Could the scuba community have done something more to prevent Guy Garman's death?

[Jules Verne]

I know that I am not alone in thinking that I could have said more, spoken louder, done something more, but that is mostly an expression of grief. The few REAL technical divers on St. Croix with whom I've spoken share my frustration. I do not know the Garmans but I have known the owners of the shop for more than two decades, and I watched the event unfold from my office window, and I can say that the excellent article by Andy Davis referenced elsewhere is a near perfect summation of the mindset and logical fallacies subscribed to by almost all the players:

A Fatal Attempt: Psychological Factors in the Failed World Depth Record Attempt 2015

 

[kr2y5]

If the crux of the problem is the lack of communication between the knowledgeable part of the community, and the people involved in the dive, is there something that could have been done better communication-wise? I have no idea who reached out to them and how, but some of what I've seen here resembles the following.

A: " I'm going to do X, yay! "

B: " You're obviously a complete idiot, and you have balls the size of peanuts. "

(A does it anyway and dies)

B: " I've done everything I could to stop it. "

Many expressed, whether explicitly or implicitly, the belief that enough derision and outrage will prevent such attempts in the future. I wonder...

 

[Jax]

kr2y5,

Why are you trying to make this someone else' problem?

No one, but NO ONE, has the right to control another human being. The fact that this guy was in full control of his facilities and made this decision has nothing to do with the rest of us!

The man was trained. His ego overrode common sense and experience. NOT OUR FREAKING BUSINESS to regulate him.

 

[boulderjohn]

If you read enough threads in ScubaBoard in which people express an interest in doing something that experienced tech divers feel is foolish, you see a familiar pattern.

Diver: Even though I'm a relative beginner, I'm good enough to do ABC, and that is what I want to do.

Community: Don't do it! What you want to do is unsafe without more training and better equipment than you have.

Diver: Oh, you guys and your elitist crap! You want everyone to think that it's all so tough so you can feel good about yourselves. It's no big deal.

Community: No, seriously! It's a big deal! Get some more training so you will see why!

Diver: I get it. It's just some tech instructors trying to make a buck by making people pay for unnecessary training.​

There used to be a couple of threads exactly like this related to cave diving, but ScubaBoard has pulled them in accordance with its policy of not allowing people to advocate cave diving without proper training.

Take a look at the threads that preceded this fatal attempt. Yes, you will see that more than a few ScubaBoard posters said clearly it was a bad idea. On the other hand, more than a few also pooh-poohed the warnings and celebrated his spirit of adventure.

 

[kr2y5]

kr2y5, Why are you trying to make this someone else' problem?

Jax, you probably did not mean it that way, but the reply above sounds somewhat accusatory, and it projects onto me negative intentions. I have no such intentions. As stated earlier, I do not think anyone besides Guy bears any responsibility, moral or otherwise, for his actions, so no, I am certainly not trying to assign blame to anyone.

As far as making it other people's problem, it seems to me a lot of people here have made it their problem. Besides, what does this really mean?

Rather than approaching things like this from the "blame" mindset, I prefer to approach them from a constructive mindset, and in this context, the question seems perfectly relevant to me...

No one, but NO ONE, has the right to control another human being. The fact that this guy was in full control of his facilities and made this decision has nothing to do with the rest of us! The man was trained. His ego overrode common sense and experience. NOT OUR FREAKING BUSINESS to regulate him.

There is a difference between "controlling" someone vs. simply influencing them to do something differently. My question was whether there might have been a better strategy for influencing the person to not do what they set out to do, or a better way to communicate with them. The reason I asked is, because I thought a lot of what I saw on SB seemed pretty heavy-handed and counterproductive.

If you see your distant relative or friend drinking himself to death, and you care, you might ask yourself whether you can talk the person out of it even though you bear no responsibility for their actions. That's not "controlling".

As I said, I have no idea whether someone tried to reach out to them directly, and what they experiences were. If someone did, I would be very much interested in hearing how this all went down, not with the intent to criticize, but to learn something valuable from the experience.

Likewise, there is a difference between being "responsible" or "to blame" for someone's actions, and voluntarily doing something to prevent that from happening. Do you think nobody has the right to even make a try to influence another person? Probably not...

... and if so, why would it be a wrong question to ask whether the influencing strategy adopted in this case was the most productive it could have been?

Andy's article included a section about groupthink, suggesting that Guy surrounded himself with folks who are unlikely to criticize him... if the community were to heed its own advice, perhaps instead of concluding that everything that could've been done was done the best it could've been, it does make sense to pause and ask, what could've been done better.

 

[Steve_C]

Recently we had a young man stand next to a sign warning about alligators, the marina operator warned him about alligators, he essentially said xxxx the alligators, and jumped in. Alligator quickly had lunch.

The advice and experience was out there. He chose to ignore it.

May not be relevant but my dad was a military pilot in the big war and flew for many years after. He always said that lawyers and doctors had the worst safety records of civilian pilots. Thought they were special. Tended to push the envelope more often in terms of weather, etc.

Mother nature does not care whether you think you are special or not. She also does not care if you live or die. She does her thing.

 

[RJP]

just wondering whether anything could've been done, or done differently, to prevent it.

You can't deter the determined.

 

[boulderjohn]

Another factor that was involved in the leadup to this is that the technical diving community as a whole (as whole as those scattered fragments can be) had very little knowledge of the details of the plans. Much of what we know now and are discussing in relation to his death only came out either immediately before the dive or just after. This includes the amount of gas being taken, the fact that he was wearing a wet suit, etc. Things that would have raised red flags earlier were not well publicized.

 

[Jax]

Jax, you probably did not mean it that way, but the reply above sounds somewhat accusatory, and it projects onto me negative intentions. I have no such intentions. As stated earlier, I do not think anyone besides Guy bears any responsibility, moral or otherwise, for his actions, so no, I am certainly not trying to assign blame to anyone.

As far as making it other people's problem, it seems to me a lot of people here have made it their problem. Besides, what does this really mean?

Rather than approaching things like this from the "blame" mindset, I prefer to approach them from a constructive mindset, and in this context, the question seems perfectly relevant to me...



There is a difference between "controlling" someone vs. simply influencing them to do something differently. My question was whether there might have been a better strategy for influencing the person to not do what they set out to do, or a better way to communicate with them. The reason I asked is, because I thought a lot of what I saw on SB seemed pretty heavy-handed and counterproductive.

If you see your distant relative or friend drinking himself to death, and you care, you might ask yourself whether you can talk the person out of it even though you bear no responsibility for their actions. That's not "controlling".

As I said, I have no idea whether someone tried to reach out to them directly, and what they experiences were. If someone did, I would be very much interested in hearing how this all went down, not with the intent to criticize, but to learn something valuable from the experience.

Likewise, there is a difference between being "responsible" or "to blame" for someone's actions, and voluntarily doing something to prevent that from happening. Do you think nobody has the right to even make a try to influence another person? Probably not...

... and if so, why would it be a wrong question to ask whether the influencing strategy adopted in this case was the most productive it could have been?

Andy's article included a section about groupthink, suggesting that Guy surrounded himself with folks who are unlikely to criticize him... if the community were to heed its own advice, perhaps instead of concluding that everything that could've been done was done the best it could've been, it does make sense to pause and ask, what could've been done better.

You are committing the logic fallacy of "begging the question". The classic example is, "Have you stopped beating your wife?" The answer is impossible because the assumption is that someone was beating their wife.

You are beating the horse of "someone could've, should've, ought to've" done something in phrases that beg the question. Everyone is answering "no", but you just rephrase it.

"Could the scuba community do more . . " assumes (a) the "community" could do more, and also begs the question that "the community" could've, should've, ought to've don anything.

Now you have - if the report is correct and I believe the source - the authorities (eg., CG) "looking into this". That is NEVER good.

(1) How much did it cost the Coasties to recover the body? How much is the runtime operation cost of a USCG vessel? It's crew?

(2) When does anyone have the right to "voluntarily doing something to prevent that from happening"? How about, never? We are talking interference here, not influence.

"Dr Deep" (oh, puh-lease) made his decisions. "planned over several years". He was trained and therefore was capable of understanding the risks he incurred. Enough people expressed their disgust and reservations to his plans when the video was released.

I say, "Enough!" He is a grown man who certainly knew what he was doing was horribly risky. He was screwing with this for at least two years. There comes a point where enough has been said and their is ZERO responsibility for stopping anyone else choosing to do a stupid thing.

We are already over-burdened with laws in this country and viewpoints like yours lead the uninformed to think someone could've, should've, ought to've done something.

 

[tomfcrist]

There is a difference between "controlling" someone vs. simply influencing them to do something differently. My question was whether there might have been a better strategy for influencing the person to not do what they set out to do, or a better way to communicate with them. .

Do you really think a discussion online is going to change a persons mind about a thing like this? Especially on Scubaboard? When was the last time you saw someone have that lightbulb moment when arguing a point of view on this board?

It would have taken a personal relationship and he would have had to view your opinion as pure gold before he decided to change his mind on this deal.