Article: Self Reliance and Tech Diving

[TSandM]

I totally agree -- being truly out of gas on a deep technical dive requires either an almost inconceivable degree of failure (manifold fell apart) or some really, really bad planning -- which should have been caught when the team went over the gas plan before diving. I can't even image doing a 200 foot dive without talking over the gas volumes and reserves each diver is carrying, and making sure the whole team agrees they are adequate. And the majority of gas loss problems are manageable without catastrophic loss, and given the reserves everybody is carrying, even after some loss, a diver should have plenty to abort the dive where he is, and move up on his deco schedule to the next gas switch. We still carry enough gas to help somebody do that, though.

I find it fascinating that John says one thing and Howard says he really meant something else. I think John is probably capable of saying what he means, and if he didn't mean what he said, he could have come here and told us that.

I don't do the dives he does, but I would approach them different if I did.

And the whole discussion is rather moot, anyway, because as far as I know, John's doing those deep dives on CCR nowadays.

 

[nakatomi]

And the whole discussion is rather moot, anyway, because as far as I know, John's doing those deep dives on CCR nowadays.

Well even if so, the discussion is not moot at all. Because what happens if someone comes to him wanting gas while he's on a CCR?
He loses his bailout gas, which is *his* life ensurance, not his buddies.

Oliver

 

[DaleC]

You've got it Oliver.

Some people are so stuck in their own POV that they simply refuse to concede common sense - which only makes them look like they lack it.

It's pretty plain that John did not mean he would refuse to help someone "on principle" or abandon them to their fate for no real reason; what he is implying was that he would not endanger his life to make up for someone else's failure to plan a deep technical dive.

Pretty simple if you leave the religion out of it.

 

[danvolker]

Back in the early and mid 90's, Bill Rennaker was going around DOING SEMINARS on "Every Man for himself Diving", as the intelligent way to plan dives.
You have just seen the Extended Range TDI manual nonsense that 99% of the TDI divers ignore as nonsense, the part that talks about the Hard Choices, etc.

In the early days of tech diving, there were these two extremes--the Every Man for Himself types, and the Team Diving types that became DIR or DIRish....( for lack of a better description).
In fact, many of us have experienced the kind of person that embraces Every Man for himself--whether back in highschool or college, at some point, most will remember some confrontation at a bar or party, where some friend that should have had your back, blasted off and left you....from then on you knew this person was not a real friend, and was not the kind of person to socialize with. The present day Diving Scenario is far more critical to appreciate.....you need to know when there are people on a dive boat with you, that could actually wear a tee shirt that says " If your in trouble, scr*w you--not my problem".....

There are plenty of solo divers on Scubaboard that would absolutely help a diver they saw in need. This Chatterton thread is not buddy diving versus Solo diving....it is rather about the choice to be willing to help, versus the choice to help only yourself, regardless if death would ensue for the diver you would ignore.

Take someone I don't get along with at all, like Dumpster Diver....he is solo...but after seeing videos of him and his son diving together, and how he is their for his son, as well as how he has related in past threads regarding other divers in the water----while I don't know if he would help me, I think he would help pretty much anyone else on this board, if they were in trouble on a dive....Chatterton has said flat out, Every Man for himself on a tech dive. Not just once, but many times, and then he has put it in context.
This was, and apparently still is the way some divers think.... I think this is reprehensible, as did George Irvine when he was crafting the main rules for the WKPP and for DIR.
In fact, the Don't dive with Strokes Rule ( aimed directly at Rennaker, but equally obvious, this would point at Chatterton)....is a rule that puts DIR diving EXACTLY AGAINST Chatterton. There is no diving with this guy....there is no even being on the same boat with someone you consider in this manner....
For the ages, here is the George Irvine definition of a stroke. It is not aimed at recreational divers or anyone here I could point at, with the single exception of Chatterton....:

WHAT IS A STROKE ?
by George Irvine

Very simply put, a "stroke" is somebody you don't want to dive with. It is somebody who will cause you problems, or not be any use to you if you have problems. Usually, this is a reflection of the attitude of a stroke, but that can be inherent in the personality of the individual, or others can teach it.

For instance, if somebody is taught that diving is an"every man for himself" sport, that you "can't help somebody deep," that "my gas is my gas," or "know when to leave your buddy," then that is somebody you do not want to be in the water with.
Some people are natural strokes, but all too many are created. Unfortunately, people believe best, what they hear first, and given the low-level food chain structure of dive instruction, most strokes are man-made, and are then hard to fix........"



So to me, Chatterton is not a person to be polite to. That would be hypocracy, and it would reek of the effeminate trimmings of a "politically correct" crowd, that considers polite ettiquette to be far more important than what a person really stands for, and more important than what this person would ever "do".

**** It is not fair to the GUE's here to be lumped together with me necessarily... I was DIR the way GI created it in the 90's, and my posting style is notably far more DIR than it is GUE

 

[Dr. Lecter]

If he's not diving with your team, what rational basis do "DIR" divers have for avoiding a boat that has a solo diver on it whose plan doesn't budget gas for your team's emergencies? You're plainly not diving with them, nor need you worry about them wanting to interact with you.

Not diving with someone you consider a liability is completely understandable (it's why a lot of us dive solo). Being a ing dick over a philosophical difference is another.

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I would help you Dan, or anyone if I was able. John said the same thing as well. He also talked about fighting and winning? It is all very confusing to me.

[video=youtube_share;pipTwjwrQYQ]http://youtu.be/pipTwjwrQYQ[/video]

 

[danvolker]

If he's not diving with your team, what rational basis do "DIR" divers have for avoiding a boat that has a solo diver on it whose plan doesn't budget gas for your team's emergencies? You're plainly not diving with them, nor need you worry about them wanting to interact with you.

Not diving with someone you consider a liability is completely understandable (it's why a lot of us dive solo). Being a ing dick over a philosophical difference is another.

Again....this is not an issue I have with solo divers... I have many friends that solo dive, and none of them have the disgusting "Every man for yourself" attitude.

I don't care that the solo divers are not planning to have redundant gas for stray OOA divers.....Each that I know, if they had one swim up to them OOA, would help immediately. That is what a good human being does.

Chatterton went on and on about how you should NOT help in many cases, on a tech dive...and put this in context...if I need to, I will go back and copy then paste his words here--but you read it, and you know it.

If some guy named Joe Smithe watched and did NOTHING as some girl was brutally raped in a parking lot--because he was afraid or just did not want to get involved, I would at the very least, Shun this Joe Smithe....the concept is the same...certain attitudes and behaviors can brand you as a pariah. I think the "Every man for himself" attitude and behavior is the kind of thing that should brand a person in this manner.

About 12 or 15 years ago, there was a dive instructor, actually Cave Instructor, that witnessed a girl tox and black out on a 185 foot or so dive off of Boynton Beach....he just kept swimming along, doing his dive, ignoring the potential he had to help her...Another diver, far less trained, and farther away, saw the girl tox, swam rapidly to get to her, passed this instructor, grabbed the girl and rapidly yanked her to the surface--CPR was performed, and she was resuscitated...This is third hand, and there may in fact be a SB member that was on that dive, that could provide more details...the name of the instructor was Peter. Peter also witnessed a cave death, and ignored it as well, as it would have spoiled his dive. this is a man that should have been shunned by every dive boat, and everyone in the dive community.


Then, there was the Jane Orenstein death... In it, tech instructor Derrick McNulty, had his buddy and student with him on ascent from a 280 foot dive. He did not watch her switch gas from bottom mix to travel gas at 100 feet, and missed that she went to her O2 bottle. Jane breathed the O2 from 100 feet, through the 50 foot, 40 foot, and 30 foot stops....at the 30 foot stop, she signalled she was low on gas, and McNulty waved her up to the 20 foot stop direction--she ascended by herself, and then McNulty watched her stop ascending, and begin a plunge downward.....He just watched as she began falling, and the 2 tech students below saw her dropping at their 50 foot stop, and one tried to chase after her, but could not equlalize, and had to stop....The instructor later said that he could not follow her, because he did not have enough gas to go after her and to rescue her.
Jane's boyfriend was a freediver I knew well, and he called my to find her body. George and Carmichael located her 24 minutes into the first dive, at 280 by the Coryn chriss....But they had to surface because she was too negative to lift.
I went down with George and brought Jane up on the second dive, and used less than a third of the gas that McNulty had remaining in his back gas, on his return to the boat. That is with George and I pulling a body so negative that ultimately it took 6 people to pull it up on the boat.
So this is another Pariah. He chose not to assist, it was every man for himself. Jane paid the price of diving with a person like this. If Jane had been my girlfriend, I would be in Jail right now because there would have been no force on heaven or earth that would have prevented my killing McNulty.

---------- Post added February 16th, 2013 at 08:28 PM ----------

I would help you Dan, or anyone if I was able. John said the same thing as well. He also talked about fighting and winning? It is all very confusing to me.

DD,
From Chatterton's first page in his article:
"If I am on a deep open circuit wreck dive (where I am not instructing students) I am not even using a long hose on my bottom gas. I am willing to help any diver manage a problem, buddy or not, however supplying gas to another diver, especially on the bottom, is unnecessary and incredibly dangerous for both parties. My secondary regulator is there for me, not you! If you try to take it from me, I will fight you for it, and I will win. That is my plan. There is no reason in the world for a deep diver to need gas from me on the bottom, much less jump me. Breathe your own damn gas, any gas, even the wrong gas, and return to the surface as quickly and safely as possible

Some people are trying really hard to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. He confirmed this as his stance in many posts in the thread so far..and in fact, the style of diving he engaged in on the Doria and the sub, was complete with many deaths, and with this EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF attitude, as prevalent --even part of the intrigue and the plot in Shadow Divers.

 

[DaleC]

Gee Dan, can you explain a situation wherein a diver might need someone else's gas on a deep technical dive (when it's not part of the agreed upon dive plan)? How many ignored failures would that imply? First you lose your primary gas, then you lose your reserve gas. Then you want someone else's reserve gas leaving them at risk.
And you object to someone objecting to that?

In fact, many of us have experienced the kind of person that embraces Every Man for himself--whether back in highschool or college, at some point, most will remember some confrontation at a bar or party, where some friend that should have had your back, blasted off and left you....from then on you knew this person was not a real friend, and was not the kind of person to socialize with...

Funny, my experience (as a fairly large strong guy) was of "buddies" who would assume I would have their backs in the bar and mouth off and act like complete A-holes; assuming I would put myself in harms way when someone naturally took offense.

On several occasions I had to remind some of those "so called" buddies that, if they caused **** THEY would have to deal with it not me.

Some of them whined about what a bad buddy I was; some accepted that they needed to amend their behavior or deal with the consequences. In both cases they knew I was not going to bail out their poor decisions.

Kind of like diving.

We often talk about the cowboy mentality that can exist with solo/individually oriented divers but rarely do I hear about the cowardice that can be masked by team diving.

---------- Post added February 16th, 2013 at 04:35 PM ----------

 

[nakatomi]

Back in the early and mid 90's, Bill Rennaker was going around DOING SEMINARS on "Every Man for himself Diving", as the intelligent way to plan dives.

I call complete BS on that one. What you're referring to, most likely, is that Bill has been teaching people to dive in side mount configuration for ages, which makes them very self-reliant.
And that's exactly what this whole thread is about and it wouldn't surprise me if you people gave him exactly the same flak. I don't know Bill very well but for all I heard he's highly respected in the cave diving community. The same can't be said about the other (no longer relevant) character you cited.

Oliver

 

[danvolker]

I call complete BS on that one. What you're referring to, most likely, is that Bill has been teaching people to dive in side mount configuration for ages, which makes them very self-reliant.
And that's exactly what this whole thread is about and it wouldn't surprise me if you people gave him exactly the same flak. I don't know Bill very well but for all I heard he's highly respected in the cave diving community. The same can't be said about the other (no longer relevant) character you cited.

Oliver

-----Original Message-----From: Lee Gibson and Lucy Bonilla [mailto:lonestar@alltel.net]Sent: Thursday, September 09, 1999 2:48 PMTo: Matt LondonCc: cavers listSubject: Re: Solo Diving Article, NACDI think some of you are missing the point of the "most important person"concept. Mr. Rennaker is just being honest about basic human nature.When things are the worst we all revert to our survival instinctsdespite the best intentions. Recent case, the Jackson Blue incidentalso detailed in the Journal (and let me emphasize that I am not sittingin judgment of these divers),three divers entered the system. At maximum penetration they had a siltout and lost communication with each other...they became solo divers.Two of them were able to regroup attempt a search and then exit...thethird was left behind. As the two exited their stress levels wereobviously elevated with self preservation being the priority. When theyreached their safety bottles, three full 80cf at 1000', neither diverelected to pick up the bottles and go back in to search some more....thethought of getting out was paramount and understandable. In all casesself rescue is better than buddy rescue and should be taught in thatorder.As for solo diving, it should be made as a cognitive choice not as anoutcome of circumstance. The divers at Jackson had no intention of solodiving, but for a time it occurred. Mr. Rennaker's article eludes tothese types of scenarios.....swimming or scootering too far apart, lossof visibilitywithout touch contact, long one-man restrictions, stressed or taskoverloaded diver....these scenarios are "solo dives" and should beavoided if you are not prepared for them. The other type of solo divingis intentional, even if a "buddy" is in the water. Small systemexploration being the best example. It requires special gear, training,and mind set. Solo diving can and is being done safely on a routinebasis by a small number of experienced cave divers. They just don'tadvertise or promote the activity...solo diving definitely is not foreveryone, but neither is cave diving for that matter.Lee GibsonMatt London wrote:> I was also appalled at this article and Mr. Rennarker and his> insistence on his "most important person" concept. The lack of proper> buddy system procedures, communication skills, equipment knowledge and> configuration, dive planning and the basic diving skills that is so> obvious in cave diving today is the direct responsibility of the> instructors handing out the certifications. Many people today seem to> be more interested in collecting "C" cards ASAP then learning the art> of safe cave diving. With all due respect it is my opinion that Mr.> Rennikers article is a prime example of what we don't want to teach> our students. Best regards M> Thailand's deep cave exploration at -> divefun.com - dive fun Resources and Information. This website is for sale!