This question keeps coming up and the debate never changes except with time.
The longer humans dive the more controversial this question gets.
If you compare modern dive gear to the early Scuba years you will see that the gear doesnt even seem related.
In the early years gear failures were almost common. Today gear failures are, for the most part, rare.
Most of the deaths that I have been around or know about are not from a gear failure but some kind of failure involving the diver. Stuff like getting into situations that the diver was not ready for. Sure the diver was trained for this or that, but was that diver ready for it in the real world outside of training.
A diver with redundant this and that is no safer than a diver with just a single everything if that redundant diver has to think out every situation before taking action. The diver, either in a redundant or in a single configuration, should be so aware of their gear that if something happens, that diver automatically reacts.
I know some of you are going to think that is BS but stop and think about it. All the cards in the world mean nothing if the person holding them has more cash than brains.
You learn how to drive a car, which is a complicated operation at first. As time goes on and your comfort level raises and you do things automatically. If, we as humans, didnt improve our driving skills people would be crashing at rates 10 times?, 100 times?, 1000 times the rates they do now.
The Model T was a basic piece of driving equipment. It was slow, had poor reliability, poor steering and poor brakes. It was also a roll of the dice to see if the car would make it from point A to point B. The early diving regulators were a basic piece of diving equipment. They were slow to react, had poor reliability, were unbalanced and were a poor design by todays standards. They were about as reliable as the old Model T as far as getting from point A to B.
Some of these posts have said experience means nothing. Why should it mean nothing for diving when it means a lot everywhere else? Not many rookies win at Stock Car or other kinds of motor racing. It takes a lot of experience just to get into the races to compete. Why should Scuba diving be any different?
For those that think experience means nothing, why would you trust your training to an instructor. Wouldnt it make the same sense to have just stayed at a Holiday Inn Express instead? The last I heard MOST instructors had some experience.
Some have said NO NITROX on a solo dive. Unless youre an alien we all breathe NITROX on every dive. Its the mix not the gas we are talking about.
Others talk about when you or your buddy get separated its now a solo dive. No it isnt. Its a dive where buddies are not planning a dive and diving that plan. SO, when separated divers have something-go wrong it isnt a dead or injured solo diver. It was an accident or death where the buddies got separated.
Bottom line is that your gear is not what is going to keep you alive in Scuba Diving. It is the person behind it. That person does need to be trained and have enough common sense to use whatever properly and stay calm in any given situation.
After all, if we had to think about applying the brakes every time a child ran in front of a car there would be no survivors. Why should diving be any different?
I'm not harping on anyone. I'm just trying to get people to think a little more about what they are doing and how they do it.
Gary D.
