This thread may not be well placed. Moderators should feel free to move it.
The diving death of Shane Thompson was covered in this thread in 2016. Recently, someone named Ballen made a video describing that fatality, but that video was wildly inaccurate. Another video was then made in which people interviewed Shane's buddy on that dive, Mike Young, and Mike corrected the inaccuracies. I could have posted that video at the end of the old thread, but I think it is too important to stick it at the end of a 5-year old thread where people will probably not watch it. So here it is:
I am quite sure Mike's version is accurate. I was on the dive team there, and I was standing to his right when he told the story right after the dive. What he says in this video matches my recollection of that telling, except for a part he did not know then and was only discovered after Shane's GoPro was reviewed.
I think it is important for a couple of reasons, one of which is obvious--correcting misinformation.
More importantly, I have been haunted since that day by my desire to write an article on what I believe was the most valuable lesson to be learned from that accident. I have tried to write it, but cannot make it work. Shane was an extremely experienced and skilled diver. As Mike said in the video, they were the only two divers on the team who were able to go where they were. His abilities were far beyond mine, likely far beyond what mine will ever be.
But he was diving beyond his ability.
All divers, from the newly certified OW diver to the most certified cave diver, continue to grow as divers by pushing our limits a little at a time. We have to do this, or we will be forever beginners. But we can't go too far, because diving beyond our limits can be fatal. So here is the question--how can we tell if we are safely pushing our limits and when we are exceeding them unsafely?
The diving death of Shane Thompson was covered in this thread in 2016. Recently, someone named Ballen made a video describing that fatality, but that video was wildly inaccurate. Another video was then made in which people interviewed Shane's buddy on that dive, Mike Young, and Mike corrected the inaccuracies. I could have posted that video at the end of the old thread, but I think it is too important to stick it at the end of a 5-year old thread where people will probably not watch it. So here it is:
I am quite sure Mike's version is accurate. I was on the dive team there, and I was standing to his right when he told the story right after the dive. What he says in this video matches my recollection of that telling, except for a part he did not know then and was only discovered after Shane's GoPro was reviewed.
I think it is important for a couple of reasons, one of which is obvious--correcting misinformation.
More importantly, I have been haunted since that day by my desire to write an article on what I believe was the most valuable lesson to be learned from that accident. I have tried to write it, but cannot make it work. Shane was an extremely experienced and skilled diver. As Mike said in the video, they were the only two divers on the team who were able to go where they were. His abilities were far beyond mine, likely far beyond what mine will ever be.
But he was diving beyond his ability.
All divers, from the newly certified OW diver to the most certified cave diver, continue to grow as divers by pushing our limits a little at a time. We have to do this, or we will be forever beginners. But we can't go too far, because diving beyond our limits can be fatal. So here is the question--how can we tell if we are safely pushing our limits and when we are exceeding them unsafely?