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For you that is probably a legitimate worst-case scenario ... possibly for me as well. But we're both older, more experienced divers who know enough to handle pretty much any type of failure that could occur without getting too stressed out about it.The worst catastrophic failure I can conceive of is if the old ticker gives up and there ain't no redundancy for that.
On the other hand, the originator of this thread is a very new diver, talking about a friend who is also a very new diver. And for most very new divers, the worst catastrophic failure I could conceive would be what goes on in their head when faced with a situation they don't know how to deal with ... an unexpected current, for example, that leades to a CO2 overload. Unless they can promptly deal with it, the problem will eventually lead to a building stress that will ... ultimately ... end in a panic attack. At that point, all semblance of rational reasoning disappears as the diver's "survival" wiring kicks in with a "get me the hell out of here" response, and the diver finds himself bolting for the surface. In many cases of panic ... perhaps most cases ... the root cause of a panic attack was something that was easily fixable if the diver had adequate experience and training to recognize the onset of the situation and took steps to fix it before it became a bigger issue. What happens with most inexperienced divers is they don't recognize the problem until it becomes a bigger problem, and then they lack adequate experience or expertise to deal with it in a calm, deliberate manner. Panic is a natural reaction to being faced with what you perceive to be a life-threatening problem that you don't see a solution for.
In many cases such panic leads to a serious injury or fatality as the diver reacts without thinking and acting on the training that they do have ... and in most of those cases, the root cause was a problem that ... had they been sitting in the comfort of an office typing on ScubaBoard ... was completely within their capability to deal with. But because of their lack of experience, they failed to see it coming, and failed to act on it before it became bigger than they were equipped to deal with.
This is why I don't think inexperienced divers should solo ... it's also why I don't think inexperienced divers should do deep dives, or dive in challenging conditions like surge or current that have a higher probability of leading to problems they haven't yet learned how to deal with.
Resolving problems in real life is nothing like simulating it in a class, or talking about it on ScubaBoard ... and gaining experience helps you learn how to recognize and deal with problems incrementally, before a simple issue has the opportunity to turn itself into a life-threatening crisis ...
... Bob (Grateful Diver)