Ken Kurtis
Contributor
The deaths of Guy Garman & Lynne Flaherty moved me, and in different ways. And when I get moved like that, I write. What I offer here is the lead article in my September newsletter about the two accidents and what we can learn from them. (This goes out to about 2,000 people on my regular e-mailing list.) I offer it here in hopes of furthering (and maybe even consolidating) the discussions already going on.
- Ken
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A TALE OF TWO SCUBA DEATHS
One senseless, one perplexing. We'll start with the stupid one.
Dr. Guy Garman, known by the nickname of "Doc Deep," died in mid-August during an attempt to dive to a depth of 1200 feet. That's not a typo: twelve hundred feet. This was supposed to be some sort of a "world record" attempt that they were hoping the Guinness Book of records would recognize. Garman started his dive at 6AM, was supposed to rendezvous with a support team 38 minutes later at a depth of over 300 feet, but never showed up. His body and gear were recovered the next day, presumably still attached to the descent line he followed down to his demise.
Although hindsight is 20/20, there were many problems with this plan from the outset. First of all, Garman had only been doing technical diving for about four or five years, hardly enough to warrant such an extreme dive. On top of that, his previous personal record depth was 815 feet. So this attempt was 50% deeper than he'd ever gone before.
For comparison, the previous record was set about a year ago at 1,090 by Ahmed Gabr in the Red Sea. Gabr, however, had about 17 years of tech diving experience under his belt and had spent four years training and preparing for his record-setting dive.
Even more worrisome about Garman's fatal dive, is that he was publicizing it beforehand and was being told by other deep-dive experts in the field that his plan was flawed, his training and experience were inadequate, and that he would likely die if he went ahead with the attempt. But, there's a Darwin Award Winner born regularly and Garman simply ignored everything he was being told and pushed ahead with what would become his last dive.
Then there's his "support" team. They refer to Garman even after his death, as one of the most knowledgeable and best deep divers on the planet. Needless to say, many have taken issue with that but it really underscores another issue here which is that of Group-Think. In other words, instead of trying to analyze a plan and discover possible problems, everyone becomes a cheerleader instead of a skeptic, and assumes all will be well instead of trying to anticipate what could go wrong.
There are lessons here for those of us who confine ourselves to the recreational world. The first is that just because nothing bad happened on a previous dive, it doesn't mean that the plan was good to begin with. You may have just gotten lucky.
This dive also underscores the immense value of really asking yourself and analyzing "What could go wrong and what would my options be" prior to any dive. Whether it's you doing that for yourself or someone else doing it with you, part of the goal should be to discover what's wrong with the plan (even if it's something as simple as 30 feet for 30 minutes) and how can those risks be minimized.
But a big lesson here is also that ego and hubris can be a fatal combination. We are not the Little Engine That Could when we're diving. We're fragile human beings in an alien environment that won't think twice about chewing us up and spitting us out.
The other fatality is perplexing because the victim was the antithesis of Garman. She was careful, thoughtful, cautious, aware of her limits, and meticulously planned for every dive.
Lynne Flaherty was diving with her husband Peter at a place called Duncan Rocks which is almost on the US/Canadian border above Seattle. It's a fairly advanced boat dive but they hit it on what sounds like a pretty good day, with generally favorable weather and surface conditions. Both Lynne and Peter were diving in drysuits and equipped with plenty of gas for the dive, as well as surface markers buoys, Nautilus Lifelines, Dive Alerts, and the like in case things should go wrong.
According to Peter, they entered together and descended as a team. As they passed by an underwater ridge, they hit a downdraft current which took them down to about 115. Lynne was below Peter at that time by 10-15 feet. They both came up to 85 feet to stabilize but this time, Lynne was slightly above Peter but he could see her venting her drysuit. Peter says the viz was good for the area (but probably 20-30 feet) and the current was fast.
At this point Peter says he turned away for just a moment. When he looked back, Lynne was nowhere to be seen. He said from his depth of 80 feet, he could see the sun through the surface above but there was no sight of Lynne. Peter looked around at depth for about a minute and, following their agreed-upon diver separation plan, Peter surfaced, fully expecting that Lynne would either be there or would surface shortly after he did. She never made it back up and as of this writing (Monday afternoon - six days after the accident), her body has still not been found.
I want to preface all that follows with this thought: I don't think they did anything wrong. I did a non-peer-reviewed study a few years ago of three years worth of DAN fatality stats. I separated deaths into three categories: diver error (69%), medical (25%), and bad luck (6%). I think this accident may fall into the last category. It certainly does not appear to be obvious diver error.
The big question here is what happened that prevented Lynne from surfacing when Peter was able to, under similar conditions. Because Lynne was a frequent contributor and moderator on ScubaBoard (her screen name was TSandM), there's been a lengthy and lively discussion there about this. There's some speculation that she suffered some sort of a medical problem. There's other information that she occasionally suffered from vertigo and the downcurrent and then fighting it could have triggered that. No one really knows.
But everyone agrees that this is the LAST person you would have expected to die in a diving accident. And that's the take-away from this accident: Unlike Garman, you can seemingly do everything right and be prepared for all possibilities and it still may not be enough. And that's something that's important not only for you to understand but also for your loved ones to understand. It's a risky sport in which we engage. 99% of the time, everything comes out all right, even when we've done stupid things. But occasionally, circumstances may overwhelm us and there will be nothing we can do about it.
I have no real idea of what happened here, only guesses. I've got to believe - partly because she and I participated in discussions about this - that if she were conscious, she would have eventually ditched her weightbelt and inflated her drysuit or BC and even if she passed out, would have reached the surface. The fact that her Nautilus Lifeline, which presumably was working, was never activated says to me that she never made it back up. Why that is will remain a mystery, at least until her body is recovered and an autopsy can possibly reveal some clues.
But I give you these two stories not because I want to send you into a state of despair thinking "It doesn't matter what I do" but because there are lessons here. The ones from Garman seem fairly obvious. The ones from Lynne are a lot more subtle. Would there have been a way to backtrack out of the downcurrent? Should they have held on to one another? Should they have simply ditched weights right away and ascended? Again, I'm not implying Lynne or Peter did anything wrong. But simply that these are things we look at with hindsight and hopefully they get you thinking about things you can look at with foresight, if you don't do so already.
- Ken
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A TALE OF TWO SCUBA DEATHS
One senseless, one perplexing. We'll start with the stupid one.
Dr. Guy Garman, known by the nickname of "Doc Deep," died in mid-August during an attempt to dive to a depth of 1200 feet. That's not a typo: twelve hundred feet. This was supposed to be some sort of a "world record" attempt that they were hoping the Guinness Book of records would recognize. Garman started his dive at 6AM, was supposed to rendezvous with a support team 38 minutes later at a depth of over 300 feet, but never showed up. His body and gear were recovered the next day, presumably still attached to the descent line he followed down to his demise.
Although hindsight is 20/20, there were many problems with this plan from the outset. First of all, Garman had only been doing technical diving for about four or five years, hardly enough to warrant such an extreme dive. On top of that, his previous personal record depth was 815 feet. So this attempt was 50% deeper than he'd ever gone before.
For comparison, the previous record was set about a year ago at 1,090 by Ahmed Gabr in the Red Sea. Gabr, however, had about 17 years of tech diving experience under his belt and had spent four years training and preparing for his record-setting dive.
Even more worrisome about Garman's fatal dive, is that he was publicizing it beforehand and was being told by other deep-dive experts in the field that his plan was flawed, his training and experience were inadequate, and that he would likely die if he went ahead with the attempt. But, there's a Darwin Award Winner born regularly and Garman simply ignored everything he was being told and pushed ahead with what would become his last dive.
Then there's his "support" team. They refer to Garman even after his death, as one of the most knowledgeable and best deep divers on the planet. Needless to say, many have taken issue with that but it really underscores another issue here which is that of Group-Think. In other words, instead of trying to analyze a plan and discover possible problems, everyone becomes a cheerleader instead of a skeptic, and assumes all will be well instead of trying to anticipate what could go wrong.
There are lessons here for those of us who confine ourselves to the recreational world. The first is that just because nothing bad happened on a previous dive, it doesn't mean that the plan was good to begin with. You may have just gotten lucky.
This dive also underscores the immense value of really asking yourself and analyzing "What could go wrong and what would my options be" prior to any dive. Whether it's you doing that for yourself or someone else doing it with you, part of the goal should be to discover what's wrong with the plan (even if it's something as simple as 30 feet for 30 minutes) and how can those risks be minimized.
But a big lesson here is also that ego and hubris can be a fatal combination. We are not the Little Engine That Could when we're diving. We're fragile human beings in an alien environment that won't think twice about chewing us up and spitting us out.
The other fatality is perplexing because the victim was the antithesis of Garman. She was careful, thoughtful, cautious, aware of her limits, and meticulously planned for every dive.
Lynne Flaherty was diving with her husband Peter at a place called Duncan Rocks which is almost on the US/Canadian border above Seattle. It's a fairly advanced boat dive but they hit it on what sounds like a pretty good day, with generally favorable weather and surface conditions. Both Lynne and Peter were diving in drysuits and equipped with plenty of gas for the dive, as well as surface markers buoys, Nautilus Lifelines, Dive Alerts, and the like in case things should go wrong.
According to Peter, they entered together and descended as a team. As they passed by an underwater ridge, they hit a downdraft current which took them down to about 115. Lynne was below Peter at that time by 10-15 feet. They both came up to 85 feet to stabilize but this time, Lynne was slightly above Peter but he could see her venting her drysuit. Peter says the viz was good for the area (but probably 20-30 feet) and the current was fast.
At this point Peter says he turned away for just a moment. When he looked back, Lynne was nowhere to be seen. He said from his depth of 80 feet, he could see the sun through the surface above but there was no sight of Lynne. Peter looked around at depth for about a minute and, following their agreed-upon diver separation plan, Peter surfaced, fully expecting that Lynne would either be there or would surface shortly after he did. She never made it back up and as of this writing (Monday afternoon - six days after the accident), her body has still not been found.
I want to preface all that follows with this thought: I don't think they did anything wrong. I did a non-peer-reviewed study a few years ago of three years worth of DAN fatality stats. I separated deaths into three categories: diver error (69%), medical (25%), and bad luck (6%). I think this accident may fall into the last category. It certainly does not appear to be obvious diver error.
The big question here is what happened that prevented Lynne from surfacing when Peter was able to, under similar conditions. Because Lynne was a frequent contributor and moderator on ScubaBoard (her screen name was TSandM), there's been a lengthy and lively discussion there about this. There's some speculation that she suffered some sort of a medical problem. There's other information that she occasionally suffered from vertigo and the downcurrent and then fighting it could have triggered that. No one really knows.
But everyone agrees that this is the LAST person you would have expected to die in a diving accident. And that's the take-away from this accident: Unlike Garman, you can seemingly do everything right and be prepared for all possibilities and it still may not be enough. And that's something that's important not only for you to understand but also for your loved ones to understand. It's a risky sport in which we engage. 99% of the time, everything comes out all right, even when we've done stupid things. But occasionally, circumstances may overwhelm us and there will be nothing we can do about it.
I have no real idea of what happened here, only guesses. I've got to believe - partly because she and I participated in discussions about this - that if she were conscious, she would have eventually ditched her weightbelt and inflated her drysuit or BC and even if she passed out, would have reached the surface. The fact that her Nautilus Lifeline, which presumably was working, was never activated says to me that she never made it back up. Why that is will remain a mystery, at least until her body is recovered and an autopsy can possibly reveal some clues.
But I give you these two stories not because I want to send you into a state of despair thinking "It doesn't matter what I do" but because there are lessons here. The ones from Garman seem fairly obvious. The ones from Lynne are a lot more subtle. Would there have been a way to backtrack out of the downcurrent? Should they have held on to one another? Should they have simply ditched weights right away and ascended? Again, I'm not implying Lynne or Peter did anything wrong. But simply that these are things we look at with hindsight and hopefully they get you thinking about things you can look at with foresight, if you don't do so already.
