JT, what you are saying about fitness and the no substances thing is right
on the money, but I don't believe 99% of the heart attack stories other than
the ones in PADI OW 1 where some guy dies on the surface swimming back to
the boat. Being weightless underwater is the best place for a misfit, that
is why there are so many fat slobs diving,and even fatter ones teaching it.

If you deprive the heart of oxygen, this is technically a "heart attack".
The heart attack is what happens after they drown .

Also note that nobody has ever seen one of these "heart attacks", because
the victim is always by himself or in a deep air class or on a rebreather.
Remember when Rob Palmer killed himself deep air diving at a TDI outing in
the Red Sea? During that coverup, they actually tried to say he must have
had a heart attack . There was a death in Holland recently in an IANTD deep
air class - they tried to call that a heart attack. When Henry Kendall died
on his Cis Lunar rebreather , they tried to call that a heart attack, then
they said he was bleeding from the stomach ( another common drowning
thing ). Some good investigative reporting by the Miami Herald got the
coroners report and caught these guys in that lie.

The only problem with not letting fat slobs and misfits dive wreck is that
the NE boats would be going out empty with robots running them.

When Hank Garvin of the Wahoo got his new heart ( got it fixed ) he came
down here and dove with me - first dive with the new heart. He was ok, but I
almost had a heart attack when I saw his gear. Belinda was on the boat
telling me how clever Tony Maffatone's "rig" was, and Janet dove with me
also but was the only one who went away with the lights turned on.

I just can not tell you how many NE dive boat captains I see crying about
this or that good friend who mysteriously died while solo diving and yet
they do not get it. Who cares which  bullet actually killed them, if there
were a buddy we would not only know the reason, we would most likely not
have an actual death. These guys need to learn basics .

-----Original Message-----
From: Capt JT [mailto:captjt@mi*.co*]
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2001 9:21 PM
To: Paul Braunbehrens; techdiver@aquanaut.com
Subject: Re: Less than one mistake margin of error


Hi Paul
I have been told that 3 out of 4 deaths are heart related in diving, I have
been on 2 trips where that has been the cause, but they were not fun trips
and both were technical dives above 200ft and below 160ft. Both guys were a
picture of heath. If you are going to pursue technical and deep diving as
your hobby you owe it to your dive buddy and others diving around you to be
of good heath and fitness. You also should go have test to ensure you don't
have any unforeseen problems. I get a complete physical every year, an EKG,
a stress test and this year I had a Thallium Stress test. I do not smoke, I
do not drink, I do not do drugs. I do not fit the image my appearance gives
and often are asked if I get "high"(I do not). They tell me there is no
guarantee that I will not have a heart attack, but I do what I can to
prevent it.

"Clusterfucks", people wonder why I would tell the ones I have, clearly
they can be had, most of the time the CF I talk about are not that bad, but
I like to instill it in the mind of the new guys that it can happen and
admitting that they do happen to me, should tell them they need a buddy to
help out some times or must always address the "What ifs"  before the dive,
the preferred way to dive is CF free, but they do happen sometimes and a
diver who cracks under the mental stress of a CF and does not solve it,
well is "dead". To not solve a CF on the first try, it will only get harder
and then cause another. The snowball effect takes over.

JT




At 12:00 AM 5/22/01 -0700, you wrote:
>I think it's important to distinguish between deaths directly related to
>diving, and deaths that happen while diving but otherwise unrelated.  A
>cave collapsing due to an earthquake, or a heart attack due to exertion or
>other deaths of this kind aren't really related to diving per se.  They
>could occur anytime, doing a wide range of activities.  Your house could
>collapse on you in an earthquake, or you could have a heart attack jogging.
>
>It's a minor point, but I think an important one when we analyze accidents
>in order to learn from them.
>
>BTW, I think a clusterfuck is when a series of relatively minor problems
>combine in such a way as to create a truly dangerous situation.  Each
>problem on it's own would have been solvable, but the combination of
>problems does you in.
>
>Cheers.
>
>
>Wendell Grogan wrote:
>~
>>Oh sure, I wasn't trying to imply that making just one mistake or having
>>one failure will do you in.  Its more that your need to use redundancy
>>and pay attention to detail in order to minimize the number of things
>>that go wrong and like you said, make sure you aren't screwed by any one
>>thing that does go bad.
>>If you recall, the term clusterfuck was coined by Clint Eastwood's
>>character in "Heartbreak Ridge" to describe the way in which the US
>>military managed to lose a war against a small third world country by
>>seemingly going out its way to do everything wrong while seeking out and
>>embracing every source of accidental injury possible.
>>If you think about it, you can either have a clusterfuck by doing
>>everything right and having random chance get you- for example, do
>>everything right in a cave in California and die when a number 8
>>earthquake brings the roof down on your head.  Or you can have a
>>clusterfuck by having unlabeled regs, turning on the 15 cu ft pony
>>instead of your main tank, jump off the boat and drown in 80 feet trying
>>to figure out why the hell your "back up" reg won't give you any air...
>>(Delaware Bay last year).
>>I guess that's the point I was trying to make, thanks for pointing out
>>what I left out.
>>Wendell
>>
>>Jim Cobb wrote:
>>>
>>>  I don't think that technical diving has zero tolerance for error. It is
>>>  usually a chain of errors known in the sport as a "clusterfuck" which
lead
>>>  to the demise of a diver.
>>>
>>>  The idea, IMHO, is to make errors survivable by redundant systems, a
good
>>>  plan and a large safety margin. Certainly there are events which can
>>> lead to
>>>  certain death (a wing falling off your plane, a collapse during a
>>>  penetration), but if diving were risk-free, it would not be any fun
would
>>>  it?
>>>
>>>     Jim
>>>   -------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>   Learn About Trimix at http://www.cisatlantic.com/trimix/
>>>
>>>  > From: "Joe W" <arizonajeep@ho*.co*>
>>>  > Reply-To: <arizonajeep@ho*.co*>
>>>  > Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 06:49:20 -0700
>>>  > To: "'Wendell Grogan'" <wgrogan@dc*.ne*>, "'Trey'" <trey@ne*.co*>
>>>  > Cc: <techdiver@aquanaut.com>
>>>  > Subject: Less than one mistake margin of error; was RE: FW: Steve
Berman
>>>  >
>>>  > Wendall,
>>>  >
>>>  > You bring up a great point... in technical diving your margin of
>>> error is
>>>  > almost always less than one mistake.
>>>  > I'm a pilot, and in flying, you can be one mistake high, or two
mistakes
>>>  > high, or three mistakes high... in technical diving; you often don't
>>> have
>>>  > that luxury.  Funny, almost every extreme sport turns out to be that
>>> way...
>>>  > zero tolerance for error, which is perhaps why George is the way he
>>> is; zero
>>>  > tolerance (although he could stand to brush up on his presentation
>>> skills a
>>>  > bit <grin>).
>>>  >
>>>  > If my life depended on the skills of the people who I am diving with
>>> (as it
>>>  > sometimes does with technical diving), I would make sure that I only
>>> dive
>>>  > with the best.  Divers with bad gear choices, bad conditioning, and
bad
>>>  > diving skills are all walking around with a sign on their forehead:
>>>  >
>>>  > "I consume your margin of error"
>>>  >
>>>  > It makes sense to dive with people who share your beliefs on gear,
your
>>  > > skills, and your conditioning.  The chain is only as strong as its
>> weakest
>>>  > link.  Hell... when MY LIFE depends on someone else; I only want the
>>> best
>>>  > around me.
>>>  >
>>>  > Regards,
>>>  >
>>>  > Joe West
>>>  >
>>>  >
>>>  >>
>>>  >> I think another point all this illustrates is that this is a
>>>  >> technically
>>>  >> demanding sport.  Or to put it in other terms, every time we
>>>  >> go diving,
>>>  >> we are one mistake/dumb choice away from sudden death.
>>>  >> What burns me about the commentary by a certain person best
>>>  >> left unnamed
>>>  > <snip>
>>>  >
>>>  > --
>>>  > 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'.
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`techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.
>>--
>>Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'.
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>
>
>--
>Paul B.
>--
>Send mail for the `techdiver' mailing list to `techdiver@aquanaut.com'.
>Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.com'.

"You can't learn to dive on the net, sooner or later you have to get in the
water"
Your Guide to Great Wreck Diving along the East Coast & more
  Web Site  http://www.capt-jt.com/
Email     captjt@mi*.co*


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