Mailing List Archive Mailing List Archive
Eight Years Ago
As it has every year for the past seven, this week is never an easy one.
This season has not been one either. 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 easily as I did years ago. I get colder
more than usual. 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 or emails, "hey how are ya'
types, but important nonetheless.
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. More so now
than ever since I lost a my very dear friend Tony Maffatone, not more than
10 weeks ago.
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 Menduno 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,
the DIR Demos, SportDiverHQ HOTx Workshops, last weeks NAUI Tec
conference, and this weekends SEAS conference in North Carolina, 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.
The past few years have equally or exceeded the 92 death tolls as well. The
accidents and fatalities that continue to occur by divers with little
experience in places they have no business being is a constant battle. But
these tragedies occur to the experienced as well.
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 how many.
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 valient crew and the
people onboard the Seeker so desperately tried to keep these two men alive
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 as she dug deep into her soul while she used
her skills as a mother, nurse, and diver to help that young man hold on to
his life just a little while longer. 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.
Bernie Chowdhury spent many years researching, interviewing, and crafting a
moving and sensitive recount of the life, adventures, and tradgic death of
this father and son team, in a book released last week titled: The Last
Dive. I stood in the Barnes and Nobel in Denver the other evening for two
hours reading it cover to cover. I did not buy it at that moment in the
hopes that some othr diver one else would get that opportunity to learn
from it.
In Memoriam for Chris Rouse Sr. and Chris Rouse Jr. October 11 1992
Joel Silverstein
Joel D. Silverstein
Scuba Training + Technology Co.
http://www.nitroxdiver.com
http://www.trimixdiver.com
--
Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'.
Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
Navigate by Author:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Author Search Index]
Navigate by Subject:
[Previous]
[Next]
[Subject Search Index]
[Send Reply] [Send Message with New Topic]
[Search Selection] [Mailing List Home] [Home]