I was on that dive and there was a few more things that I noticed.

My buddy and I have been diving DIR for about 6 months now and I will never go
back. It is a source of constant amusement to see some of the convoluted
configurations that guys come up with usually at vastly more expense than the
DIR version.

The guy and his "buddies" were supposed to be doing a lift bag ascent as part
of the course. This guy was wearing twin Boss 100s, a 7l steel stage and about
15 lbs on a DUI weight belt/harness thing. When we commented on this setup
before he got in his answer was, "Better to be heavy than light". When the guy
ran into problems because his drysuit kept venting ( he had so much weight on
the his suit was bulging to keep him neutral) his buddies had no idea he had
sunk back down.

As I was coming up the ascent line with my buddy we saw bubbles rising about
20m off the stern of the wreck. The instructor was legging it over to the
bubbles as fast as he could. The instructor was wearing a rebreather so
couldn't actually give him any gas on the bottom. The guy had emptied his main
tanks trying to fill up his suit and the instructor had to give his suit a
squirt from his nitrox bottle. (he had a bcd hose as well as the reg on the
bottle)

I wasn't aware what had happened until about 10 minutes after we got back on
the boat. Two lift bags came up about 15m away. The guy was actually being
suspended from the instructor's lift bag because he was so heavy. 

All up he had done a 30min bottom time on air at 50m. He had only 100bar of 50%
in his stage so this was not enough to do the deco he had incurred for the
longer bottom time. The instructor sent him off after this was gone.

When we got him back on to the boat we wanted to let him breathe nitrox on the
way back. Asking around the boat for the tank with the richest mix the best
available was my buddy's and my 60% tanks (BTW Billy the AL 40cf tanks are
awesome!).

Only when we got back to the pier did his "buddy" let us know that he had a
tank of 80% available that we could use. All problems with 80% aside, this was
the guy who had no idea that his mate had left his side on the ascent, and did
not want to share his gas because he could get another dive from the same fill.

When we asked who this guy's buddy was they replied, "errrr we all were"

James Dibbs


-----Original Message-----
From: bdi [mailto:bdi@wh*.ne*]
Sent: Thursday, 14 October 1999 1:13 AM
To: kirvine@sa*.ne*; Joel Silverstein
Cc: techdiver@aquanaut.com
Subject: Re: Seven Years Ago


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.
>
>--
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