Australian woman dead - South Africa

[Steve_C]

I am not sure what you mean... Underwater buoyancy is anything but intrinsically unstable once it has been mastered. And one shouldn't be doing 100m dives until that is the case.

Edit: on retread: I see the explanation is that addition/subtraction of gas is required. I would disagree that makes buoyancy intrinsically unstable, rather that it simply requires buoyancy to be managed.

In the technical sense a diver is unstable in that with no controller action they go up or down. Divers learn to stabilize the system with breathing and bcd. Once trained the closed loop system is stable. Since the controller is tuned with practice it is a type of neural net.

 

[tracydr]

This woman had a goal in mind. Isn't this one of the failings that Sheck warns about in his book, going too deep?200 dives is so few dives to be doing a dive like this, even if she started tech diving from right out of the starting gate. This is another prime example of needing the seasoning to go with the training. Very,very sad story. She may have had blinders on because of her desire to do the "ceolocanth" dive.Are there quite a few "deep freaks" in South Africa? I know that's where the man and woman deep record holder comes from and they dive with a local,private club. Perhaps this fosters a local attitude about deep diving? Maybe some wicked peer pressure?

 

[cerich]

I don't really care if it was peer pressure or peer stupidity. The fact remains that she was doing this as a warm up dive, 105 m a "warm up" dive, that's INSANE. Her previous deepest dive was 70 m and she wasn't good on that one so for sure a dive another 35 meters (that's 100 ft) was doubling down on stupid. Honestly her instructors/mentors that allowed, encouraged her should be charged with manslaughter.

The double wing thing is a PADI standard for DSAT tech with PADI, I disagree with that, others think it is a good idea. I understand their point of view but disagree. It sounds like a solution to issues but introduces more problems.

This woman had a goal in mind. Isn't this one of the failings that Sheck warns about in his book, going too deep?200 dives is so few dives to be doing a dive like this, even if she started tech diving from right out of the starting gate. This is another prime example of needing the seasoning to go with the training. Very,very sad story. She may have had blinders on because of her desire to do the "ceolocanth" dive.Are there quite a few "deep freaks" in South Africa? I know that's where the man and woman deep record holder comes from and they dive with a local,private club. Perhaps this fosters a local attitude about deep diving? Maybe some wicked peer pressure?

 

[ams511]

3. One of the frequently quoted ideas of technical diving is the concept of keeping things simple . . . although I'm sure we could get into a big discussion of it, there are people who feel that double bladder wings are not optimal for precisely this reason -- it's too easy to get confused about where the gas is, or where a malfunction is if one occurs. There are ways around that -- for example, the Razor double bladder uses only an oral inflate tube for the backup bladder, so you pretty much CAN'T be confused about where you are putting your buoyancy gas -- but the bottom line is that this is a more complicated gear configuration, and if she chose to use it, she should have been drilled until perfect on where she had put her buoyancy gas, and how to deal with runaway inflators on both bladders.

I didn't even know these things were still being made. I remember them being popular around 10 years ago with ridiculous buoyancy.

 

[johngayle]

To far too soon. Gain experience gradually " trimix, rebreathers 200 dives " herein lies the problem

 

[ajduplessis]

Deep open water dives should not be attempted without redundent/extra buoyancy. There is absolutly nothing wrong with dual wings/bladder systems. That said you dive with one LPI disonnected to avoid making mistakes/manage problems, or you combine the inflators together (inflate, deflate simultaneously). Some use drysuit as backup buoyancy, but they vent to slow for my liking and is another potetial problem to deal with. We are fortunate to have warmer waters as with this accident site and that makes the wet/semi dry exposure choice a lot easier IMO

I am not CCR skilled but what I understand of these systems is that they are "big wings" (counter lungs full of breathing gas) and therfore very buoyant and they require skill to vent, especially on rapid ascents??? Not sure if this added to her rapid ascent?

I am also unclear as to trimix certification. Normoxic allows you to max depth of 70m (her last "successful " dive) and advanced trimix taking you deeper. They state she has trimix cert, normoxic or advanced?? Looking at her 200 total dives and these will include recreational it would suggest normoxic, but that a guess. If normoxic holds true, what the hell was see doing at 300ft!!!!

I also dont unserstand how she received any form of technical cert if she is not able to hold depth while switching gas. This indicates that she already had problems with buoyancy long before trimix cert (way back to deep air).

This is a very sad story and I blame instructors,mentors and the people involve taking her on this "suicide trip"

 

[clownfishsydney]

Similar to what happened to Dave Shaw, a person who did course after course without really doing any dives to gain experience. HE went to 100 metres on about dive 175. Why do people want so much to do dives that should only be done by divers with 1000s of dives experience?

 

[PsyWulf]

How wreck diver died - KwaZulu-Natal | IOL News | IOL.co.za

More info
Was done on Open Circuit

 

[ajduplessis]

She also needed asisstance to set computer after gas switch on descent WTF!!! Here are just so much questions around experience, skills and guidance form everyone involved. I will rather not comment any further on the dive party and instructor(s). This is beyond shocking.

Unfortunately this is the very sad state of scuba instruction and education. Instructors will sign off on any course even thou core skills cant be executed. They then justify this shortfall as 10% they are allowed in course changes. I have witnessed instructors signing of full cave courses where the student cant even reach any of the valves (bm iso), can't complete no mask OOA swim or show them how to find guidelines if lost, no light. They only briefly talk about it.

 

[brnt999]

She also needed asisstance to set computer after gas switch on descent WTF!!! Here are just so much questions around experience, skills and guidance form everyone involved. I will rather not comment any further on the dive party and instructor(s). This is beyond shocking.

Unfortunately this is the very sad state of scuba instruction and education. Instructors will sign off on any course even thou core skills cant be executed. They then justify this shortfall as 10% they are allowed in course changes. I have witnessed instructors signing of full cave courses where the student cant even reach any of the valves (bm iso), can't complete no mask OOA swim or show them how to find guidelines if lost, no light. They only briefly talk about it.

She was a 44 year old woman. She is responsible for her own decisions and actions--no one else is.