Dangerous psychology- Diving beyond one's training

[TSandM]

This whole conversation is a BRILLIANT illustration of the very issue that caused the OP to start this thread.

We have what appears to be an intelligent woman, judging from her writing. She made a decision to do something that has caused an almost unprecedented thing -- unanimity on ScubaBoard! Despite a great many people with a lot more experience and training, and approaches ranging from harsh to very gentle, telling her that what she is doing is unacceptably high risk, she remains adamant that it is not, and that she will continue to do it. Furthermore, she has dismissed the entire body of collective wisdom about the kind of dives she is doing as being overly conservative.

You cannot change those people. They are not stupid and may not even be ignorant. They are arrogant in a particularly dangerous way, because they just aren't swayed by the input from anybody except someone who is telling them it's okay to do what they want to do. These personalities exist in every sport and probably in every walk of life. The only thing that EVER changes such people is having a close brush with disaster and surviving it . . . and as I know well from the ER, all too often, such people are capable of an internal dialogue that convinces them that the accident they avoided or survived was not due to their error in judgment, but due to some other factor which simply wouldn't apply if they were to persist in their behavior.

 

[lowviz]

This is an unusual thread for basic scuba discussions, I would expect discussions like these to be held in a tech forum. However, tstormdiver placed it well. This thread really does belong here where OW divers live.

Surprises happen underwater. I clearly remember a simple "incident" during one of my cave training drills. I found out that adrenaline dramatically increases air hunger. In my case, there was an instructor in front of me ready to "purge and plug". I got past it, but the gut feeling remains. I did things out of order and got a bad result, sucked a bit of water, then burned through precious gas until I got myself back together. Coughing fit. Stupid physiological reaction, why does the human body juice itself full of adrenaline just when it needs to calm down, conserve breathing, think, and act decisively?

My instructor loved it.

"Common sense" applies topside. We are land animals with perfectly wrong autonomic responses for an underwater environment. I came very close to needing intervention (gas donation) due to a "common sense" response. This was followed up later with valuable discussions on how to train myself to stave off air hunger and work through issues.

Britton, I *think* that you are just trolling this thread for sport, but now your posts seriously compromise the safety of uninformed readers.

I am not an instructor, experienced cave diver, or a psychiatrist. But I'll offer you a free personal observation: It is a thrill-seeking addiction thing. Here on SB, topside, and in the water. Always need a bit more.

Enjoy the ski trip, all black diamond trails no doubt...

 

[ucfdiver]

For PfcAJ or one of the other experienced Florida cave divers, what kind of gas planning would you use in setting up a traverse through a siphon like this? 1/4s? 1/6s?

For this one, I would just swim it against the flow, starting at the head spring and record how much gas it took. Once I've done that, I know I need 2x that amount of gas in reserve when doing it the siphon direction. Siphon diving isn't an exact science, so unfortunatly it's either extremely slow going due to being conservative, or extremely dangerous, it's nearly impossible to find the right balance.

 

[SEALAB Author Ben H.]

Great thread and so many thoughtful responses of the sort that continuously went through my mind while researching and writing SEALAB, which I think offers a lot of good food for thought on this rather timeless question of pushing limits. What if Captain George Bond, divers like Bob Barth and Scott Carpenter (who had already taken his chances on a rocket ride), Jacques Cousteau, Ed Link, Hannes Keller, Robert Stenuit, Henri Delauze and so many others had not taken the risks they did? True, not everyone survived, but . . .

 

[boulderjohn]

Great thread and so many thoughtful responses of the sort that continuously went through my mind while researching and writing SEALAB, which I think offers a lot of good food for thought on this rather timeless question of pushing limits. What if Captain George Bond, divers like Bob Barth and Scott Carpenter (who had already taken his chances on a rocket ride), Jacques Cousteau, Ed Link, Hannes Keller, Robert Stenuit, Henri Delauze and so many others had not taken the risks they did? True, not everyone survived, but . . .

Of course, they had no choice. They could not get training for what they did because there was no such training. Yes, many of these people died, and from their deaths and their successes we developed the training still in place. Thus, it is not necessary for people to risk their lives using unproven equipment and strategies. When people use inadequate equipment and poor strategies after we have learned better from those who went before, are you celebrating them for their spirit of adventure?

 

[flots am]

Of course, they had no choice. They could not get training for what they did because there was no such training. Yes, many of these people died, and from their deaths and their successes we developed the training still in place. Thus, it is not necessary for people to risk their lives using unproven equipment and strategies. When people use inadequate equipment and poor strategies after we have learned better from those who went before, are you celebrating them for their spirit of adventure?

Isn't there a pre-dive body-recovery form kicking around somewhere?

Haven't seen it in a couple of years, but it would seem to be useful here.

flots.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

My guess is you're lucky enough to have never been around a diving fatality, search or rescue. What happens is that someone comes up screaming for help (best case scenario I suppose), let's say the missing diver's family is having a picnic on the sand and they start crying and screaming. Edd was in the water in something like 15 minutes and found the diver totally out of gas. Zero. Another minute and he would have been dead. You can ask him about the specifics. Do you think he could have said "Ah, no, I haven't had lunch and I'm really not feeling it right now, call the police . . ."? Do you think any police department, anywhere, has a certified cave diver on staff? I'd be surprised if there are any in the world. If you're unlucky enough not to have a Sorenson nearby, and you die, who do you think is going to come and retrieve your body? The police can't do it--they don't have anyone qualified. It's always the local cave divers who get that grim task. I can tell you that my friends were called upon to do one earlier this year and the details would put you off your food for a while.

Without getting into a measuring contest, I will just say that you're mistaken. And while I'm not a public safety diver, having spent ten years as a lifeguard and LGI before my current career, I'm unimpressed by your attempt to educate me as to the realities of rescue/recovery situations in general.

Regardless if a diver is 'certified' or not, I believe it only reasonable to employ best practice where possible.

Now this, this I agree with.

We were nowhere near running out of air and were way conservative.

No, you were nowhere near running out of air so long as everything went OK. If one of your regs freeflowed, or your inflator jammed in the open position, or a LP hose got torn or sliced, or something else went wrong and your breathing rate doubled, or someone got stuck and you had to stay down longer than you'd planned... you had no redundancy and no extra gas.

I'm generally one of the most 'everyone should go to Hell in their own good way' types, but your planning and execution for an overhead dive was just sloppy.

 

[Edward3c]

…
No diver, whether "properly" trained or otherwise, has any right to expect rescue from anyone outside their immediate team should things go wrong. Nor do they have a right to expect someone else to come get their corpse if they die. Personally, I think leaving them in there would serve a number of useful functions, though in certain sites I'm sure the sheer aggregate volume of bodies and gear would eventually cause problems.

But no rescuer has any obligation to go in after someone reported missing/overdue/dead, and those who choose to do so are making their own risk assessment and doing the rescue/corpse recovery of their own free will. …

Maybe in the US there’s no requirement, but in the UK the police end up going in to recover bodies.

 

[tstormdiver]

Maybe in the US there’s no requirement, but in the UK the police end up going in to recover bodies.

I remember the enormous effort made to recover Agnes Milowka from a cave in Australia, due to laws that the deceased must be recovered. Yes, in the US there are no such laws, in other countries, there are.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

Maybe in the US there’s no requirement, but in the UK the police end up going in to recover bodies.

Only a person beneath contempt misquotes in order to bolster their argument; allow me to replace what you so conveniently removed from that same post.

To the extent the argument is that there are public servants whose job requires them to conduct rescue/recovery dives, I will remain unpersuaded until we start forcibly conscripting people into those jobs.