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From: "Richard Pyle" <deepreef@bi*.or*>
To: "TechDiver List" <techdiver@aquanaut.com>
Subject: Helium Willies
Date: Sat, 13 Nov 1999 14:45:02 -1000
Chief,

You almost sound like you know what you are talking about.  The unfortunate
thing is that too many of of know better.

Rich

kirvine@sa*.ne* wrote:

> The "willies" is bullshit - reality it what is scary, and helium gives
> you just that - too much reality. Anyone who is doing ridiculous diving
> or chamber experiments SHOULD be concerned - very concerned.
> Anesthesizing them with nitrogen is not the answer.
>
> Helium and heliox require shorter , not longer decompressions. What the
> real story is that the "air" tables are all wrong, and should be longer
> than trimix ( all things being equal ) and in fact air should require
> the deeper stops that helium seems to ask for in the current "models" in
> use. The misconcpetion is then that high helium needs more deco. The
> more I have, the less I do.
>
> We use none of this, and have better success than anyone with
> decompression, especially me and Bill Mee who do the experimenting in
> the WKPP with the acclerated tables. I am getting my other knee done
> soon, and MRI'd and xrayed on Monday - we will see if I still have ZERO
> bone damage, as on my last scan two years ago. Since I just did an Iron
> Man triathelon last weekend, I would say my physical condition at 48 is
> unimpaired by my extreme diving, wouldn't you, and I do not do one
> second more of deco than is absolutely mandatory - it is just not
> necesasry.
>
> Ask our deco geeks what they have obvserved with me, Mee, Trout, Rose,
> JJ, Werner etc. for confirmation of this, and this is born out by
> doppler and blood tests, not supposition and bullshit.
>
> As for Jablonski's choice of gas for the Britannic or any other dive, it
> is a function of the availability of a booster pump only. I have no
> pump, I dive 65-70 helium and reduced total pressures. JJ has a pump
> here in the States and dives 90/10 in the cave, and has helium in all of
> his deco gases other than the oxygen, obviously. Since the general
> issues of liability out there falsely believe that more deco is better,
> everyone in diving tends to hesitate to recommmend real life deco like
> what we do. I suffer from no such constraints.
>
> If we could get helium to everyone at the high pressures, or if boosters
> were available to everyone, we would REQUIRE heliox for everything.
> Right now we just have a maximum "nitrogen equivalent depth" of 100 feet
> which is doable by everyone, and we mix for the deepest possible depth
> to be hit, not the average profile. This generally gives us a more
> workable "AED", but we know full well that heliox is on our wish list
> for the future when all the qas companies either have the HP supply
> tanks, or dive shops get boosters, or we figure out some other
> arangement that works for everyone.
>
> The CCR guys have no excuse for their turtle bone throwing guesswork
> other than ignorance and self-induced bullshit for using anything but
> heliox. Even Bill Stone knows that much and had his "divers" all using
> it at Wakulla. This may make it look bad since they got nothing done
> that we did not do on O/C and trimix, and actually took well over a
> month to get past what Exley put in on air, but that is a diffrent story
> and not a good example. The real story is that most of these CCR guys
> are weenies, and could not dive with any equipment including
> surface-supplied and boots. I have yet to see ANY of them do ANY dive
> that any WKPP diver could not do more effectively and faster on open
> circuit, including every dive done at Wakulla by the usdct. The CCR
> crowd on the "rebreather list" is not doing anything that could not be
> done on a single 80 in a bathing suit, in my opinion, and their
> decompresions are absurdly unsuccessful. Their chief savant, Rich
> "Wheelchair" Pyle, gets paralyzed on dives that worul not earn him a
> PADI O/W one certification, and they have a collection of Jerry Lewis
> Telethonites over there that need commercial fishing vessels to get them
> out of the water, and they are dispensing the "willie" and "deco" advice
> like they know something - they do not.
>
> Scott, it is real simple: 1) you need to be as clear as possible when
> diving - heliox gets that done, 2) you need a fast gas that does no
> damage of its own ( as nitrogen does ) and is actually inert - that is
> helium, and 3) you need to have no preconditions ) inluding excess
> adipose tissue ), you need good vacularization and perfusion ( i.e. good
> genetics), you need to be in good cardiovascular condition, and you need
> to be free of any injury or damage prior to diving, and you need to have
> no pulmonary reactions to these stresses, no blockage or swelling of any
> gas spaces, and you need to be armed with real information, not drooling
> bullshit like this "helium willes" nonsense. Only a goober like Richie
> Pyle would even say something like this. Where is that dope, anyway? I
> told him to stay out of K mart with that Cis Lunar. Now there is a guy
> who give me the "willies", and without any helium.
>
> Scott wrote:
> >
> > List,
> >
> > After talking with some of the RB nuts, I was asking them to explain
> > why they use trimix for diluent, instead of simple heliox.
> > The answer was to help reduce the "helium willies" or a nervous
> > feeling believed to be caused by lack of any nitrogen at all in the
> > breathing mix. Apparently, we are all a little narked at 1 atm, and
> > that level of narcosis is what we are used to operating under.
> >
> > Talking to the boss, who spent many hours in chambers living in heliox
> > atmosphere's, he said:
> >
> > "You always had the feeling that something was wrong, or was going to
> > go wrong, that you had no business being here, and that your body
> > wasn't ever meant to be under this kind of pressure, which is all
> > true! We would have really weird dreams while sleeping, and your mind
> > would just run away with different idea's and thoughts."
> >
> > We watched Andrew G's presentation on the GUE trip to the Britannic
> > last week. Thanks for sharing Andrew! (he had to holler over an NFL
> > game in the next room). He stated that the bottom mix for this dive
> > was 10/70.
> >
> > Was the nitrogen allowed in the mix to attenuate "helium willies" or
> > to help with deco, or some other reason I am not yet hip to?
> >
> > The Navy uses air or heliox, no trimix what so ever. Why the double
> > standard?
> >
> > I know from running different dives on tables and on ZPlan, that deco
> > can be drastically reduced by using trimix vs. heliox for most dives
> > of less than 2 hours duration.
> >
> > So, what's the deal? Why does helium, which is a smaller, lighter and
> > "friendlier" molecule cause increased deco obligations on shorter than
> > two hour dives?
> >
> > Scott
>
> --
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Richard L. Pyle
Ichthyoplogy, Bishop Museum
1525 Bernice St., Honolulu, HI 96817
Ph: (808)848-4115, Fax: (808)847-8252
email: deepreef@bi*.or*

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