Diver Dies in Lake Huron on the Dunderberg

[limeyx]

I have limited knowledge. I expressed that the statement seems wrong from the basis of my limited knowledge. I then explained why it seemed that way to me.

I apologize if somehow trying to have a discussion in a discussion forum offends you. At what point will I have enough accumulated wisdom to post a comment according to you, oh keeper of the forum?

I am not saying we cannot have a discussion. Tech diving is not just recreational diving but "10 feet deeper" and a dive to 140 feet in my opinion is a "tech" dive, and calling it something else doesnt change that fact.

You can see this when people make statements like "If i was into DECO then of course I'd not be able to ascend my buddy" this is because they have been trained to be afraid of deco, and tend to think they have to do it or else.

Thats not always the right attitude to take when someones life is at risk.

 

[BoneCrusher]

Based on the following detail in a news report, the diver was a tech diver....

"Kleinert had planned a trip to Lake Michigan in July.
“We were going to go out about 36 miles into Lake Michigan and dive the Bradley. "

Full News Article

Based on what limited information is available from the new sources, this was a technical dive and these were technical divers. Not "Rec" divers doing a crazy dive on an AL80.

 

[Kingpatzer]

You can see this when people make statements like "If i was into DECO then of course I'd not be able to ascend my buddy" this is because they have been trained to be afraid of deco, and tend to think they have to do it or else.

Thats not always the right attitude to take when someones life is at risk.

In my deco class I wasn't taught to be afraid of deco, but I was taught that skipping it is a very, very bad idea. And frankly, I'm not real keen on experimenting to see how close to "bent but not dead" I can come. I understand that stops can be skipped, and that if you are not experiencing symptoms once you surface that you can drop back down to do the omitted deco and still be within the dive plan.

But I have no idea if skipping 10 minutes or 20 or 30 or whatever the magic number is will take me over the edge of "just drop back down to do the stops" and being another victim. And frankly, no one else does either.

"Able to" and "willing to" are different things. And there is some point where I'd consider my deco obligation to be such that I would not be willing to ascend with an unconscious (and thus quite likely so far down the path as to be safely called dead) dive buddy. My guess is that you would go through the same considerations and would not merely ascend either.

 

[lobstah]

And there is some point where I'd consider my deco obligation to be such that I would not be willing to ascend with an unconscious (and thus quite likely so far down the path as to be safely called dead) dive buddy

Why so? Why would doing all your deco stops with unconscious diver be hazardous to you?

 

[Kingpatzer]

The bolded statement is fair, and is why you should not (in my opinion) be tech diving.

*blink blink* Excuse me?

Thats a perfectly reasonable limit to have, but I dont think it's fair in my view to go on a deco dive with that reservation, at least not until you have that discussion with your buddy.

I'm not sure what this is in reference to.

How many 75 min bottom time dives have you ever, or do you plan to do ? For me so far it is exactly zero that I have done.

None. My point is that to exceed 30 minutes of deco (your arbitrary number) at 140' doesn't take much. Having found my full tables I note that at 30 minutes of bottom time you're at 31 minutes of deco, at 40 minutes you have 49 minutes of total ascent time.

So no, I don't have to burn 75 minutes at 140', nor do I plan to in any future I foresee. But my point was that saying you can't have any real deco obligations from 140' to worry about strikes me as pretty odd. 35 minutes is not an unrealistically long dive, but it does get bought at the price of about 40 minutes of deco. 5 more minutes of bottom time would add another 10 minutes of deco to that (or pretty close to it). And that isn't such an unrealistic profile.

EDIT: And how do you plan to ascend from those 75 mins ? Even ignoring deco gas, whaty kind of gas reserve are you bringing ?

Congrats on missing the point entirely!

I would suggest that the vast vast majority of 140 dives done are likely to be less than 40 mins deco (on O2 or some other deco gas)

I'm certain your right. My point is not that the majority of dives in that range are fairly risk free, but that simply because it is at 140' doesn't mean that you are safe to assume the deco obligation in this case is so negligible as to be safely ignored for the purpose of a rescue.

 

[cerich]

Why so? Why would doing all your deco stops with unconscious diver be hazardous to you?

you wouldn't do all your deco stops with a unconscious diver, you would be doing all of them with a dead diver. In fact not just dead but dead and cold, that means really dead.

Blow off your deco to save a team member and you are adding a victim that could very well end up using the very resources that the first victim would need. You double the logistical issue for surface support and rescue personal.

a very recently dead diver sent to the surface along with a smb in the emergency color with trained surface team members means the recently dead should be getting treatment in short time and may "possibly" be pulled away from the light as it were.

all the hero stuff is actually counterproductive

 

[Rocketmahn]

BoneCrusher -
Very nice news article.
Thanks for the link!

 

[Randy43068]

Granted there is limited technical detail and we're all pretty much speculating about what we'd do.

If the diver was not breathing and unresponsive, AND I had deco obligations I would shoot him to the surface. Or if on this dive I had two bags, I'd attach one to him, shoot the bag and finish my deco. Who knows, really? Depends on how dead he looked I guess.

If the guy was alive, I'd do all rescue attempts I could do without putting myself at risk of DCS.

 

[lobstah]

Maybe I should ask a different question.

Can you guys ascent with unresponsive diver and do all your deco stops? Regardless of how dead he/she is?

If answer is no, did you consider the possibility that it might be influencing your ideas about what is a best course of action here?

 

[cerich]

Maybe I should ask a different question.

Can you guys ascent with unresponsive diver and do all your deco stops? Regardless of how dead he/she is?

If answer is no, did you consider the possibility that it might be influencing your ideas about what is a best course of action here?

you're not too far from me, wanna see? (actually no you aren't, i thought LA was Louisiana and L.A. was Los Angeles)

Nice to assume we can't dive.

Can you think of a good reason to do all your deco stops with a dead diver, you like looking in their non responsive eyes? You ever do that? I have.