I do believe in the leadership of a communtiy must show respect for the 
prevaling standard of that commuity.  People do emulate those in leadership 
positions.  That does get people killed.

Exposing it as a bad practice must be a good thing.  Publishing it in that 
context therefore isn't all that bad.  Something that Mike Maples (retired 
exec. VP of MS) said is really true. "What you know you don't know isn't what 
get you -- its what you don't know you don't know"

Just publishing it without exposing the danger of the practice, is 
irresponsible.  Publishing the full story so that divers are informed, that's a 
good thing.  It's not knowing what goes on that is going to get me and other 
people kill.  A yahoo, by my definition is someone who is going to go do 
ignoring the wealth of experience that is available to him.  After reading the 
article, would you dive that deep?
----------
From: 	Richard Pyle[SMTP:deepreef@bi*.bi*.Ha*.Or*]
Sent: 	Monday, October 23, 1995 11:14 AM
To: 	Joel Markwell {ATL}
Cc: 	Cave Divers List; TechDiver
Subject: 	Re: CDS/Mr Odom


Hi Joel,

> If there's a good reason to do this dive on a non-redundant 80, from some
> economy of gear standpoint or the "if I'm gonna die, then it'll be from O2"
> perspective, then I'd appreciate the enlightenment--no kidding!  <g>

That would have been my response to you, except I would replace "O2" with
"narcosis". That's what I told Menduno, too.  People seem to be all bent
out of shape about the lack of redundancy, or the PO2.  Both of those are
totally dwarfed on an air dive to that depth by the probability of a fatal
mistake from a narcosis-hampered brain. By the way, Raimo, I've been
meaning to ask you - was your difficulty in slowing down your descent and
initiating an ascent in any way related to the 2nd bottle you had?  Were
you air-limited on the dive? If not, do you think your 'call' wouldn't
have been as close if you just had the single 80?  I'm not beeing snide -
I'd like your honest opinion.

I am not a firm believer of the "leaders in the community must set good
examples" philosophy, so I don't think what those guys did should matter
to anyone but themselves and their families.  However, I certainly can't
figure out why they did it.  They tried to keep it secret, so they weren't
doing it to be macho. Both of the instigators (Bret & Joe) are experienced
deep air divers, so they weren't doing it to expand their experience
level. All three were experienced trimix divers, so it wasn't the "more
comfortable with the devil I know than the devil I don't know"  effect.
They weren't trying to set any records - they didn't even come close. All
I can figure is that, they actually wanted to see what was down there, and
simply didn't have access to helium. But then why did they just do a spike
- why not look around for a minute or two?

But the point is, it doesn't matter whether or not I can figure out why
they did it - it's none of my business.  The only unfortunate part is
that, now that it has been publicized so much, there will likely be
others who want to try the same thing.  If a diver as competent as Raimo
almost bought it, then you can be damn sure most of the yahoos who try
to emulate those dives won't be coming home for dinner ever again. Some
would say this is the deep divers' fault because they are "leaders" and
"set examples".  Others would point the finger at AquaCorps for
publicizing it.  As far as I'm concerned, the blame falls squarely on the
shoulders of the "yahoos", because, as most of you know:

*******************************************************************
"WHATEVER happens to you when you willingly go underwater is
COMPLETELY and ENTIRELY your own responsibility! If you cannot
accept this responsibility, stay out of the water!"
*******************************************************************

Rich
--
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