Doc Deep dies during dive.

[Jax]

This is true anytime humans try to exceed known limits. The trouble here is the constraints of diving to 1200' are well understood.

Akimbo, if you have time, would you explain a little how your support computes your mix for, say, a 1000' saturation dive?

Equipment and such, touch on the math . . . I can imagine it is hugely mind-boggling.

---------- Post added August 19th, 2015 at 09:12 AM ----------

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Good description of the issues with making precise measurements of gas.
Q & A: Measuring the mass of a gas | Department of Physics | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

 

[DevonDiver]

It was the opposite of "Group Think" in my estimation, but of a single authority who was deluded into believing that he could actually accomplish this feat.

Pete, take a look at the first symptom of groupthink (below). If he was deluded... WHY was he deluded?

It might start with a single ego, but to continue it needs the support of team. Judging from the teams FB posts, and (predictable) surprise after failure occurred... there was a shared illusion of invulnerability throughout.

I was told by someone connected to a team member that the person "was the only one who had doubts".

Maybe he was... or maybe more, or all, of them (including Dr Garman) harbored unexpressed doubts.


Symptoms of Groupthink

Janis has documented eight symptoms of groupthink:

Illusion of invulnerability –Creates excessive optimism that encourages taking extreme risks.

Collective rationalization – Members discount warnings and do not reconsider their assumptions.

Belief in inherent morality – Members believe in the rightness of their cause and therefore ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions.

Stereotyped views of out-groups – Negative views of “enemy” make effective responses to conflict seem unnecessary.

Direct pressure on dissenters – Members are under pressure not to express arguments against any of the group’s views.

Self-censorship – Doubts and deviations from the perceived group consensus are not expressed.

Illusion of unanimity – The majority view and judgments are assumed to be unanimous.

Self-appointed ‘mindguards’ – Members protect the group and the leader from information that is problematic or contradictory to the group’s cohesiveness, view, and/or decisions.

 

[boulderjohn]

An simple example of the failure of the group can be found in the death of David Shaw. As it was described in Raising the Dead, in the preparation for the dive, Shaw learned that the helmet camera he would be wearing prevented him from draping the cord of his canister light over his neck as he customarily did while performing tasks. In a group meeting, he decided to just let it hang beside him as he worked. As I read that section of the book, I almost screamed "No!" I hope every tech student I have ever taught would be screaming it as well, with my frequently repeated phrase "if it dangles it tangles" echoing in their minds. Told about the decision after the death, Don Shirley, Shaw's former instructor and safety diver, said he must not have heard it, because he would have certainly objected. But he was probably there. Someone in that group must have heard him planning to do something that every beginning cave diver knows not to do, and yet no one spoke up.

For those who don't know, his light head tangled in the line, and and he died trying to deal with that problem.

 

[Redshift]

I know little to nothing about Sat diving. How do Sat divers deal with the issues of the pressure on their joints?

Akimbo has mentioned that in some previous posts. It has to do with the rate of compression. He posted a table of compression rates and for dives that deep they are really really slow.

 

[dreamdive]

An simple example of the failure of the group can be found in the death of David Shaw. As it was described in Raising the Dead, in the preparation for the dive, Shaw learned that the helmet camera he would be wearing prevented him from draping the cord of his canister light over his neck as he customarily did while performing tasks. In a group meeting, he decided to just let it hang beside him as he worked. As I read that section of the book, I almost screamed "No!" I hope every tech student I have ever taught would be screaming it as well, with my frequently repeated phrase "if it dangles it tangles" echoing in their minds. Told about the decision after the death, Don Shirley, Shaw's former instructor and safety diver, said he must not have heard it, because he would have certainly objected. But he was probably there. Someone in that group must have heard him planning to do something that every beginning cave diver knows not to do, and yet no one spoke up.

For those who don't know, his light head tangled in the line, and and he died trying to deal with that problem.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the trouble started when he attempted to put a dead body in a home-made body bag. It's very hard work even in shallow depths (so I am told by public safety workers), but at depth....

He started to retain CO2 during that event and then it spiraled.

 

[Basking Ridge Diver]

Could this have been a case of poor Training? I ask because it seems strange that a newish tech diver did not ask more questions or seek more guidance.
I am not dismissing - poor planning, group think, or poor training - public suicide just seems to be too far out for me.

 

[descent]

I'm sorry if this offends you, but this was a suicide at the very core. No, it wasn't an intentional suicide and I don't believe he wanted to die. ...

I have watched friends lose more than everything they owned in Nevada casinos. I have watched a few of them drink themselves into homelessness.

I think Dr Garman was probably more than a little manic. I don't think he was able to limit or control his actions in quite the same way the rest of us can.

I think his illness killed him.

 

[boulderjohn]

Correct me if I am wrong, but the trouble started when he attempted to put a dead body in a home-made body bag. It's very hard work even in shallow depths (so I am told by public safety workers), but at depth....

He started to retain CO2 during that event and then it spiraled.

He had practiced putting a body into the bag with the assumption that the body was skeletal within the wet suit. It was not. It had turned essentially to soap. When he cut it loose from the embedded scuba tank, it floated, much to his surprise. He tried briefly to capture it anyway, but he followed the plan and aborted the attempt when he realized he could not do it within the allotted time. He turned to exit, but he could not exit because his light head had become entangled in the line connecting the body to the descent line. He was attempting to cut the line and get free when he died.

---------- Post added August 19th, 2015 at 11:31 AM ----------

In perhaps another example of group think, Don Shirley noted after the incident that everyone seemed to be able to explain the chemical process that led to the body turning to soap and floating, but before the incident no one mentioned that it was a possibility.

 

[Scuba_tacoma]

Lesson learned: just don't do it.

As far as I am concerned there's not much more to learn from this tragedy. I will never dive to these extreme depths, neither wil 99,99999999999% of all the divers in the world.

I got it, do not try to dive to 1,000 feet without extensive hard hat diving experience. I was not referring to this dive in specifically there are over 20 pages of speculation and probables.

I was referring to the diving world in general. For example on the east coast many recreational instructors and divemasters "set the hook." People call this different things but it is basically taking a heavy object connected to a bowline, on a rapid descent, to a wreck or reef and attaching. This a pretty common practice and on some levels goes against recreational standards due to no buddy or redundant systems. Any one think this is unsafe? Witnessed any accidents or deaths with this process? Know of ways to make it safer?

This was just one example, I was just seeking advice from people more knowledgeable than I on things the average dive professional would encounter.

 

[Akimbo]

I know little to nothing about Sat diving. How do Sat divers deal with the issues of the pressure on their joints?

Slow compression, in the 1'/minute ball park. See: What is Saturation Diving

Akimbo, if you have time, would you explain a little how your support computes your mix for, say, a 1000' saturation dive?

Equipment and such, touch on the math . . . I can imagine it is hugely mind-boggling...

We use exactly the same formulas you do that been published in US Navy Diving Manuals for decades before I was born. We also use the same galvanic oxygen analyzers you do, though some have three scales.

PPO2 levels are usually in the 0.3 to 0.5 range. A PPO2 of 0.21 (21% on the surface) is a little too close to hypoxic limits for comfort given the tolerance of analyzers and small size of the chambers. The smaller the chamber volume the faster PPO2 changes when things go wobbly like a gas leak. There is no need to run high PPO2 to minimize decompression and we are as susceptible to the "O2 clock" as anyone else.

Most of the time we try to use the analyzers in-situ so it is reading PPO2, no calculations necessary. Standard pre-dive (bell excursion) checks include calibrating the analyzer to the bell atmosphere, which is triple-check at the surface console, and opening the free-flow valve or pushing the purge button on the demand regulator... sound familiar? Every Nitrox diver does the same thing. It just happens to be on deck.

We resort to the multi-scale analyzers and certified cal gasses when we have to measure deep mixes on the surface. A galvanic Oxygen analyzer is nothing more than the tiny fuel cell that generates current in pretty direct proportion to the PPO2, not the percentage of Oxygen. It just happens to also be the percentage on the surface.

The electrical current that is generated is measured by a simple milliamp meter that is no different than many of us have in our garage, except it is displayed in percent oxygen. There is also a calibration dial that is a simple variable resistor so you can make the display match the calibration gas used. Recreational divers use air and sometimes pure Oxygen to calibrate their instruments. Sat diving operations carry industrial-size gas bottles of certified cal gas in the range for the diving they are doing. We typically had 1%, 3%, 8%, and of course 100% onboard.

The multi-scale component of the analyzer is nothing more than a 3-position switch with resistors in the "high scale" positons. They vary but one scale reads 0-100%, another might read 0-25%, and another 0-5%. The only other difference is we tend to use analog meters inside the chamber to eliminate batteries, electronics, and displays that don't like being pressurized.

Trust me, if it were "hugely mind-boggling" it would never work in the harsh working conditions offshore. Simple and reliable always wins the day.