Tribute to Dave Shaw

[sebach]

I lost the start of the answer I was writing on my phone. I will respond when back at home with a computer. Tomorrow at the earliest.

 

[Scott from LongIsland]

I'm sorry if that sounded snide that was not my intention at all.
I read multiple accounts of the incident including a written report from his rescue diver who is now suffering from lifelong medical issues due to the bends. My point of view is exactly that, a point of view.
A story I read about Dave Shaw which detailed his diving experiences (I am not 100% sure of its authenticity but if I can find it I'll post it) reported that as a pilot with Cathy Pacific, Dave Shaw did not have a lot of deep diving experience behind him and his friends commented on how much of an adrenalin junkie he was, always wanting to go deeper and push his limits further. It mentioned that Dave read about the body of a diver which was discovered in the hole and had made up his mind to recover it regardless of the extreme depth.
Again, I cannot quote the exact article nor confirm its authenticity.

---------- Post added May 8th, 2014 at 11:23 PM ----------

I suggest you read a more indepth article of Dave Shaw here Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving Web Site

I think that you have the timing of his choices/decisions a bit backwards.

From what i recalled in the book...he chose to dive the hole b/c of its depth and when he hit his depth goal he happened to see the body there. Until then, nobody knew what happened to Deon Dreyer's body or where it was in the hole. Dave was the person who discovered the body.

THEN he chose to return and recover the body on dive #2 to that depth. I may be mistaken but I do not think that his first dive there was to recover Deon's body. It was just to go to his desired depth.

 

[Mike.D]

I believe I stand corrected!

 

[sebach]

Sebach, I think you will find that I have about 4 times the diving experience you have, albeit I do not dive rebreathers.

Well, I fail to see how it would be relevant.
Actually, it seems part of the problem : on this article, you seem to rely only on your experience. And as far as you are indeed an experienced open water diver, that doesn't make you a reference on what is normal practice or not in the fields you don't know (deep diving, caves, rebreather). Even in open water diving, you weaken your demonstration by comparing his actions with yours, whereas if he may be a bit fast to go there, you, on the contrary were quite slow.
Examples:
- diving at 30+ meters is something than can be done within the Padi system with less than 20 dives. Waiting your 159th is not the norm, bur just your personal preference.
- Diving at 60 m is something that can be done, in the French system (but I guess in a lot of other system), when you're a 3 star divers. I didn't rush it, so I was certified 3 stars on my 113th dive and waited the 180th to go to 57 meters. But it is not unusual at all to be such certified between 60 and 100 dives (like a DM), and do 50+ meters dives well before 100 dives. Waiting your 421st is just your personal preference.
- Diving in twins is not something complicated that someone with 30 dives can't do (while I would more agree with this judgment about the bailout tank).
- Diving 2 times a day at 51m is not reckless per se. It would depend on the deco occurred on each dive and the surface interval. I've done it a lot of times (and I have a lot of friends who've done it also). On a rule of thumbs up to 70m, my 2nd dive can be up to 60m, up to 80ish meters, my 2nd dive can be up to 40ish m, deeper than 85m, no second dive. And I know a whole lot of French divers doing exactly the same, with no accidents (I won't do that for more than a week, buts I've got friends who did that 2 weeks on a row.
- Diving in Mexico's cenote is not an indication per se that a diver has no experience of no visibility. You can easily get no visibility in caves (of course you shouldn't in cavern dives): haloclines, silt in places with low ceilings, etc...
- Diving deep cave just for ego-driven divers. Well, I don't want to go on personal attacks about ego. But I obviously see other reasons, the main being the pleasure of pushing the limits on discovery (either one's limit or that cave limits, and the pleasure to be the first). Just as when you are the one who discover an unknown wreck, especially if you have looked for it for a long time.
- Arguments about the deep rebreather dives: as you have no idea about the bailouts set-up, you have no way to assess the risks.

To sum it all, for the sake of finding a lot of arguments on your thesis, some of the are pretty weak, and it taint all the demonstration (even if in the end I can't approve the last part of his diving career).

My experience in investigating diving accidents/incidents has been recognised by courts and I have been asked to advise police on diving deaths.

I hope that it was in cases which were related to your experience, and that your conclusions were based on the facts, on the general consensus on the subject, and not on your mere own feelings and personal preferences.

As a senior law enforcement officer, expert on my field and recognized as such in other countries and international organizations, I know by experience that there are good and bad experts. To me, the worse ones will be those who, for the sake of an argument will torn the facts, and those who fails to realize that they're out of their league and making "expert" comments on a subject where they are hardly an expert at all.
Even if at the end we can agree on the final conclusion.

 

[clownfishsydney]

Just because I do not dive a rebreather, does not mean I do not know how they work or the risks involved. In fact, I would say that it shows I fully understand them and have made a decision that to dive a rebreather is way above the level of risk I am prepared to accept. This also goes for diving to extreme depths, in or outside a cave. This also applies to things like stage tanks.

I have many friends who dive rebreathers and come out on my boat. They are happy to accept the risk this involves, I am happy to accept this risk as the boat owner. I would not accept the risk as a diver.

 

[DeepSeaDan]

Greetings,

I was 10 years in the offshore oilfields as a commercial diver, doing, amongst other things, deep saturation diving. When I read Dave Shaw's story, I admired his & the other participants gesture, & the guts it took to attempt such a feat; however, I lamented his/their lack of understanding of just what it is like to "work" at that depth of water. I'm uncertain as to whether Dave or any of his team consulted with experienced deepsea divers when planning this venture, but my guess would be that they did not.

Should I have been asked for an opinion, I would have said that the depth & task was beyond the limits of the chosen apparatus. If they still insisted on attempting the recovery, I would have advised them to simply take a line to the body, clip on to an accessible d-ring, then leave bottom immediately, and perform a staged lift of the remains in another series of dives. What Mr. Shaw was attempting to do ( "bag" the body ) was far too much physical work for his physiology, & the system he was breathing from, at that great depth. Diving at such depths is very fatiguing very quickly, requiring shortened periods of exertion & frequent rest times - factors not possible in Dave's dive plan, with the diving technology utilized.

Hopefully, his death will serve as a cautionary tale to others contemplating such missions.

Regards,
DSD

 

[clownfishsydney]

DeepSeaDan, exactly the points I have made in my article about his death.