Doc Deep dies during dive.

[The Laconic]

It's conjecture/rumor/presumption/misinformation that he was attempting a 1200' dive? Which was 400' deeper than he'd been before? In a wetsuit? With four years of experience?

Sure, there's been a lot of conjecture, and surely a lot of misinformation, but neither does that list contain "the only facts that are known for sure". Because that list is also consistent with a vanilla recreational dive with a buddy gone wrong.

 

[Storker]

that list is also consistent with a vanilla recreational dive with a buddy gone wrong.

It just might be that my Saturday evening beer is hampering my reading and reasoning skillz, but would you mind expanding ever so slightly on that statement? Because I can't, for the life of me, see the relevance.

 

[Jules Verne]

Pardon what follows, I've been on tiptoes about this event up to now, but this tips me into rant mode:

SCUBA Tec just posted this on Facebook:

The following statement by Christi Garman is being re-printed here at the request of the family:In the week since Dr. Guy Garman's failed world record attempt dive there has been a lot of rumor, presumption, and misinformation. The only facts that are known for sure at this time are as follows-
-he descended on Saturday morning at 6AM and did not return from depth
-his body and equipment were recovered from the water on Tuesday morning
-his body went away with the Medical Examiner
- his equipment is in US Coast Guard custody and will be inspected and possibly returned to his family
-the Medical Examiner has ruled his death a drowning
Anything more than these few facts is conjecture. The family will decide in the future what information to make public as it becomes available to them. Until that time, they ask that the public respect their privacy and to please refrain from further speculation.

We know a great deal more than that even without considering the idiotic videos that S.C.U.B.A. released in advance of this event.

I note that SCUBA-TEC managed to spell the deceased's name correctly this time, which, by all appearances is the only lesson they've shown themselves to have learned.

Hubris it is, but let's not misuse the term suicide when we really mean negligent homicide.

 

[The Laconic]

It just might be that my Saturday evening beer is hampering my reading and reasoning skillz, but would you mind expanding ever so slightly on that statement? Because I can't, for the life of me, see the relevance.

Probably also my Saturday evening beer is hampering my writing skillz.

My point is that this is NOT true:

The only facts that are known for sure at this time are as follows-
-he descended on Saturday morning at 6AM and did not return from depth
-his body and equipment were recovered from the water on Tuesday morning
-his body went away with the Medical Examiner
- his equipment is in US Coast Guard custody and will be inspected and possibly returned to his family
-the Medical Examiner has ruled his death a drowning
Anything more than these few facts is conjecture.

Because we do in fact know a lot more than that, e.g. that he was attempting a 1200' dive. Jules Verne is making much the same point, and yeah, it tips me into rant mode too.

 

[kafkaland]

I understand what it takes to make a dive like this, which is the easy part. Conjuring up a reason why anyone would bother is the mystifying part...

This is the piece that I can't wrap my mind around. If this had been the deepest depth a human had ever been to, I can see the motivation, as in, perhaps, expanding the reach of humankind. But there is an established way for humans to get there, more safely, and with the ability to actually do something there - saturation diving. What the value of attempting this in an unsuitable mode, OC scuba, is, completely eludes me. It would be like a new category for automobile speed records that allows you to use only the frame of Yugos as the basis for your race car. At some speed, you know it will fall apart and kill you, and getting as close as possible to that point doesn't seem like a particularly worthwhile endeavor to me.

 

[dlofting]

My apologies to Akimbo for not mentioning him in my earlier post.....he has also helped me to learn about the risks of deep diving.

 

[KathyV]

Here is pre-dive post; it seems that those involved really expected this to be a success and must have been shocked by the outcome. My sympathies for friends and family.

 

[Pep V]

What the value of attempting this in an unsuitable mode, OC scuba, is, completely eludes me. It would be like a new category for automobile speed records that allows you to use only the frame of Yugos as the basis for your race car. At some speed, you know it will fall apart and kill you, and getting as close as possible to that point doesn't seem like a particularly worthwhile endeavor to me.

Regarding the OC scuba part, which has been questioned here before, I was just browsing Jenny's blog and came across this post about her learning CCR. The timestamp indicates it has been written less than 3 days ago and that she has tried CCR for the first time.
To me this shows that ignorance is a big problem here. She has already announced her world record attempt on OC, and with her (relatively) little experience she now tries CCR for the first time. If she has never researched the differences between OC and CCR, how could she possibly make the decision that OC may not be the best choice here.

If you have been diving for x years, both OC and CCR, and then decide to try this on OC the story would be completely different. But she is going to try on OC because that is the only thing she knows. And she does not want to take the time to explore the other options before doing the world record attempt.
It seems there is a big rush to get the world record. Same for dr Garman, why not take those extra years to do a couple more extreme dives and learn how your body responds to that?

 

[Akimbo]

I doubt the current commercially available eCCRs are any more suitable for a rapid descent to that depth either. Some of the models made for the military "might" have the response times and flow rates to keep up with the descent rate, but I doubt it.

There is also the WOB (Work of Breathing) issue which is much higher with a rebreather. I did a little R&D work on eCCRs for the commercial diving industry as a bailout rig and the only practical solution we found was a battery powered blower to get the WOB in an acceptable range below 800'.

An acceptable WOB is higher for divers with superb physical conditioning like Navy SEALs, but isn't "that" much worse for a mere mortal. An eCCR to the 700-800' range "might" make sense and switch to open-circuit for the rest of the round trip to the switching depth. Forget about bailout since you can barely pack enough gas plus the CCR for the dive in the first place. The CCR would be the best choice for decompression providing it didn't crap out in these untested depths. You would probably require pure diluent due to the descent rate. It is easy to maintain the PPO2 on descent with pure diluent (Nitrogen and Helium in this case). Of course that only addresses some of the more obvious logistic problems of gas management.

 

[Max Speed]

Interesting. That was the solution proposed for the (Norwegian?) cave divers who had the deep fatalities a few months ago. CCR to the restriction, then open circuit through the high work load area, then back to CCR.