Diver dead on the Andrea Doria

[ScubaSteve]

There were 3 rebreather divers who died last week (two on the same boat on different dives). I have to wonder if, they would still be alive today if, they had been using an open-circuit system and tri-mix. I also have to wonder what happened to the team on the AD dive. It looks to me that the tech community needs to step back and take a hard look at what they are doing

You are throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The fact that they were diving rebreathers has nothing to do with this unless we know it was equipment issues. I think the tech community would always benefit from a sanity check of the training programs but am not prepared to say it needs to be changed simply because there were a couple rebreather deaths.

Would you say the same had they been OC? Sidemount?

 

[padiscubapro]

There were 3 rebreather divers who died last week (two on the same boat on different dives). I have to wonder if, they would still be alive today if, they had been using an open-circuit system and tri-mix. I also have to wonder what happened to the team on the AD dive.
It looks to me that the tech community needs to step back and take a hard look at what they are doing

I am working on both these investigations and will post information once I am allowed to. I have examined one rig so far and have complete dive data, the second rig will be examined within a few days. I have no idea when and what information will be allowed to be released.

 

[down4fun]

There were 3 rebreather divers who died last week (two on the same boat on different dives). I have to wonder if, they would still be alive today if, they had been using an open-circuit system and tri-mix. I also have to wonder what happened to the team on the AD dive.
It looks to me that the tech community needs to step back and take a hard look at what they are doing

people die. People die on scuba at recreational depths, people die on trimix o/c and people die on ccr. It seems that there is an inflammatory response to ccr deaths and much of the non-ccr population is quick to jump on that band wagon. Truth is there are many people completing very complicated deep dives on a regular basis on ccr. Read the thread titles on here and almost everyday you can find a recreational scuba death thread. The deep ccr deaths just seem to attract the spotlight. I'm not saying it's without risk, but neither is o/c scuba, driving your car or eating fast food.

 

[Thalassamania]

I think I'm on pretty safe ground to suspect that the (number of CCR fatalities)/(number of CCR dives) > (number of Open Circuit fatalities)/(number of Open Circuit dives).

 

[Jax]

I think I'm on pretty safe ground to suspect that the (number of CCR fatalities)/(number of CCR dives) > (number of Open Circuit fatalities)/(number of Open Circuit dives).

This may be true, but (Risk level on dives taken by CCR divers) >> (Risk level on dives by OC divers).

 

[down4fun]

I think I'm on pretty safe ground to suspect that the (number of CCR fatalities)/(number of CCR dives) > (number of Open Circuit fatalities)/(number of Open Circuit dives).

And I would agree. I didn't say we have less deaths per dives completed. However the poster that I quoted (see below) states that he wondered if these divers might be alive if they were o/c instead of ccr. To me, and this is just my useless opinion, he is echoing the hype the ccr's kill. And I disagree. I believe people using ccr for the tool that it is, are making dives at the far end of the risk scale and in accordance with, a certain percentage are going to die. It's just statistics and not some inanimate machine killing people.

I, for one, have already completed some deep, what people would consider outrageously risky dives on ccr, dives i could not have done o/c. Had I perished during such a dive people would point to the ccr. Is it the machine or did the machine merely provide the means for me to get to such a risky point?

There were 3 rebreather divers who died last week (two on the same boat on different dives). I have to wonder if, they would still be alive today if, they had been using an open-circuit system and tri-mix.

 

[cerich]

people die. People die on scuba at recreational depths, people die on trimix o/c and people die on ccr. It seems that there is an inflammatory response to ccr deaths and much of the non-ccr population is quick to jump on that band wagon. Truth is there are many people completing very complicated deep dives on a regular basis on ccr. Read the thread titles on here and almost everyday you can find a recreational scuba death thread. The deep ccr deaths just seem to attract the spotlight. I'm not saying it's without risk, but neither is o/c scuba, driving your car or eating fast food.

let me fix that for you

"people die. People die on scuba at recreational depths, people die on trimix o/c and people die on ccr. It seems that there is an inflammatory response to ccr deaths and much of the ccr population is quick to jump on that band wagon. Truth is there are many people completing very complicated deep dives on a regular basis on ccr as theer are OC. Read the thread titles on here and almost everyday you can find a recreational scuba death thread or a CCR death, hardly ever a OC tech diving death."

I did the above partly in jest but also to make a point. Look I was around and actively diving and teaching tech in the early days of formalized "technical" training, we were having a spat of OC 'tech" deaths then very much like we are now with CCR, I can promise you that for a small part of the community the reasons back then for the deaths were pretty clear, the majority were as quick to defend the stupid practices as CCR divers are to defend CCRs with comments like yours (that I fixed).

CCR's are the future of tech diving, however we have to start addressing the unacceptable deaths.

 

[down4fun]

let me fix that for you

"people die. People die on scuba at recreational depths, people die on trimix o/c and people die on ccr. It seems that there is an inflammatory response to ccr deaths and much of the ccr population is quick to jump on that band wagon. Truth is there are many people completing very complicated deep dives on a regular basis on ccr as theer are OC. Read the thread titles on here and almost everyday you can find a recreational scuba death thread or a CCR death, hardly ever a OC tech diving death."

I did the above partly in jest but also to make a point. Look I was around and actively diving and teaching tech in the early days of formalized "technical" training, we were having a spat of OC 'tech" deaths then very much like we are now with CCR, I can promise you that for a small part of the community the reasons back then for the deaths were pretty clear, the majority were as quick to defend the stupid practices as CCR divers are to defend CCRs with comments like yours (that I fixed).

CCR's are the future of tech diving, however we have to start addressing the unacceptable deaths.

Hardly ever and o/c tech diving death? What do you call cave diving o/c? and they certainly still have deaths? Also, I would hazard to guess that more and more people are going to ccr for the deeper dives and thus the lack of o/c deaths on such dives. Part of my point was that for the average SB reader they have no idea how many deep technical dives are being done successfully on ccr. All they hear or read is about the deaths. The user whose post I was addressing re the use of ccr being the COD has made it clear thru several posts and threads that he finds the risks for technical diving unacceptable. And that's fine no one is strapping on ccr to his back and making him do some deep wreck. For others of us, we know the risk and accept it.

Any death is unacceptable. But they happen. How do you "start to address" what in most cases we can't even identify a clear cause of?

 

[Thalassamania]

I think you are missing the point. Many of the CCR deaths result from gear failure (and I am including all high ppO2 incidents under gear failure). As far as I know, none of the OC deaths are the result of gear failure. Therein lies the difference.

There is no question that CCRs permit dives that no OC (no matter how esoteric) could ever permit.

I evaluated Pyle's "Deep Rig" OC system for use in the science community, after that Rich and wrote a paper on it that clearly recommended CCRs as the best future solution (at least in the science community). I think that experience has borne that recommendation out but I fear that CCR design has not caught up what appears to be the rather low level of technical acumen of much of the recreational diving community, not many of whom seem to be willing or able to dedicate the time and energy required to become a good rebreather technician as well as a competent rebreather pilot.

 

[down4fun]

I think you are missing the point. Many of the CCR deaths result from gear failure (and I am including all high ppO2 incidents under gear failure). As far as I know, none of the OC deaths are the result of gear failure. Therein lies the difference.

There is no question that CCRs permit dives that no OC (no matter how esoteric) could ever permit.

I evaluated Pyle's "Deep Rig" OC system for use in the science community, after that Rich and wrote a paper on it that clearly recommended CCRs as the best future solution (at least in the science community). I think that experience has borne that recommendation out but I fear that CCR design has not caught up what appears to be the rather low level of technical acumen of much of the recreational diving community, not many of whom seem to be willing or able to dedicate the time and energy required to become a good rebreather technician as well as a competent rebreather pilot.

Ok I guess i see what you are getting at. In o/c it's either diver error or medical. And in some cases we aren't sure of which.

Correct me if I am wrong, but in my little time in the ccr world we don't know what causes most of the ccr deaths. The reports, if they are ever released, do not clearly define a cause of death.

And do we combine pilot error with gear failure? If a diver went hypoxic is it gear failure for failure to deliver o2 or pilot error for failing to notice such a decline in his po2?