and unable to get enough lift to ascend, he went straight into deep fear mode and blew through his back gas. His instructor was able to lug him up to shallower water where he then discovered he didn't have enough deco gas. So he blew off some of his deco and climbed, quivering, onto the boat. The best they could do for him was to get him to breathe some 50 or 60 while his instructor and his buddies stood around watching him and waiting for mhim to bend. Now I wonder about a few things here. I wonder if they certified this guy. And I wonder if he'll ever be ready for the dives he's 'certified' to do. And I wonder if his instructor will ever get the kick in the arse he deserves. And I wonder if, on the next technical deep-soak course they run, this facility will make sure the students' bouyancy is sorted on an equipment work-up dive or whether they'll just let 'em jump into 50 metres of water and see if they survive. And I wonder if they'll ensure the students have enough deco gas. Or will they have to wait till deco to find that out? And I wonder if this fine teaching facility will even bother to provide oxygen on the boat. Or, if there's an accident, will they take a chance on their students' lives instead. And I wonder if, seven years from now, Tom will be around telling us how everything's OK 'cause IANTD standards and the BOD say this kind of stuff isn't happening. Let's not delude ourselves here. Seven years and the training agencies with their trail of corpses stretching back to 1992 still haven't addressed the very issues that kill people; the insurance industry treats us like shit; the regulators think we're all crazy, self-destructive dickheads. rgrds billyw >Joel Silverstein wrote: > > > > Seven Years Ago > > > > Once again those feelings catch up with me each year about this time. Te. 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 death toll that summer was more than 10. > >. 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. > >-- >Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. >Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'. -- Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'. Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
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