It is oh so easy to be an "armchair quarterback" (since this is a global forum, for those not familiar with the expression it's an idiom that comes from North American football that refers to someone sitting on their couch at home criticizing the plays made by the quarterback during the game that they are watching). And full disclosure, with this incident I did it myself...
To be clear, at the time of posting this I do not have even 50 dives in my logs, and am not Nitrox certified. And even still, even still, with my limited experience, when I saw a photo of what I now know to be a member of the Italian Fire Brigade entering the water with a single 15L air tank, my first thoughts were "Why aren't they using nitrox for that depth? Surely they must be using nitrox. Maybe they label the tanks differently in Italy?" Such a fool am I...
Speaking only for myself, thank you @Angelo Farina first of all for what appears by my count to be nearly 40 years of willingness to serve as a firefighter - something that fewer and fewer people are willing to do these days, at least in many parts of North America, given the difficulty and risk level of the job and the incredibly poor remuneration (in terms of salary and benefits, that is). And for seemingly some part of those years - well, it takes a special kind of diver to be willing to use your diving skills for body recovery work, regardless of the conditions... so, simply, thank you.
But thank you also for providing so many details on the workings of the Italian emergency response system - even at the risk of exposing both yourself and the Italian Fire Brigade to even more criticism from afar. It helped me to give my head a shake and remember not to be too judgmental about a system that I really don't know anything about. I should know better, living where I do which is so far away from where I was raised. But being an "armchair quarterback" seems to be built into my DNA...
To be clear, at the time of posting this I do not have even 50 dives in my logs, and am not Nitrox certified. And even still, even still, with my limited experience, when I saw a photo of what I now know to be a member of the Italian Fire Brigade entering the water with a single 15L air tank, my first thoughts were "Why aren't they using nitrox for that depth? Surely they must be using nitrox. Maybe they label the tanks differently in Italy?" Such a fool am I...
Speaking only for myself, thank you @Angelo Farina first of all for what appears by my count to be nearly 40 years of willingness to serve as a firefighter - something that fewer and fewer people are willing to do these days, at least in many parts of North America, given the difficulty and risk level of the job and the incredibly poor remuneration (in terms of salary and benefits, that is). And for seemingly some part of those years - well, it takes a special kind of diver to be willing to use your diving skills for body recovery work, regardless of the conditions... so, simply, thank you.
But thank you also for providing so many details on the workings of the Italian emergency response system - even at the risk of exposing both yourself and the Italian Fire Brigade to even more criticism from afar. It helped me to give my head a shake and remember not to be too judgmental about a system that I really don't know anything about. I should know better, living where I do which is so far away from where I was raised. But being an "armchair quarterback" seems to be built into my DNA...
