PaulSmithTek
Contributor
If anyone wants a PDF of the Outside online Article I do have it.
David Shaw, what happened? Who was he?
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volauvent
Registered
Just finished reading the book.
One thing that hasn't been mentioned in this thread is adipocere. The recovery target body was saponified - turned into "grave wax" - and had positive buoyancy. This is a known phenomenon, seen in lake bottoms and sealed caskets where bacteria and insects are absent. However, the possibility did not come up in pre-dive discussions with forensics/medical experts, and therefore came as a complete surprise. The dive plan was predicated on a negatively buoyant body, and did not anticipate the potential for entanglement.
An absorbing and thought-provoking read, with nuanced portraits of two extraordinary individuals - Dave Shaw and Ron Shirley.
-Teresa
One thing that hasn't been mentioned in this thread is adipocere. The recovery target body was saponified - turned into "grave wax" - and had positive buoyancy. This is a known phenomenon, seen in lake bottoms and sealed caskets where bacteria and insects are absent. However, the possibility did not come up in pre-dive discussions with forensics/medical experts, and therefore came as a complete surprise. The dive plan was predicated on a negatively buoyant body, and did not anticipate the potential for entanglement.
An absorbing and thought-provoking read, with nuanced portraits of two extraordinary individuals - Dave Shaw and Ron Shirley.
-Teresa
volauvent
Registered
Also...
Once he and Don Shirley had decided do the recovery dive, they needed to get permission from the police, to borrow a mobile hyperbaric chamber, and to recruit a team of support divers. The resultant publicity and media attention, as well as the sheer logistics of getting everybody together, meant that on the day of the dive, there was pressure to proceed with the dive.
The head-mounted video camera was a last-minute addition - the filmmaker had brought the hardware and made the request. Normally, Dave Shaw hung the head of his canister light around his neck. Because of the videocam, he had no good place to put the light when he was working on dislodging the body, and for a moment let the head of the light dangle free. The cord then became entangled with the line leading from the body back to the descent shaft.
By the way, Dave Shaw was a check pilot for Cathay Airlines, and had started his flying career doing crop dusting and flying missionaries around Papua New Guinea. This was a man intimately acquainted with risk management. Yet, the decision to recover the body was not rational - according to the author Dave was a deeply religious man, and felt spiritually moved to make the attempt. In my opinion, the decision was irrational, the planning was meticulous, and he ran into unexpected developments during a highly ambitious dive.
Teresa
Once he and Don Shirley had decided do the recovery dive, they needed to get permission from the police, to borrow a mobile hyperbaric chamber, and to recruit a team of support divers. The resultant publicity and media attention, as well as the sheer logistics of getting everybody together, meant that on the day of the dive, there was pressure to proceed with the dive.
The head-mounted video camera was a last-minute addition - the filmmaker had brought the hardware and made the request. Normally, Dave Shaw hung the head of his canister light around his neck. Because of the videocam, he had no good place to put the light when he was working on dislodging the body, and for a moment let the head of the light dangle free. The cord then became entangled with the line leading from the body back to the descent shaft.
By the way, Dave Shaw was a check pilot for Cathay Airlines, and had started his flying career doing crop dusting and flying missionaries around Papua New Guinea. This was a man intimately acquainted with risk management. Yet, the decision to recover the body was not rational - according to the author Dave was a deeply religious man, and felt spiritually moved to make the attempt. In my opinion, the decision was irrational, the planning was meticulous, and he ran into unexpected developments during a highly ambitious dive.
Teresa
diverdoug1
Contributor
It was also only his 333rd dive.
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