Another fatal record attempt in Lake Garda, Italy

[stretchthepenn]

This thread's discussion about the merits/stupidity of pushing depth limits is interesting.

A lot of posters have claimed, and I agree, that ultra-deep dives just for the thrill of it are foolish. These seem like an expensive and labor-intensive way to off oneself in a well-publicized way.

But I also find it ironic that technical divers -- people who exceed the "safe" limits of recreational diving --make up a lot of the posters who've argued most vociferously against these deep, limit-pushing dives. Maybe this position comes from knowing and understanding the risks of beyond-the-envelope dives, but all the same, the dichotomy strikes me as fascinating.

 

[Superlyte27]

This thread's discussion about the merits/stupidity of pushing depth limits is interesting.

A lot of posters have claimed, and I agree, that ultra-deep dives just for the thrill of it are foolish. These seem like an expensive and labor-intensive way to off oneself in a well-publicized way.

But I also find it ironic that technical divers -- people who exceed the "safe" limits of recreational diving --make up a lot of the posters who've argued most vociferously against these deep, limit-pushing dives. Maybe this position comes from knowing and understanding the risks of beyond-the-envelope dives, but all the same, the dichotomy strikes me as fascinating.

I think it’s dumber to smoke a pack of cigarettes per day than diving deep. But millions do it. I think it’s retarded to get in a car and drive after you’ve been drinking, but many do it. I think it’s ludicrous when single mothers shack up with a guy they’ve known for mere days and we hear of the child abuse/rape/deaths that ensue, but it happens all the time. But a diver pursuing a depth that he’s passionate about, eh, who cares? Certainly not me.

 

[ginti]

I think it’s dumber to smoke a pack of cigarettes per day than diving deep.

We are not speaking about deep-diving here, but about ultra-deep diving, deeper than 240m or, at least, close to that (the dive of this thread's accident was planned to be deeper than 224m).

Two different beasts.

 

[Wibble]

But I also find it ironic that technical divers -- people who exceed the "safe" limits of recreational diving --make up a lot of the posters who've argued most vociferously against these deep, limit-pushing dives. Maybe this position comes from knowing and understanding the risks of beyond-the-envelope dives, but all the same, the dichotomy strikes me as fascinating.

The deeper I go, the more I respect how quickly the risks increase and how much it depends upon excellent skills, as in thoroughly practised and automatic. Redundancy--bailout--becomes very difficult the deeper you go, to the extent that extreme dives may choose to not have sufficient bailout, yet it's precisely that which kills people.

Can't speak for others, but I know how long I've been diving and how much I still need to improve. I also know that the deeper you go the longer you need to decompress. That in itself is a limiting factor.

Doing a bounce dive with 12+ hour decompression hang with a very high likelihood of death purely to get a selfie just seems to be a massive ego trip.

 

[Vicko]

I find the arguments against and for motivation to do a dive like this rather pointless. People do a lot of pointless things that from their perspective had a point.
Much more interesting thing here is that in 4 years (2 of which there were no attempts due to covid lockdowns) 5 people died trying to achieve a world record using the exact same gear and procedures, at the exact same location, surrounded by the same friend group. 3 of them died from a equipment malfunction at extraordinary depths (if I recall correctly 2 scooter failures but don't quote me on that), and 2 of them died from hypoxia at very shallow depths. Let's not forget the Open Circuit guy who also died entangled at 60m during deco after reaching the bottom, so now we are at 6 fatalities related to depth diving records.
The only thing that changed since the first (successful) WR attempt it that they dropped the bailout rebreather as there was no way of switching to it due to ,what I'm guessing is) HPNS and hypercapnia.

 

[doctormike]

I think it’s dumber to smoke a pack of cigarettes per day than diving deep. But millions do it. I think it’s retarded to get in a car and drive after you’ve been drinking, but many do it. I think it’s ludicrous when single mothers shack up with a guy they’ve known for mere days and we hear of the child abuse/rape/deaths that ensue, but it happens all the time. But a diver pursuing a depth that he’s passionate about, eh, who cares? Certainly not me.

Right, but the difference is those things are not considered worthy and admirable goals, cheered on by onlookers and other interested parties, and sponsored by financial backers. There is no cultural or tribal glory associated with smoking or drunk driving.

I guess these deaths are a pretty minor numerical addition to the overall morbidity and mortality of scuba. I have tried to explain upthread what I consider the distinction between depth records and other types of diving goals, but that's a bit of nuance that easily gets lost.

Like I said, no laws here, just community opinion and consensus. So that's what's behind my posts, even though I'm nowhere near the diver that a lot of people jn this thread are...

 

[boulderjohn]

But I also find it ironic that technical divers -- people who exceed the "safe" limits of recreational diving --make up a lot of the posters who've argued most vociferously against these deep, limit-pushing dives.

In everything we do, we assess the risk before we start, and the amount of risk depends greatly upon the individual. For me, stepping into the ring for a heavyweight fight against the current world champion would be a very foolish risk, but it would not be nearly as risky for a top contender.

Technical diving training focuses upon learning to deal with the risks of that kind of diving. For a typical OW diver, going deeper than 200 feet is a foolish risk, but for a well trained and properly equipped technical diver, it is usually a simple dive.

For a very skilled OW diver, entering a cave is a foolish risk, but for a certified cave diver, a mainline dive with maybe a jump or two is safe. Have that same basic certified cave diver do a more complex dive with restrictions and multiple jumps, and the risk starts heading toward foolishness.

 

[boulderjohn]

Adding to my previous post about risk and the individual's preparation for it.....

Everything we do in life has an element of risk, and for more than 99% of those activities, that risk is negligible. That means something really unusual and unexpected has to happen for it to have an impact. Keith Relf, vocalist for the Yardbirds, died of electrocution while practicing his guitar in his basement. You can't expect something like that.

Some activities involve greater risk, and many of those activities usually involve training to prepare for those risks, and people who complete that training lessen that risk considerably, perhaps to the point that what is risky for others has negligible risk for them.

Then there are activities that are very risky for even the most highly trained individuals. I mentioned earlier that there was a time when the most highly trained and experienced mountain climbers in the world knew at the beginning of a major ascent that they had a 1/3 chance of dying. I think trying to set a deep dive record is in this category. The overwhelming majority of people would not consider an activity with that level of risk. When people do make such an attempt, we are justified in asking about the motivation behind it.

 

[boulderjohn]

When the National Speleological Society (NSS) added its cave diving section (NSS-CDS) about a half century ago, the man who led it (Sheck Exley) created and edited its newsletter, using the crude technology available at the time. Eventually, the NSS-CDS decided to digitize those old newsletters, which was not easy. They had to scan printed copies using Optical Character Recognition, a process that produced a lot of errors. That meant people had to go through the scanned results and correct those errors one at a time.

I was one of those people.

As I did it, I was struck by the fact that Sheck chose to include a section on cave diving records (longest penetration, depth, etc.) He made a lot of different categories for records, so a lot of names appeared as record setters. It should not surprise anyone that his name appeared many times in those categories.

For those who don't know, Sheck held the world record for deepest dives several times in his all-too-brief diving career, and he died on a record attempt in a cave in Mexico. Ironically, he was also the author of a book (Basic Cave Diving: A Blueprint for Survival) that is still used today in teaching safe cave diving methods. His rules for safe cave diving are universally credited with making cave diving as safe as it is today, and yet he was knowingly breaking those rules every time he tried to set a record.

 

[ginti]

Then there are activities that are very risky for even the most highly trained individuals. I mentioned earlier that there was a time when the most highly trained and experienced mountain climbers in the world knew at the beginning of a major ascent that they had a 1/3 chance of dying. I think trying to set a deep dive record is in this category. The overwhelming majority of people would not consider an activity with that level of risk. When people do make such an attempt, we are justified in asking about the motivation behind it.

Exactly!