If you all want to see how these people were equipped when they died just take
a look at the latest Immersed magazine.

The entire issue is devoted to stuporwings, steel stages, metal-to-metal
connections, butt-mounting, pony bottles, the whole nightmarish ensemble which
has contributed mightly to the "death list".

How a magazine devoted to the sport of "technical" diving could publish such
tripe is beyond comprehension. Well, maybe not, seeing how half the ads are OMS
and a bunch of the other usual suspects.

But considering how Chowdbury seems to be capitalizing off of divers deaths
(Last Dive) I guess he figures that promoting the "dark side" will just give
him material for his next morbid book.

Christ, magazines are a bad as lawyers, if there's a buck in it...

   Jim

<<Learn about Trimix at www.cisatlantic.com/trimix/>>
>JT, it is pretty obvious that bondage wings are complete nonsense, and Doug
>Chapman and others have covered a lot of the reasons why. I do not know why
>you have to defend idiocy that you yourself do not believe in, and then do
>so with a malpropic, nonsensensical  , illiterate stream of consciousness
>from an obvious moron. There are not may people stupid enough to have
>written that, so I will personally bet it  was Mouth.
>
>The fact is that the video ( which the dive shop owner tried to destroy but
>one of his disgruntled employees copied it and gave it to the lawyers),
>showed that the guy could not control his buoyancy. However, who knows if it
>was the bondage wings, the "steal" ( what a moron) tanks with the wetsuit,
>or just that fact that the guy had no business doing the dive in the first
>place.
>
>Maybe you should ask mouth about the guy who died in the rock quarry in PA
>by jumping in with "steal" stages and bondage wings, and could not get them
>to hold enough gas due to the bungees triggering the OPV. Maybe you should
>ask me about when I tried to lift Jane Ornstean from the ocean floor with
>her bondage wings and the same things happened.
>
>Chapman just said he got asked to test the wings in that case, he made no
>other comments about the situation. Notice that whoever wrote that slop was
>so happy about only paying 450 grand. No mention of the three dead, the wife
>of the cop who died and could not collect insurance due to no body and could
>not pay her bills (
>until I had to go to court as an expert witness to why he was dead), or the
>family of the guy from New York who died in that dive, and IANTD "class".
>
>I think two things are clear here from your post: 1) whoever wrote that is
>an illiterate moron, and 2) whoever wrote this is an unscrupulous scum bag
>of the lowest order. The fact is that nothing about what happened that day
>has been corrected, and nothing about what happened to Jane Ornstein has
>been corrected.
>
>Aligning your self with known assholes and scumbags is not making you look
>too good, especially when none of that has anything to do with the topic at
>hand, and none of it has anything to do with how you practice this sport or
>with what you know to be correct.
>
>The rest of that thing is a complete fabrication, with none of the facts
>that need to be told about that accident. I did 23 dives at my own cost on
>weekends when I could have been doing something a lot more fun and took the
>two per day , back to back 250 foot drift dives offshore in howling current
>and bad weather to try to find those guys. I had to go to court and see the
>cop's wife crying face. You are wrong here for perpetuating mouth's lies and
>dangerous stupidity. Mount is scum, and he has proven it over and over. Let
>the asshole make his own posts to this list and I will rip him to pieces
>with what was wrong there and continues to be wrong in his organization.
>Anyone can take OMS apart - you don't have to be much more than a Downes
>Syndrome case to see through that crap
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Capt JT [mailto:captjt@mi*.co*]
>Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 11:08 PM
>To: dougch@ea*.ne*; techdiver@aquanaut.com
>Subject: Re: Bondage wings inflation.
>
>
>Doug
>The lawsuit you refer to, was it the WPB 3 accident in FL . If so can you
>confirm the statement below that was emailed to me in private about the
>court case. How accurate is the info below.
>
> >The triple death in WPB well the instructor is an or was an excellent
>instructor and unlike what xxxxx states he did not smoke and he was not a
>drunk. He was a retired sgt Major from SP and had 4 tours of duty in Nam
>He went through swim school with the USN in February. He ran the US Army
>swim Scholl for a few years.
>He swim 2 miles 3 times a week up until the day he died and he ran for 20
>minutes on the non swimming days .That comes from years of combat swims
>He was an excellent diver and an excellent instructor.
>xx was the expert witness against him or his estate the testimony is
>interesting. Unfortunately the insurance company settled for 450,00 instead
>of going to court as there is no doubt in the lawyers mind and evidently in
>their that the case would have been beaten.xxxxxx per se had been dropped
>out of the case 3 months earlier and the suit then was against xxxx estate,
>xxxxxxxxxxxxx, The boat Captain and the diver who tried to assist in the
>rescue until xxxxx sent him up because he was low on gas. . The suit had
>been for 9 million originally. The offer for 450,00 was made as that was
>the amount the insurance company figured they would spend in appeals once
>the plaintiffs lost the case. And that offer was put on the table at
>mediation called for by the plaintiffs attorneys the day before the case.
>The attorney at hat time had only offered them 50 thousand (basically the
>cost of a trial) So at 4 PM the offer was made and it was to be taken off
>the table at 8:30 PM at 7:50 xxxxx called and they took it.
>They then went to court against the diver (xxxxxxxx) who survived with xx
>testifying against him. Had they won this case that would have meant
>whatever you do do not try and rescue a diver. Fortunately the jury found
>that xxxxxxx efforts only helped the situation not contribute to it as xx
>was implying. Then the judge threw out the suit in regard to xxxxxxx the
>3rd diver who died. xxxxxx was a close friend of xxxx but when they had a
>problem he had left and went up to deco on his lift bag. The last time
>xxxxxx saw him he was on his lift bag. He may have gone back down to assist
>or he may have had a problem of his own. He was not a student or anything
>that nature. He had not been with them on the three times they got up to
>150 and then sank back to 200 plus before xxxxx left.
>As far as config there was a complete video of xxxxx xxxxxx taking the same
>equipment that was used by the deceased and ascending just using his BC.
>Then they have a scene with xxxxx ascending with four steal stages just to
>show that the BC would lift that much more.
>Now I understand that they are making an appeal against the boat captain
>because he has no insurance so will not have a lawyer to represent him. No
>they will not get any real money but they can set a example they could use
>in future cases against boat captains in similar situations. or any
>accidents for that matter.
>Thought you might want to know more about what happened than what is stated
>on tech diver
>
>END OF EMAIL
>
>At 07:26 PM 12/18/01 -0500, Doug Chapman wrote:
>>It is possible to orally inflate bondage wings at depth. I participated in
>>gathering evidence for a lawsuit that involved bondage wings where the
>>plaintiff claimed it was not possible to orally inflate the wings and get
>>sufficient buoyancy to become positive. So we took the dead man's gear, a
>>wetsuit, 15 or 20lbs of extra weight, two stages (if I recall I believe one
>>was steel), and an extra steel 72 stage which I carried and passd to the
>>diver at depth and went on a 230ft dive in freshwater (the fatality
>occurred
>>in seawater which would have been even more buoyant).
>>
>>We documented on video at depth that the diver could achieve buoyancy using
>>the power inflator and that after the wings were completely dumped they
>could
>>be orally inflated to achieve positive buoyancy (several times). The
>>demonstration proved the claim that the particular BC in question could not
>>provide the lift was false. End of my involvement (as a safety diver during
>>the exercise).
>>
>>Now if anyone would ask me if I would recommend a bondage type wing I would
>>immediately say no. I tell people to cut off the cords on the wings they
>have
>>but that still doesn't get rid of the baloon size some of these wings are
>>(e.g. 100# of lift). As mentioned by several people on this list, the
>bungeed
>>(bungled?) wings are not desirable IMHO because:
>>
>>1) The ability to precisely control venting is compromised by the positive
>>overpressure in the wing created by the elastic cords. The pressure
>anywhere
>>in a submerged air bubble (the bladder in your BC) is equal to the
>>hydrostatic pressure at the lowest (deepest) point on the bladder minus the
>>weight of the air to the point in the bladder in question. This small
>>pressure offset created by hydrostatic pressure is more than sufficient to
>>properly vent a BC, with a degree of fine control.
>>
>>2) A puncture in the wing may be catastropic as the cords tend to
>completely
>>squeeze the wing in size.  in a BC that has no bungees, an air bubble can
>be
>>trapped within the wing and still offer flotation.
>>
>>3) The bungeed wings are typically monsterous in size and the drag created
>by
>>the crumpled mess can be prohibitive.
>>
>>4) The location of a bungeed wing (maybe unless it is fully inflated), on a
>>horizontal diver, causes the center of buoyancy of the diver (with tanks)
>to
>>be farther below the center of gravity of the diver (with tanks) and
>>therefore the stability of the diver is reduced. Note if you observe
>>non-bungeed wings you will notice the two wing tips will be alongside the
>>tanks. This is where the bulk of your nominal "in-flight" buoyancy should
>be
>>from a stability viewpoint. If you are weighted properly this volume will
>be
>>minimized offering sufficient reserve buoyancy if needed.
>>
>>5) I've had people tell me you need 100#s of lift in a BC in the event your
>>buddy loses buoyancy and needs help - therefore you should use bungees to
>>consolidate the large wing. To that I say bullshit. Of course you and your
>>partner should be weighted correctly.
>>
>>Yes you can inflate a bungeed wing orally and you can get sufficient
>buoyancy
>>in most cases, but the negatives far outweigh and perceived advantages
>(which
>>I can't think of) so why bother with something inferior?
>>
>>Think Occum's razor!!!
>>
>>
>>IMHO,
>>Doug
>>
>>
>>
>>--
>>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*
>
>
>--
>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'.
>Send subscribe/unsubscribe requests to `techdiver-request@aquanaut.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]