Doc Deep dies during dive.

[tomfcrist]

There is no reason not to believe he was still breathing through at least 900'....I assure you he on gassed plenty.

 

[Anna G]

I get your need to pigeonhole this as Groupthink. You've invested time and reputation on it, so no wonder. Let's look at something obvious

He was an ENT. Line up nine deco instructors next to an ENT and ask another ten divers who they are going to listen to when it comes to physiology. It would be him by a landslide and why not? He's got a real bonafide degree with years of study behind him. In other words, he was the defacto expert.

As an ENT, he was the one to always have the answers. He was charismatic on top of that and was able to convince a lot of others that he was on the right track. Sure, he had a posse, but they were the bus drivers, the sherpas and the worker bees. Rather than being a product of Group Think, this was the product of a maverick: a rogue diver. He even believed his own hype and gave his life trying to prove that he was right. Delusion and denial for sure, but no matter how you try to assign culpability to others, it just isn't there. I just don't see your 'Group Think' here.

Which gets you into a bit of the appeal from authority fallacy. Sure, docs learn about anatomy and physiology - and the more they specialize, the more they concentrate on their little area of that, and in real life, unless involved in research, really pathophysiology more than anything else.

There is no hyperbaric instruction in medical school. There is none in residency, unless you happen to either take an elective because it's interesting to you, or happen to be a specific type of resident in a medical center with an academic hyperbaric department and your program includes rotation through that (eg Anesthesia at Duke). Really, physicians learn about diving-related medicine either via short courses like the ones run through UHMS or NOAA (or military courses), or through formal Fellowships in Hyperbarics.

A physician would certainly have a lot of pre-existing background knowledge to understand the physiologic basis of the various diving-related problems. But he would not have any knowledge of diving-related physiology or diving-related medical conditions by dint of being a physician; Dr Garman had an extensive surgical education with impressive credentials, but no indication on his site that he undertook any formal medical dive medicine/physiology training. He may very well have taken one of the UHMS-type courses and not listed it, as it was irrelevant to his surgical practice. Or he may not have.

In short, while a physician has a lot of physiology education in general that makes it somewhat easier to grasp some finer points of diving-related maladies, there is no logical reason to defer to them regarding diving-related expertise. I understand why people would, of course. But people overestimate what physicians understand about diving.

 

[The Chairman]

In short, while a physician has a lot of physiology education in general that makes it somewhat easier to grasp some finer points of diving-related maladies, there is no logical reason to defer to them regarding diving-related expertise. I understand why people would, of course. But people overestimate what physicians understand about diving.

Precisely my point. If this were a "Group Think" event, we would see a number of them plummeting to 1200 ft. There was a following of orders to be sure, but no one joined in on the real 'fun'. Calling it a team is way overstating how they interacted. Only one person would have been the record holder and so only one person died.

 

[JohnnyC]

Just ask yourself how much his decompression obligation was at the depth he expired. The technical answer is "a hell of a lot", wherever that was. That's a good indication that there was a considerable amount of dissolved gas in his tissues that gets pretty ugly when it comes out more or less all at once.

Assuming he didn't have a heart attack or stroke out on his way down no? I hadn't wanted to make any assumptions about how deep he got or how long it took to get there before he expired. Guess we'll find out if the video surfaces or the data gets released.

Certainly if he's actually breathing at depth for any length of time it would be substantial. But if he just had a heart attack at 45m on his way down and kept dropping like a rock, in theory he wouldn't get bent.

 

[Anna G]

Precisely my point. If this were a "Group Think" event, we would see a number of them plummeting to 1200 ft. There was a following of orders to be sure, but no one joined in on the real 'fun'. Calling it a team is way overstating how they interacted. Only one person would have been the record holder and so only one person died.

Groupthink involves the planners and support too. The Challenger disaster is a case study in groupthink (I think the article pointed that out?), and it involved multiple levels, certainly not just the command team, or the members in the shuttle.
If this group's goal was to help Dr Garman achieve his record dive, groupthink is certainly possible.

 

[Akimbo]

Assuming he didn't have a heart attack or stroke out on his way down no? I hadn't wanted to make any assumptions about how deep he got or how long it took to get there before he expired...

Body recoveries past 200' are generally pretty gruesome and I believe safety divers saw him well beyond that mark. Most of the body's tissues fall in the "fast" category. Slow tissues are generally less aqueous like cartilage and bone. Gas is driven into solution at a very rapid rate and tissues will absorb gas from the blood until "equalized", past the time the heart actually stops pumping. Granted, not as fast or efficiently, but absorption still occurs just like an inanimate soda bottle.

 

[boulderjohn]

Precisely my point. If this were a "Group Think" event, we would see a number of them plummeting to 1200 ft. There was a following of orders to be sure, but no one joined in on the real 'fun'. Calling it a team is way overstating how they interacted. Only one person would have been the record holder and so only one person died.

No, we wouldn't. Quite the opposite. The group could have been convinced that this one man was capable of doing what was to be done, and that cohesive belief could have become a defining drive. His failure would not at all suggest that any of the rest of them had that ability. That would contradict the group's core belief.

 

[JohnnyC]

Body recoveries past 200' are generally pretty gruesome and I believe safety divers saw him well beyond that mark. Most of the body's tissues fall in the "fast" category. Slow tissues are generally less aqueous like cartilage and bone. Gas is driven into solution at a very rapid rate and tissues will absorb gas from the blood until "equalized", past the time the heart actually stops pumping. Granted, not as fast or efficiently, but absorption still occurs just like an inanimate soda bottle.

Ah copy. I didn't realize that they had seen him that far down. Makes sense that uptake of gasses would still occur even if there is no gas exchange in the lungs, at least until they reach equilibrium.

 

[DevonDiver]

Precisely my point. If this were a "Group Think" event, we would see a number of them plummeting to 1200 ft. There was a following of orders to be sure, but no one joined in on the real 'fun'. Calling it a team is way overstating how they interacted. Only one person would have been the record holder and so only one person died.

Your understanding of Groupthink is flawed. I'd suggest a spot of actual research before making more comments. It'd be easier to debate with you if you commented on what something was, rather than what you guessed, or assumed, it was. I think many people misunderstand the concept of groupthink... which is why education that rusk us important. At the moment, your ill-informed comments undermine that. Groupthink doesn't preclude authoritative leadership, but rather, it emphasises it. Not a committee of equals, but a leader who creates a team dynamic, where members become unable to voice dissent or objection.

 

[Hetland]

Body recoveries past 200' are generally pretty gruesome and I believe safety divers saw him well beyond that mark. Most of the body's tissues fall in the "fast" category. Slow tissues are generally less aqueous like cartilage and bone. Gas is driven into solution at a very rapid rate and tissues will absorb gas from the blood until "equalized", past the time the heart actually stops pumping. Granted, not as fast or efficiently, but absorption still occurs just like an inanimate soda bottle.

Ah copy. I didn't realize that they had seen him that far down. Makes sense that uptake of gasses would still occur even if there is no gas exchange in the lungs, at least until they reach equilibrium.

He failed to appear at his 350ft stop. He had support at 300, who had planned to meet him at 350 when he arrived.

He would have run out of back gas by simply descending, staying 15 seconds, and ascending to 940ft (300 cuft). He had tanks he could have switched too, but I wonder what his mental state would be at that point, and even in the relatively warm water, his suit would have given him almost no thermal protection. The hands don't work well or long in cold water when you don't have appropriate thermal protection.