Diver missing - Pelham, Alabama

[gianaameri]

gian you entirely miss the point…the consequence of practice is not death.

This person went practising and he died.

He did not need the rebreather for this dive.

In the early days, when this happened, people screamed at heart attack.

Then, full autopsy became routine and the heart attack excuses/rationalization could then be ruled out.

Now that the heart attack is not longer an excuse, the wishful thinking buzz-word is "complacency."

Bottom line, had this poor soul not been diving his rebreather, "complacency" would have not killed him.

Rebreather diving - for practice or for real - is very very risky, much more than OC diving.

Lesson learned/re-enforced: Better leave the rebreather for when it is really needed (complacency or otherwise).

 

[dreamdive]

Lesson learned/re-enforced: Better leave the rebreather for when it is really needed (complacency or otherwise).

That is certainly one point of view although one I do not share. Like most others, I believe that you increase the risk of a bad outcome diving equipment you are not familiar with, where your reflexes are off or sluggish, etc.

BTW, ever come across when a rebreather saved a life or would have saved a life?

It's OK Gian, not to like rebreathers. It's OK not to like diving for that matter, too

 

[gianaameri]

BTW, ever come across when a rebreather saved a life or would have saved a life?

Nope, but if you have name, date, and circumstances it could make interesting reading in a separate thread (if it did happen the manufacturer(s)/distributors(s) would use the occurrence to advertise their products).

There just is no dive which can be performed on rebreather more safely than on OC - just logistically a lot more complex on OC for deep dives or long cave penetration dives than on rebreather.

In any event, this one dive, rebreather was not necessary.

 

[dreamdive]

Nope, but if you have name, date, and circumstances it could make interesting reading in a separate thread (if it did happen the manufacturer(s)/distributors(s) would use the occurrence to advertise their products).

There just is no dive which can be performed on rebreather more safely than on OC - just logistically a lot more complex on OC for deep dives or long cave penetration dives than on rebreather.

In any event, this one dive, rebreather was not necessary.

Great Idea Gian! I think such data should be collected.
From the top of my head I can think of instances were CCR would have saved divers that drowned in caves because they ran out of gas.

 

[gianaameri]

Scuba diver's body found in Pelham shows 'no foul play, no indication of any crime' | AL.com

 

[FinnMom]

Better leave the rebreather for when it is really needed (complacency or otherwise).

Yes, clearly it would be safer if users did not practise and did not maintain familarity with their rebreathers.

 

[mcguiver]

I see some good points made on both sides of the argument. Ultimately any dive is a cost benefit calculation made by the diver and only the diver. To sit back after the accident and say his dive wasn't worth the risk is the height of arrogance. I have been an open circuit diver for more than 20 years and a CCR rebreather diver for 5. I don't know what his motivation for choosing to make the dive on CCR was and it really doesn't matter. I am an underwater videographer and that is all the reason I find necessary to strap on a $15,000 piece of equipment only to go 10 meters down and get a shot of a 3cm animal. My rebreather doesn't take long to prep for a dive, in fact I am regularly the first person ready to splash in a group of open circuit divers. I am equally meticulous with both my open circuit and CCR equipment and find that prep/cleanup time is comparable. This varies from one rebreather to the next so generalizing them by saying they are all tedious and cumbersome to use is a mistake. After 3,500 open circuit dives and 700 hours on rebreather I am partial to using the rebreather on 95% of the dives that I do, and this includes recreational level dives. I have had friends killed on rebreathers and watched friends die on open circuit so I believe I understand the risks better than most. For my own diving with my equipment and experience I feel the risks of using my rebreather on most dives are substantially outweighed by the rewards it offers to me personally. There was an argument made earlier in this thread about the dangers of the RMS system encouraging divers to exceed the standard maximum limits of the scrubber. This is based on flawed assumptions, The RMS gives the diver ACTUAL real time data rather than theoretical information on the duration of the scrubber. And it substantially reduces one of the biggest risks in theoretical tidal scrubber monitoring, channeling. I have personally experienced scrubber channeling that could have resulted in my death or serious injury if I were simply relying on tidal CO2 monitoring. I would have thought myself safe right up to the point that I passed out because I was well within the manufacturers time recommendations. It seems very trendy for divers without actual knowledge on the subject to jump onboard every rebreather related accident and use it as a soapbox to proclaim how unsafe rebreathers are, and denounce as ignorant fools all divers who would choose to use them. One of the most common sentiments I have seen with rebreather students is surprise when they see how much of the common knowledge spread by the naysayers of the diving community is utter BS.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

To borrow from our BASE jumping comrades, "the only way to not to die diving is not to dive." The attempts in this thread to limit that line's fundamental truth to "CCR diving" is simple posturing and self-delusion.