Are you on good terms with Lady Luck?

[Hank49]

I agree with the point Lynn made in the original post. Better preparation gear wise and training wise makes for safer dives. As I've gotten older...and read a lot of posts on here, I've become a more careful scuba diver.
Only thing is, I hardly scuba dive anymore. Now I only free dive spearfish, which I've been told (by our PFI instructor) is the most dangerous sport there is, bar none, even more than base jumping. So much for getting older and wiser....

 

[Bob DBF]

Are you on good terms with Lady Luck?

Yes I am, I don't rely on her to keep me safe and she doesn't give me the finger.

The closer you dive to the limits of your resources, whether it's gas, strength, experience, decompression, surface support or whatever, the larger a role you are allowing Lady Luck to play in how the dive comes out.

Without conceding that the opposite of preparedness is luck, I will agree that the closer you dive to your limits the greater may be the concequences. There are however, many divers that plan, with the thoughtfullness that you use, to make dives that you would not. Their training, skill, experience, and aversion to risk are different than yours and therefore their dives are different.

With that said, any yahoo that reads about these dives and makes them without proper preperation should have their head examined, assuming they survive.


Bob
-------------------------
I may be old, but I’m not dead yet.

"the future is uncertain and the end is always near"
Jim Morrison

 

[Quero]

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[Bombay High]

Interesting. Will you share the story and lessons learned on these deaths?

PM me if you are truly interested.

 

[flots am]

"Lady Luck" is a stone-cold bitch who will spend years making you feel invincible, then stab you just when she's made you believe she's your friend.

Happily I learned this when well within the no-deco limit.

flots.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Without conceding that the opposite of preparedness is luck, I will agree that the closer you dive to your limits the greater may be the concequences. There are however, many divers that plan, with the thoughtfullness that you use, to make dives that you would not. Their training, skill, experience, and aversion to risk are different than yours and therefore their dives are different.

With that said, any yahoo that reads about these dives and makes them without proper preperation should have their head examined, assuming they survive.

The problem is that even if the yahoo survives ... the less experienced diver who follows along because they admire the yahoo sometimes doesn't ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[flots am]

Without conceding that the opposite of preparedness is luck, I will agree that the closer you dive to your limits the greater may be the concequences. There are however, many divers that plan, with the thoughtfullness that you use, to make dives that you would not. Their training, skill, experience, and aversion to risk are different than yours and therefore their dives are different.

People seem to smooth over the huge distinction between a poorly executed deco dive and a poorly executed no-deco dive.

In the incident this thread seems to be discussing, the dive was "defective by design" since even without blowing the planned max depth, there was still insufficient gas for a safe ascent if anybody had any sort of failure, and arguably, insufficient gas for a safe ascent even without a failure.

On a no-deco dive, an OOA event would have caused nothing more than embarrassment and narcosis wouldn't have been a significant issue.

People seem to routinely ignore the huge difference in risk and required planning when diving near or past the edge of the no-deco table.

flots.

 

[ianr33]

To put it into perspective, there is believed to be only one person in the history of cave diving who died without violating one of the 5 basic rules of cave diving. Parker Turner was trapped when a cave-in cut off the exit, and his buddy was only able to escape when down to his last breath. Every other fatality involves someone who had no such training or who, for some reason, ignored that training.

That's an often quoted statistic but a bit misleading.Probably more accurate to say that's the only Cave Fatality that absolutely,totally,could not have been avoided.

There have been plenty of medical issues that caused fatalities. Liz Halbach was apparently within accepted limits but died from what appeared to be O2 toxicity. There was a fatality (double?) in Mexico due to contaminated gas.
2 divers died in 2004 in Cenote Calimba. The dive plan was questionable and they took a wrong turn for some reason but I *think* all the basic rules were followed.
I'm sure there are others.

 

[boulderjohn]

That's an often quoted statistic but a bit misleading.Probably more accurate to say that's the only Cave Fatality that absolutely,totally,could not have been avoided.

There have been plenty of medical issues that caused fatalities. Liz Halbach was apparently within accepted limits but died from what appeared to be O2 toxicity. There was a fatality (double?) in Mexico due to contaminated gas.
2 divers died in 2004 in Cenote Calimba. The dive plan was questionable and they took a wrong turn for some reason but I *think* all the basic rules were followed.
I'm sure there are others.

I accept your amendment.

 

[Red fins]

Ahhhh
Luck....

When learning a new skill, first we are miticulas (excuse spelling), then we are confidant....and then sadly comes complaysincy.
It's the latter that causes alot of accidents, and if the coin lands the right side up we end up having what I like to call "a pull your head in moment". This is where something happens that scares the @#$% out of you but you are able to learn from it. I think of it like the universe is telling me "make sure you are always aware of what you are doing, you are not invincable."

It goes for every new skill not just diving. Take driving for example, more people die from driving than diving because people become complasent.
"Pull your head in moments" though not plesent are very valuable, we can learn so much from them. They don't even have to happen to you to be able to learn from them.