IMHO, a good buddy would have saved this guy...
Polemic alert...ROFL...you are sooo dramatic!
Divers death
- Thread starter Scubamedicjoe
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Polemic alert...ROFL...you are sooo dramatic!
C'mon O-ring.
If nobody ever paniced, if nobody ever "lost it" at depth, and if nobody ever got so entranced with what they were doing that they forgot to check their SPG once in a while, a lot fewer people would croak down there.
The fact of the matter is that diving with a buddy both adds redundancy AND adds risks. You gain a spare brain, but you also gain all that spare brain's neuroses, problems, and issues that can come with it.
I am deeply disturbed by the idea that ANYONE was down there without a working backup regulator. The fact is that the stricken diver made it to another person with a gas supply. What happened next appears to be the proximate cause of his death, and the published stories are, IMHO, bizarre.
If nobody ever paniced, if nobody ever "lost it" at depth, and if nobody ever got so entranced with what they were doing that they forgot to check their SPG once in a while, a lot fewer people would croak down there.
The fact of the matter is that diving with a buddy both adds redundancy AND adds risks. You gain a spare brain, but you also gain all that spare brain's neuroses, problems, and issues that can come with it.
I am deeply disturbed by the idea that ANYONE was down there without a working backup regulator. The fact is that the stricken diver made it to another person with a gas supply. What happened next appears to be the proximate cause of his death, and the published stories are, IMHO, bizarre.
I want to rehash the solo diving argument about as bad as I want to go to work tomorrow, so I will withdraw that polemic (hehe) part. I agree with everything you said...and I agree that it is REALLY troubling that he made it to an air source...and apparently within view of an instructor and still managed to not get any gas...
Another thing that struck me (MASS-Diver also pointed this out) was that, again IMHO, 25' vis and 36 degree water temp is no place to be doing AOW checkout dives. We have enough problems with AOW students in a 65 degree quarry with 40' vis...
ericfine50
Contributor
The water temp alone can make this a technical dive. The AOW students, from what I have heard were doing a dry suit course. Now, I think there are many problems with this by itself. New divers in DS on a boat in February? Come on, those dives could of waited till the spring or been done in a better setting. You have very little room for error in this water. I hope Cape Ann doesn't get in legal trouble, but the guy was on there boat and I know the overall responsibilty is with the diver once they enter the water, but the family and the lawyer may not see it like that.
Eric
Eric
A drysuit course...hmmm... [speculation]I could see a drysuit student take two huge breaths from the reg, pass it, exhale VERY slowly due to worry about getting reg back and uncomfortableness with buddy breathing...holding most of that in = positively buoyant...[/speculation]
but if so, I'd implicate the COURSE, not the SUIT.
Fact is, I STRONGLY disagree with the "official agency" view on drysuits and their use as BCs. That's why I decided to teach myself how to dive dry (in my pool, and then in open water) rather than take an "official" course.
If you dive it as exposure protection and use your BC for buoyancy then there is no shift of significance with depth, and that particular problem would not have arose.
Fact is, I STRONGLY disagree with the "official agency" view on drysuits and their use as BCs. That's why I decided to teach myself how to dive dry (in my pool, and then in open water) rather than take an "official" course.
If you dive it as exposure protection and use your BC for buoyancy then there is no shift of significance with depth, and that particular problem would not have arose.
But I also know how the course is taught by some agencies and those agencies also teach a class called AOW, which I think was going on simultaneously. I didn't mean to say I had evidence to prove that was what happened...but it could have..
ericfine50
Contributor
I hope they did not combine an AOW with a DS course. Wait and see what shakes out.
Eric
Eric
but what do I know.
Never mind that from my point of view, if indeed a drysuit course was involved, I'd have to implicate the standards of that course to at least some degree.
The "bubble shift" if using a suit as a BC is really disconcerting for someone not used to it, and worse, your exhaust has suddenly moved from where you've found it since you started diving (from the inflator to the suit's dump), etc.
Then you get the fact that those dumps are, relatively speaking, pretty slow.
It will be interesting to see what comes of this, if we ever do get some kind of real report.
Never mind that from my point of view, if indeed a drysuit course was involved, I'd have to implicate the standards of that course to at least some degree.
The "bubble shift" if using a suit as a BC is really disconcerting for someone not used to it, and worse, your exhaust has suddenly moved from where you've found it since you started diving (from the inflator to the suit's dump), etc.
Then you get the fact that those dumps are, relatively speaking, pretty slow.
It will be interesting to see what comes of this, if we ever do get some kind of real report.
Break out the placards we're heading to a certain agency's HQ!
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