My experiment in urban legends

[roakey]

This diver has been all around the world since I first saw this hoax, why not Colorado?

THINK YOU'RE HAVING A BAD DAY?

Pike National Forest personnel in Colorado found a corpse in a burned-out section of forest while assessing the damage done by the “Pine Glen” forest fire. The deceased male was dressed in a dry suit, complete with scuba tank, flippers, and facemask. A postmortem test revealed that the man died not from burns, but from massive internal injuries. Only dental records could provide a positive identification. Investigators then set about to determine how a fully clad diver ended up in the middle of a forest fire.

It was revealed that on the day of the fire, the man was diving at 11-Mile Reservoir, some 20 miles from where he was discovered. The fire fighters, seeking to control the fire, had called in a fleet of helicopters with very large dip buckets. Water was dipped from the reservoir and emptied at the site of the forest fire. You guessed it. One minute our diver was making like a trout in the reservoir, the next, he was doing the breaststroke in a fire dip bucket 300 feet in the air. Apparently, he extinguished exactly 1.78m (5'10") of the fire.

Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed!

 

[Scuba Barbie]

I saw this story line on CSI.

 

[TexasMike]

the DCS hit by going from 10-20 feet underwater to a few thousand in the air???

 

[danceswithoctopus]

Originally posted by TexasMike
the DCS hit by going from 10-20 feet underwater to a few thousand in the air???

Then being dropped onto a forest fire? At least the pain wouldn't last.

 

[Wendy]

If he was in a bucket of water and that bucket of water and him were dropped on a fire, wouldn't the water put out the fire were the diver lands? So why would the diver get burned at all? I've always thought about that when i hear this urban legend.

 

[metridium]

Originally posted by Scuba Barbie
I saw this story line on CSI.

Yup, me too. Saw that bit and then promptly turned it off. Figured if that hackneyed old UL is the best they can do....

 

[roakey]

FYI, my post is blatant plagiarism from a hoax that's been going around for at least 10 years.

10 years ago the hapless diver was in Europe somewhere (perhaps why we get a metric reference for the amount of fire extinguished) and then about 5 years ago he was spotted in California. So I simply did some Colorado specific substitutions and reposted it.

Yup, CSI did this, Marg Helgenberger makes reference to the Internet hoax throughout the show. This made it believable, and then they showed the “rocket powered driver” at the end, which made it unbelievable. I still like the show, though it’s admittedly “Hollywood Forensics.”

20 feet underwater to a couple thousand feet in the air would be less than a 1 ATA (and in this case I do mean “ambient”) pressure change even at this altitude so there would be no resulting bends.

The Hayman fire (Colorado’s biggest) has burned back over previously burned areas so in theory you could have a burned diver.

Giveaway nits that it’s a hoax:

The “Pine Glen” fire was not in the Pike National Forest (it was in my “back yard” – came within 1000 feet of my house): http://www.bffire.org/New/pine_glen_wildfire.htm

11 Mile Reservoir is a “human contact free” reservoir. This means that disgusting, polluting activities like sailing, swimming and SCUBA diving are banned, and pollution-free activities like dumping your oily motorboat exhaust into the water is allowed. Go figure. So the diver could not have been diving 11 Mile.

On the not-so-funny side of things, the guy I’m currently working with is up in his house in Cascade, emptying it out because it looks like it’s in the path of the fire :-(

Roak

Ps. Denver’s channel 9 has some good stuff on the fires: http://www.9news.com/

 

[metridium]

now that we know what a bad day away from work is like, anyone have any stories about a bad day AT work?

Just kidding....please no one ever post that jellyfish UL again.

 

[Scubaroo]

What jellyfish UL?

 

[cpalerm]

jellyfish UL?

I've never seen that one...