Split from Deep diving advice ... The Exley side-bar

[danvolker]

Dan,

I like what you are saying now, but how you said it earlier turned me off completely. In professional safety, I have been using Dr. David DeJoy's Human Factors Model for Accident Causation:



Note the "Decision-Making" component; it has Pre-disposing, Enabling and Reinforcing Factors. Your mention of peer group pressure comes under the "Reinforcing Factor" side of this model. But you ignore the other two, the Pre-disposing and Enabling Factors, in Sheck Exley's case. A person doesn't go through the process that Sheck Exley did without internal motivation. In his case, the Macro-task and Micro-task environments, as well as the
Ambient Physical Environment, where overall factors in him having a fatal dive. But the motivation cannot be external-only in such an endeavor. Accidents always have at their root causes multiple-causation. The group dynamics is a factor, but only one of many.

And, none of this has any relevance to diving deep on air (again, my definition of deep on air would be to the 120 foot level).

SeaRat

An Explorer like Sheck, or George, has a mission....they want to find the end of the cave system, or the new tunnel that connects, or the way out of the cave, into the ocean...or that Pyramid at the bottom of a Blue Hole...whatever....
They train for the mission, and they plan and prepare the right gear....At least the good explorers do....which was true of both George and of Sheck, except for the last few weeks in his life.
I had my own mission, with another deep diving pioneer friend of mine, Craig Suavely--we were shooting video of deep pinnacles off of Stuart and Fort Pierce, to Jupiter....probably Salt domes, that rose from around 400 or 500 , to as high as 200 feet deep....Craig had gotten stories from the old fisherman...Lost Elephants Graveyard ( Tarzan type stories) of these guys finding this spike 30 miles out, structure that just could not be there, but was....and it was covered in fish, and they filled up their boat with fish and had spectacular tales of this site for years to come. We dropped on numbers for close to 30 of these supposed pinnacles, and found 4 of them to be real...and covered in Oculina ( a deep water coral with it's own cool sub-environment of the marine life that lived on it). We did these dives in around 1995, on air, and they were hard---25 to 30 miles out, viz often to 8 feet or less, currents so large you both had to hold on to the float line to the surface, as the float was often pulling at over 3 mph, too fast for you to swim in doubles.
You get very excited about what you are accomplishing, and the story of the whole thing....

And this is where a guy like Sheck really needed to be with the right people--because you are so excited, and so suggestible to the romance of the story--of the enormity of the discovery and the adventure--you really DO need a VOICE OF REASON to keep you from becoming impulsive and stupid, no matter how cautious and well prepared you are. This is where the Explorer Gene makes you that much more like a little kid---the adventure becomes everything. Normal people.e are just not like this...not like the explorers. And so I was lucky to have the Voice of reason smacking me often, from my DIR buddies George and Bill , and the others that dove with us off Palm Beach to North Miami on the deep reefs and wrecks there. Some of my other friends, like Craig, were good divers, but not DIR....They would be interested, and very gradually try this and that.....
Craig was quiet and fairly introverted--he was an engineer for Pratt Whitney, and inventor of some very cool nozzles for Jet engines, etc...smart guy....The BUT...was that Craig would want to dive, when he wanted to dive.....and one day he wanted to dive a deep wreck off of Palm Beach --on a day I had to work--and so he went solo...This was a day with a huge ripping monster current, and the account from the boat captain, was that a minute from Craig splashing in, the ball started flying, and loading up like it would sink....for about 20 or 30 seconds...and then it popped up and the stress was off it...so the Captain figured Craig had missed the wreck...What had happened, we surmised, was that Craig came flying into the 280 foot deep wreck, tried to swim hard to get close enough to hook off, and built up so much CO2 that he got an Ox Tox hit and blacked out.

When I went looking for him the next day, with Nigel( another of the DIR group), I had the float line, the current was still ripping, we dropped at about 300 feet per minute, and I saw us flying up into the wreck---I swam fast forward so I would have slack ( but not fast enough to build any CO2 to speak of), and caught a big Hauser( huge rope) on the deck, and this stopped me from being swept over the wreck..in the next moment, the float got to the end of the line, and I was spun around, and almost felt like my shoulders would separate....this actually pulled the big float down to about 70 feet, where it actually hit our safety diver Jim Abernethy in the back---and he thought he had been hit by a shark at first

I was able to hook off the float....but in the next ten seconds, it straightened out the metal tines, and let go...so the float was gone.

Nigel and I decided to do a quick look along the wreck....and there was no sign of Craig...We passed the wreck...the current took us along, and we followed the bottom for about 8 more minutes to see if there was any bottom structure that would "catch" a dead diver...there was not. We did our Blow and go to 100.....Nigel sent up a lift bag...and we did a fast deco of about 30 minutes...the boat found us almost immediately.

If I had it to do over again, I would have pushed Craig more on our DIR ideas...I had met him freedive spearfishing, and he was a strong diver....but also used to doing solo stuff. As a buddy team, I don't believe the same result would have occurred....

I guess the point is that even these guys that are the "Explorers".....these guys are people.

They have friends and families, and if they die, there is a huge sense of loss ( and this loss should not have happened).

Craig's family almost lost their house, because the insurance company did not get to see a body....The family lost a loved one, I lost a good friend, and I decided for all future situations, if a "friend" of mine was talking about doing something that I knew was stupid, and he really did as well...there was no way I would just say--go ahead...your an adult--this would be tantamount to assisting in a suicide. If I really thought the plan was stupid, I would figure out a way to make my point.
I never did lose a close friend after this.....but I would continue to have friends, that would have "their friends" do something stupid, and die.....and I would end up doing more body recovery dives. Like the Jane Orenstein Tech diving death....or the IANTD Triple Death Tragedy with Andre Smith ( where Det John Claypool was one of the dead, and a close friend of my brother Kirk).

And so....I get preachy here on SB, as I did on rec. scuba, because if I did not say something, when I think it might have helped to prevent a death of someone not so far separated from me ( degrees of separation) , then I would be complicit in the death. And how we act in the peer group of our deep diving friends, is a big deal.

And this is why I have butted heads with a few of you guys about why I think sometimes you do have to be personally involved in helping your Explorer friends make good decisions. Because while a good explorer is heavily trained and prepped, and highly fit, and while he should have a good plan....sometimes the kid in him, the part in him that helps make him an explorer, needs a wake up call. Maybe you guys don't think the Antarctic explorers were worthy of friends, or the guy in the row boat just had no friends.....I don't know....What I do know, is that too many diving deaths, of tech divers and explorer divers, were deaths of friends--friends that should have had someone close to them, smacking them on the head, saying "what are you thinking", rather than getting some "poser" that cares about nothing but the TV story and the Fame, and that believes that the record is worth more than the life.

 

[DaleC]

...Maybe you guys don't think the Antarctic explorers were worthy of friends, or the guy in the row boat just had no friends.....I don't know....What I do know, is that too many diving deaths, of tech divers and explorer divers, were deaths of friends--friends that should have had someone close to them, smacking them on the head, saying "what are you thinking", rather than getting some "poser" that cares about nothing but the TV story and the Fame, and that believes that the record is worth more than the life.

It's really not that simple. Most people pushing limits do have friends and most of them are engaged in the same activities at a similar level or completely removed from them. They form small groups which hold the same objective and work secretively to achieve those goals. Outside of that, most limit pushers don't discuss their ideas widely for fear of someone scooping their success. Amundsen originally wanted the North pole but was beat by Peary. He set off anyways and even his crew was convinced that the north pole was their destination when he departed. Scott supporters were actually pissed at him for behaving dishonestly via his deception.

In any case, at a certain level, we have to stop blaming peer pressure for poor decisions. In diving I am fairly risk averse (except solo diving I suppose) because of my age but when I was younger I climbed in a far more aggressive manner. Many people told me to be "safe" but I dismissed almost all that advice as being from people who did not have a working knowledge of climbing, an uneducated opinion. From an educated POV, most climbers I measured myself against were actively pushing limits and that was the status quo. So much so, in fact, that I began solo climbing as a way of increasing my safety because peer pressure to go beyond my limits was almost irresistible. I also never told anyone what |I was going to do ahead of time to both avoid criticism and a feeling of failure if I did not achieve my goal. I suspect it was/is much the same in edgy diving circles.

If Sheck, or anyone else at that level, was being influenced by peer pressure it was their responsibility to address the issue, as harsh as that sounds. That's part of the game at that level and no one can give someone a pass on that responsibility because those pressures will always be an omnipresent force to contend with. You can't really change the world, you can only change yourself.

I understand what you are saying about having good friends present as a reality check but when I teach my kids to assess risk I always preach making good choices themselves.

 

[danvolker]

It's really not that simple. Most people pushing limits do have friends and most of them are engaged in the same activities at a similar level or completely removed from them. They form small groups which hold the same objective and work secretively to achieve those goals. Outside of that, most limit pushers don't discuss their ideas widely for fear of someone scooping their success. Amundsen originally wanted the North pole but was beat by Peary. He set off anyways and even his crew was convinced that the north pole was their destination when he departed. Scott supporters were actually pissed at him for behaving dishonestly via his deception.

In any case, at a certain level, we have to stop blaming peer pressure for poor decisions. In diving I am fairly risk averse (except solo diving I suppose) because of my age but when I was younger I climbed in a far more aggressive manner. Many people told me to be "safe" but I dismissed almost all that advice as being from people who did not have a working knowledge of climbing, an uneducated opinion. From an educated POV, most climbers I measured myself against were actively pushing limits and that was the status quo. So much so, in fact, that I began solo climbing as a way of increasing my safety because peer pressure to go beyond my limits was almost irresistible. I also never told anyone what |I was going to do ahead of time to both avoid criticism and a feeling of failure if I did not achieve my goal. I suspect it was/is much the same in edgy diving circles.

If Sheck, or anyone else at that level, was being influenced by peer pressure it was their responsibility to address the issue, as harsh as that sounds. That's part of the game at that level and no one can give someone a pass on that responsibility because those pressures will always be an omnipresent force to contend with. You can't really change the world, you can only change yourself.

I understand what you are saying about having good friends present as a reality check but when I teach my kids to assess risk I always preach making good choices themselves.

Dale, while I am not a rock climber, what little I do know about it, is that it is much more of a solo format for many of this sort of Explorer.

My Peer influence ideas and consensus concepts for diving may very well be worthless to Climbers, and to many other kinds of explorers...

Diving I do know....and in diving, we have a format for peer support and team based thinking, to make the adventures bigger, better and safer....and we call it DIR

 

[Diver0001]

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[danvolker]

I have to agree that air at 250 or 280, is not like any party drug --at least not in most of the ways....
One thing that I experienced, was that "if" I was feeling really buzzed ( particularly my first few 250 to 285 foot deep dives--and prior to these 160 was as deep as I had gone), if I was really feeling buzzed I could try to concentrate on feeling good, and able to control everything....that I could just focus and be calm, and enjoy the dive.....And, this would work for me...the alternative, that I would not allow for me, but I saw in several other dives over the years, is a bad feeling of a lack of control, then more concern for the lack of control, and fear, and then a full blown black narc....a sort of self fulfilling prophecy of sorts.
This is not to say I could be sharp at 285..but as long as I kept to my planned "mission", and this included a range of potential things to do, and when....I would feel like I was functional on the dive....

The key is to try to "control" your emotions and your focus, and to not let yourself start Chicken Little-ing ....that your sky is falling.
I can't say this will be true for everyone, but I have seen it to be true for many.

I think going to 135, then getting comfortable with this narc, can make 165 feel ok..and the scariness of the buzz should stay manageable....Next jump from 165 could be 185 or 200..and this is really the hardest one...because you are still sharp enough to be fairly aware about how impaired you are--and this tends to be disconcerting--and this could lead to the whole chicken little thing in some people....Now when you hit 280, assuming you are not one of the people that will have an O2 tox event at this depth....at 285 you are so buzzed, you don't care anymore...you are not nervous at all....you still have to pull it together though...and you have to make your mind keep focusing on the major mission parameters ) air supply/time down so far/what am I supposed to be looking for/where is my buddy/air supply/etc....you have to keep this running like a freight train in your head....and it helps to keep yourself convinced that you are in control, that everything is good. Since I tend to be an optimist, this is fairly easy for me....

While I am sharing this...I would also point out, that there are much SMARTER ways to dive deep today...and that getting a 280 foot deep nitrogen buzz is probably one of dumbest things any of us could plan to do

 

[boulderjohn]

And this is where a guy like Sheck really needed to be with the right people--because you are so excited, and so suggestible to the romance of the story--of the enormity of the discovery and the adventure--you really DO need a VOICE OF REASON to keep you from becoming impulsive and stupid, no matter how cautious and well prepared you are. This is where the Explorer Gene makes you that much more like a little kid---the adventure becomes everything. Normal people.e are just not like this...not like the explorers.

This concept and related thoughts has intrigued me for a while, and I am thinking about starting a new thread to focus on it. Verna van Schaik wrote a book called Fatally Flawed, about her own push to set the record for the deepest female dive. In the beginning, she asks a really good question: are people who do such things pushed to do so by an inner drive that might be best characterized as a fatal flaw? Unfortunately, the book does not go into that intriguing topic--it is just a biography.

I would like to go into that topic, and perhaps a separate thread would be the place to explore it.

Dan used the idea of an "explorer gene." I am not sure that is what it is, but I don't have anything better. I have long noticed in diving and in other life pursuits that there are different personality types. I am going to write the rest off the top of my head.

1. Some people I will characterize by a term I just made up: esters. They want to have the suffix -est affixed to some word describing them. It may be deepest, longest, shortest, fastest--anything. I am pretty sure Sheck was in that category. A perfect example was David Shaw, who set all sorts of records, breaking at least on of Sheck's, well before he recorded his fatal 336th logged dive.

2. I don't have a term for this, but some people have to feel they are very good at something, but without the compulsion to be the best. I have met a lot of people like this, and I think I am among that group. I can't stand to participate in an activity in which I am a mediocre to poor participant, so if I am involved in an activity, I will push it until I feel pretty good at it. I do not, however, feel I have to be among the very best. I think I am a pretty good scuba diver, but it does not bother me in the slightest to acknowledge that there are plenty of people who are far, far better than I.

3. There are people who are content to participate in an activity purely for the fun of it, with not a care in the world about their ability to perform at a high level. It does not bother them to know that they are mediocre or below in their ability. I think we are all like that with many activities that we screw around with, but some people can be like that in activities in which they spend a lot of time. Look at a golf course for examples.

4. I don't think anybody enjoys and continues an activity in which they feel they are performing badly.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

...1. Some people I will characterize by a term I just made up: esters. They want to have the suffix -est affixed to some word describing them. It may be deepest, longest, shortest, fastest--anything. I am pretty sure Sheck was in that category. A perfect example was David Shaw, who set all sorts of records, breaking at least on of Sheck's, well before he recorded his fatal 336th logged dive.

2. I don't have a term for this, but some people have to feel they are very good at something, but without the compulsion to be the best. I have met a lot of people like this, and I think I am among that group. I can't stand to participate in an activity in which I am a mediocre to poor participant, so if I am involved in an activity, I will push it until I feel pretty good at it. I do not, however, feel I have to be among the very best. I think I am a pretty good scuba diver, but it does not bother me in the slightest to acknowledge that there are plenty of people who are far, far better than I.

3. There are people who are content to participate in an activity purely for the fun of it, with not a care in the world about their ability to perform at a high level. It does not bother them to know that they are mediocre or below in their ability. I think we are all like that with many activities that we screw around with, but some people can be like that in activities in which they spend a lot of time. Look at a golf course for examples.

4. I don't think anybody enjoys and continues an activity in which they feel they are performing badly.

Good, Better, Best,
Never Let it Rest,
Until the Good is Better,
And the Better, Best.

Mrs. Wolf, my fifth grade teacher, taught this limerick to us, and I have never forgotten it. Unfortunately, this is a cultural construct, and one which can get us in trouble over the years. It can be used for greatness, or for daredevil attempts at stunts. I have used it to get into Pararescue, and to gain my Certified Safety Professional designation, and to get my MSPH degree, and to get in that process my Certified Industrial Hygienist designation. But I have also used it to attempt things that should not be attempted.

A good example was a fire we had when I was smokejumping. We were in a DC-3, over the fire and ready to jump. The jump supervisor looked at the ground conditions, and thumbed the jump. The winds were gusting between 35 and 45 mph, which was outside our safe envelope for the jump. We could not help on that fire, even though all of us wanted to jump onto it.

An example from my diving experience was a dive my buddy and I made at Rocky Creek State Park. Bruce and I looked at the Pacific Ocean waves for about 20 minutes before decided that they were dive-able. Our girlfriends watched as we submerged on December 8, 1974. We were in waves about 4-6 feet high, which we felt were manageable at the time. I have five pages of handwritten notes on this dive, but will condense it to a few sentences. "As we submerged, we were swept along a surge channel; swam right (north) to get out of it and found the rocks...Hung onto the rocks and was flipped each way violently. Lost hold--went to top of rock and found a hole. Tried to wedge myself into it (hole) but couldn't do it because Bruce was free and pulling. Decided to let go and get out..."

We surfaced, decided to exit, and in the process were rolled by a 20 foot wave. We were underwater in the surf for what seemed like ages, but was probably only seconds. When we came up, Bruce had lost his helmet and mask, and I had lost my mask from under a white-water kayaker's helmet with white stripes. We decided to abort the exit and stay out a while beyond the surf, as the waves were now running 18-20 feet. We ended up staying out hours, and getting picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard. They had seen the white stripes on my red kayaker's helmet, and were happy to at last have a live pickup.

A couple of months later, I met Bruce at the same place, and he and a different buddy were planning an almost identical dive, again with questionable conditions. I talked to them, and told them that they were not diving that day at that place. We hauled the dive gear back up to the parking lot, and went to Mo's Restaurant for some clam chowder.

So Dan, I agree about talking to a dive friend, companion, or even unknown divers about conditions you know are bad for diving, as I have done it. The image below is of that dive, before the wave. What I've learned is that if you ask yourself the question, "Should I dive this place?" that you shouldn't. The reason you are asking the question is that something in your mind is telling you that you should not do it--pay attention to it and thumb the dive.

SeaRat

 

[DCBC]

I didn't know Sheck that well; we met in Andros during a Cave exploration in 1971. We were the junior members on the team (me the most junior) . He struck me as a competent and confident diver who was goal oriented and determined. He was team oriented and had a remarkable tolerance to narcosis. He was a valuable team member. May he rest-in-peace.

 

[danvolker]

This concept and related thoughts has intrigued me for a while, and I am thinking about starting a new thread to focus on it. Verna van Schaik wrote a book called Fatally Flawed, about her own push to set the record for the deepest female dive. In the beginning, she asks a really good question: are people who do such things pushed to do so by an inner drive that might be best characterized as a fatal flaw? Unfortunately, the book does not go into that intriguing topic--it is just a biography.

I would like to go into that topic, and perhaps a separate thread would be the place to explore it.

Dan used the idea of an "explorer gene." I am not sure that is what it is, but I don't have anything better. I have long noticed in diving and in other life pursuits that there are different personality types. I am going to write the rest off the top of my head.

1. Some people I will characterize by a term I just made up: esters. They want to have the suffix -est affixed to some word describing them. It may be deepest, longest, shortest, fastest--anything. I am pretty sure Sheck was in that category. A perfect example was David Shaw, who set all sorts of records, breaking at least on of Sheck's, well before he recorded his fatal 336th logged dive.

2. I don't have a term for this, but some people have to feel they are very good at something, but without the compulsion to be the best. I have met a lot of people like this, and I think I am among that group. I can't stand to participate in an activity in which I am a mediocre to poor participant, so if I am involved in an activity, I will push it until I feel pretty good at it. I do not, however, feel I have to be among the very best. I think I am a pretty good scuba diver, but it does not bother me in the slightest to acknowledge that there are plenty of people who are far, far better than I.

3. There are people who are content to participate in an activity purely for the fun of it, with not a care in the world about their ability to perform at a high level. It does not bother them to know that they are mediocre or below in their ability. I think we are all like that with many activities that we screw around with, but some people can be like that in activities in which they spend a lot of time. Look at a golf course for examples.

4. I don't think anybody enjoys and continues an activity in which they feel they are performing badly.

I started writing an article on the something like this years ago, and never finished it....It might be worth while for both you and I to develop it....It was in the vein of the early "pathfinders" in each generation....and runs from distant past to present trail blazers in Dive Exploration.
Clearly Sheck would have been a mental picture contained in this.

 

[tracydr]

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I have just read the Bret Gillium blog titled,ZACATON: The Tragic Death of Sheck Exley


His death, and that dive, had nothing to do with "deep air." This was an extreme dive, which had been highly planned, and which used mixed gas. After reading this, some of the comments here (on this thread) about Bret Gillium seem to be very, very off-base.

SeaRat

Sheck was using mixed gas on that dive. However, there are many reports of dives to 300 feet on air. He went to Mexico in the 70s and dive some very deep caves. I believe he used air for these 300 foot explorations.
The book "Submerged", by Daniel Lenihan, talks about that trip. He says that he was diving to around 250 feet and Scheck was going down to about 300.

---------- Post added March 16th, 2014 at 09:03 AM ----------

Personally I am not going to consider much of a distinction between a deep air record, and a record for deep on Trimix..both are stupid beyond belief, Sheck knew better than to go for either, and the morons he was hanging around with, built this pursuit into something that hooked him.
The discussions of this were heavy back on Cavers and the tech list in the 90's....it was discussed to death. Bret was big on chasing depth records back in that time span, so whatever he has in this blog, it would almost have to be an attempt to make Sheck's attempt seem well planned--which by the result, was obviously not.

He certainly new better, since he also experience HPNS on a previous dive to Africa. That really bothers me. Why did he push that depth after already having huge problems at a lesser depth?