On12/21/99 6:36 PM, Mike Rodriguez wrote:

>It's well known that divers can build a tolerance to narcosis,
>but they are still impaired when under high PN2s.  While this
>may not be life-threatening when everything is going well, it
>*is* life-threatening when things are going badly.

Mike -

I want to clear up this statement before someone misinterprets it:

Divers *CANNOT* build up a safe tolerance to nitrogen narcosis. A diver 
can overlearn tasks so that a relatively narrow set of skills can be 
performed adequately when impaired -- that's what deep air divers think 
is "tolerance" -- but when an event occurs outside of the norm, the 
entire decision making loop breaks down -- potentially dangerously.

I have no doubt Peter Hess has made many productive dives to the Monitor 
over the years; the point that deep air junkies don't seem to understand 
is that the same dives can be made much more safely and would have been 
far more productive on mix.  


Best regards --

Bill

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