Article: Self Reliance and Tech Diving

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Good Lord! It's SPANISH not LATIN! Lol

It took my almost a year of my wife (Mexican) and all of her friends writing that on Facebook before I realized what the hell it meant. Lol

Latin American?:idk:


(I always DID get that confused)

Latin: Carpe zythum

Spanish: Apoderarse de la Cerveza

:wink:
 
cervesa porfavor senor . . .
 
As a technical diver, I am all for self-reliance, but I am not sure I truly understand the degree to which the concept is being carried. Let me describe a real incident from a few years ago and get a reaction.

The situation was a deep technical dive in Croatia, and one man had the task of making all the trimix the night before. Because he was the one who mixed it, he made the simple error of not analyzing his own mix before the dive. He therefore did not know he had far too much O2 in his blend. At depth, he was lucky enough to have one of the warning signs. He recognized it, removed his regulator, and gave the "share air" signal. His buddy (Andrew Georgitsis) immediately donated his regulator, getting it to the diver's mouth just as convulsions began. It was a long, slow trip to the surface, with that diver seizing twice and sleeping most of the rest of the time. The diver recovered on the surface and had no permanent injury.

So, John, here is my question. Would you have donated your regulator as Andrew did, or would you have let him die as a proper consequence of his failure to analyze his mix?
 
As a technical diver, I am all for self-reliance, but I am not sure I truly understand the degree to which the concept is being carried. Let me describe a real incident from a few years ago and get a reaction.

The situation was a deep technical dive in Croatia, and one man had the task of making all the trimix the night before. Because he was the one who mixed it, he made the simple error of not analyzing his own mix before the dive. He therefore did not know he had far too much O2 in his blend. At depth, he was lucky enough to have one of the warning signs. He recognized it, removed his regulator, and gave the "share air" signal. His buddy (Andrew Georgitsis) immediately donated his regulator, getting it to the diver's mouth just as convulsions began. It was a long, slow trip to the surface, with that diver seizing twice and sleeping most of the rest of the time. The diver recovered on the surface and had no permanent injury.

So, John, here is my question. Would you have donated your regulator as Andrew did, or would you have let him die as a proper consequence of his failure to analyze his mix?

I wouldn't advocate letting this person die, but the scenario brings to mind what Mr. Chatterton stated....being responsible for yourself and not doing any dives you don't belong on. He failed to analyze his trimix. We learn to analyze every single tank that we're breathing from that contains a gas other than air, beginning with a basic nitrox class. I'm glad he was ok in the end, but he made a mistake and almost died because of it. I will not do a dive with a tank containing anything other than air without analyzing it. Taking an O2 hit is pretty much a guarantee of death. I would argue that someone doing a trimix dive who "forgets" to analyze his tank has no business diving with anything other than air, let alone trimix. Take responsibility for yourself. Don't do anything that will get other people killed, don't allow others to take actions that will get you killed and, most importantly, don't do anything yourself that will get you killed.


Kristopher
 
I wouldn't advocate letting this person die, but the scenario brings to mind what Mr. Chatterton stated....being responsible for yourself and not doing any dives you don't belong on. He failed to analyze his trimix. We learn to analyze every single tank that we're breathing from that contains a gas other than air, beginning with a basic nitrox class. I'm glad he was ok in the end, but he made a mistake and almost died because of it. I will not do a dive with a tank containing anything other than air without analyzing it. Taking an O2 hit is pretty much a guarantee of death. I would argue that someone doing a trimix dive who "forgets" to analyze his tank has no business diving with anything other than air, let alone trimix. Take responsibility for yourself. Don't do anything that will get other people killed, don't allow others to take actions that will get you killed and, most importantly, don't do anything yourself that will get you killed.


Kristopher

It sounds like you are saying that you are not ready for a dive unless you are infallible with respect to the parameters of the dive.

Also, why is there no need to analyze air fills?
 
It sounds like you are saying that you are not ready for a dive unless you are infallible with respect to the parameters of the dive.

Also, why is there no need to analyze air fills?

Rather than infallible, I'm suggesting that you shouldn't be doing dives unless you're responsible enough to be safe during the dive. It sounds like this guy blended his own gas (incorrectly) and then failed to analyze it. Both of these things suggest a serious lack of attention to detail that would make me uncomfortable diving with this guy on a 30' shore dive, let alone a Trimix dive. Analyzing the tanks that you're going to be breathing from should be a basic part of dive planning. Apparently it wasn't for him, which would make me wonder what else he would miss during the dive.

Whether or not air tanks need to be analyzed has been beaten to death in other places on SB. I feel that there is definitely a place for analyzing air tanks as well. Do I do it every time? No. I also take responsibility for not doing it every time.

Kristopher
 
Let me start by saying I enjoy the author's writing and get where he's coming from...not my own approach, but hey...I dive with people I care about so we don't do plans that have insufficient built-in reserves.


On a different note, let me say that after reading that article, I think that Chuck Norris would be afraid to ask for air from John Chatterton.

Personally, I'd be afraid to ask to share a taxicab ride.
 
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I also take responsibility for not doing it every time.

With that responsibility, would you simply lay back and accept the veil of death rather than going to John Chatterton and risk getting knifed, punched or kicked when you asked for him to share air? I highly doubt that all the people that "accept the responsibility" would simply welcome death because, well it is not appropriate to ask for help.
 
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With that responsibility, would simply lay back and accept the veil of death rather than going to John Chatterton and risk getting knifed, punched or kicked when you asked for him to share air? I highly doubt that all the people that "accept the responsibility" would simply welcome death because, well it is not appropriate to ask for help.

Of course I wouldn't simply lay back and die. I'm also not doing dives from which a CESA isn't possible without analyzed tanks and/or redundant gas from a different compressor. I don't think that anyone is just going to willingly lay back and die. I'm saying that responsibility covers making sure you can take care of yourself without having to mug some other guy for gas.

Kristopher
 
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