Article on Death In Ginnie Springs

[Ayisha]

And what was Carlos supposedly doing with an O2 labelled tank on the Andrea Doria that he allegedly filled with Air - FOR AN ANDREA DORIA TRIP/DIVE???

Man, don't you realise the story/fantasy peddled on the internet is full of holes...

To understand this, you would need to understand some of the group that we're talking about, not specifically the two buddies, but Carlos and his established group. Something that became exposed after Carlos' accident was that the group was routinely filling permanently marked bottles with gases other than what was marked. In other words, it was not unusual for them to have a permanently marked O2 bottle with air in it with maybe a new analysis piece of tape on it, maybe not. Carlos' friend even admitted to it on the accident thread. So unfortunately, permanently marked bottles may or may not have had the correct contents in them.

This group was also known to dive "hot mixes", in other words, O2 contents that most would consider to be too rich for the intended dives. Carlos was previously involved in an accident a few years earlier where the victim was breathing 40% EANx on the Berminham Crane, which lies at about 145 feet, and was seen seizing and was brought up (unfortunately prior to the tonic/clonic phase of the seizure) and the official cause of death was determined to be ox tox. Prior to Carlos' own accident, there were at least 2 ox tox seizures in which the victims survived these "hot mixes" and the cases were never officially reported, but were known to many locals.

So two other lessons that people learned from this and other somewhat related accidents besides "always analyze your gas(es) immediately before a dive", were "never fill a dedicated bottle with anything other than what it is marked for" and "use the appropriate gas for a dive".

 

[boulderjohn]

In the incident I mentioned earlier, the dive victim was using a rebreather at a depth of 95 feet. He was planning a short dive preparatory to a longer dive, and he was using his diluent bottle as his bailout for the short dive. His diluent/bailout being used at 95 feet tested to 52%. Records at the shop where it was filled showed that he had asked for a mix in that range and had tested it. He knew both the bottle content and the depth before the dive, and he as a very experienced diver who consciously made that decision.

It happens.

 

[gianaameri]

To understand this, you would need to understand some of the group that we're talking about, not specifically the two buddies, but Carlos and his established group. Something that became exposed after Carlos' accident was that the group was routinely filling permanently marked bottles with gases other than what was marked. In other words, it was not unusual for them to have a permanently marked O2 bottle with air in it with maybe a new analysis piece of tape on it, maybe not. Carlos' friend even admitted to it on the accident thread. So unfortunately, permanently marked bottles may or may not have had the correct contents in them.

This group was also known to dive "hot mixes", in other words, O2 contents that most would consider to be too rich for the intended dives. Carlos was previously involved in an accident a few years earlier where the victim was breathing 40% EANx on the Berminham Crane, which lies at about 145 feet, and was seen seizing and was brought up (unfortunately prior to the tonic/clonic phase of the seizure) and the official cause of death was determined to be ox tox. Prior to Carlos' own accident, there were at least 2 ox tox seizures in which the victims survived these "hot mixes" and the cases were never officially reported, but were known to many locals.

So two other lessons that people learned from this and other somewhat related accidents besides "always analyze your gas(es) immediately before a dive", were "never fill a dedicated bottle with anything other than what it is marked for" and "use the appropriate gas for a dive".

The above does not answer my question.

And what was Carlos supposedly doing with an O2 labelled tank on the Andrea Doria that he allegedly filled with Air - FOR AN ANDREA DORIA TRIP/DIVE???

P.S. The Andrea Doria is NOT a dive you do with Air.

 

[Superlyte27]

I am still waiting for you to name what is implausible. Just saying everything is implausible is meaningless. You can say that about anything in the world. The inability to name something specific suggests that you can't really think of anything implausible.

"Inconceivable!" --Vizzini
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." --Inigo Montoya.

 

[Jim Lapenta]

The above does not answer my question.



P.S. The Andrea Doria is NOT a dive you do with Air.

No but you do take deco gas. And some like to use an 80 for that. It might be a language issue but you don't seem to understand that in his mind, Carlos was never wrong. He alienated a number of people with this attitude. He and some of his compatriots did what they wanted to do. You did not question their decisions or assertions.

If you did you were an ass, overly cautious, stuck in the past, etc. He made a decision based on his belief that he knew what was in that tank. Therefore since he knew he did not need to analyze it. His buddies had no business questioning him was his attitude.

Hell I'm a pig headed dago at times. Toss in some stubborn mick blood with that and there are times I can be an ass. What is so hard to believe about someone who did a lot of stuff very fast with no real consequences acting like they are invincible? This is what happened. Plain and simple. Don't try to understand it. Rational people can't. It was an irrational act by a person with an irrational though process at that time. It killed him. Case closed.

Screw the police investigation. They are dips for the most part when it comes to stuff like this.

 

[tomfcrist]

Screw the police investigation. They are dips for the most part when it comes to stuff like this.

This holds true for MEs and the USCG investigators as well.

 

[CptTightPants21]

The above does not answer my question.



P.S. The Andrea Doria is NOT a dive you do with Air.

He had a least 2 pony bottles on his Doria trip. Due to weather, a dive was cancelled and one pure O2 pony was unused. When he returned, he filled the pony he did use on the trip with air. During some course of events, he mistakenly took the pure O2 bottle believing it to be the pony filled with air.

This is what I have read from other posters.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

It becomes clear, you need to re-read the story about how the bottles came to Florida. It's all on the Internet for your consumption, but I'm not going to wade through that thread again to find it. The Cliff Notes (if memory serves): He filled an O2 bottle with air after use on the Doria, *but* he accidentally brought a similar looking O2 bottle that was still full from the Doria dive with O2 that wasn't used due to a scrubbed dive related to weather.

If someone found a similar bottle back home.. permanently marked as oxygen and filled with air... that fact alone is overwhelming evidence about what happened and it also tells exactly WHY someone would actually use an "oxygen" bottle as if it were filled with air and WHY they would be "sure" it was air.

 

[tomfcrist]

It becomes clear, you need to re-read the story about how the bottles came to Florida. It's all on the Internet for your consumption, but I'm not going to wade through that thread again to find it. The Cliff Notes (if memory serves): He filled an O2 bottle with air after use on the Doria, *but* he accidentally brought a similar looking O2 bottle that was still full from the Doria dive with O2 that wasn't used due to a scrubbed dive related to weather.

If someone found a similar bottle back home.. permanently marked as oxygen and filled with air... that fact alone is overwhelming evidence about what happened and it also tells exactly WHY someone would actually use an "oxygen" bottle as if it were filled with air and WHY they would be "sure" it was air.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see exactly WHY he would do those things...he was reckless.

As tech divers it is good to remember that cavalier attitudes and being "John Wayne" will eventually kill you...as it did this guy.

 

[Dhboner]

I knew Carlos fairly well...there were two distinct sides to him. On one hand he was a great father, husband and friend and on the other hand he was a cowboy. He was a good friend to both my sons and I but we were all painfully aware of his recklessness as a diver. Carlos was all about the "trophy dive"....deeper, longer, more difficult than the rest of us were doing or capable of doing. He made a HUGE mistake that cost him his life and while the mistake was born from arrogance it doesn't or shouldn't define his memory. He was a decent man, loving husband and father and he paid the ultimate price for his arrogance and complacency. The only meaningful thing we can do is learn from his fatal mistake and be better, safer divers. There is no debate as to the cause of his death (at least among those of us who do not embrace National Enquirer style journalism) so the best course of action from here is to resist the urge to bash the memory of a loving father but still be aware of the nature of his mistake and learn from it without giving in to the urge to trash him.