Fatal Record attempt in Garda Lake Italy

[Strategist.]

While I'm sure it will be beneficial to the community to analyse the incident, I would refrain from rushing to judgements like 'nonsensical', 'ego-dive' etc., generally accusing the diver of recklessness.

Preach. Given the lack of information at this point, I think the community should refrain from jumping to subjective conclusions and spend the time in analysing the incident for objective conclusions instead.

 

[tomfcrist]

Nobody is doubting the experience level of the divers doing those dives at that location...that being said, I can count on one hand how many people have successfully completed dives like that on CCR and OC. The reality is that there are 1000 things that have to go well in order to survive those dives...in contrast any one thing going wrong will likely end in a fatality.

Diving to that depth for “research” sounds noble, but if it’s not an EGO dive, why blast it all over social media as soon as the dive is done?

Does it really surprise anyone that someone died diving to 300m+? It shouldn’t...there is a long list of divers (very experienced ones) that have died doing foolish dives like this. They all thought they were “experienced” enough to pull it off too. The reality is that they were unlucky while playing a game of chance.

 

[alvinsuper]

The recent successful dives below 300m in that location by Krzysztof Starnawski (303m) and Jarek Macedonski (316m), while indeed record-breaking (deepest CCR, scooter and fresh water dives), were far from 'ego-dives'. They pushed the envelope on research and development of scooters handling extreme depths, among other data.

Thank you for the additional information. Considering that it is your first message on this board, it would be useful if you could tell us what your source is.

As far as blamestorming is concerned, you're right, this is not the place for it.

Regarding a general opinion on this kind of dives, we will have to agree to disagree. They're indeed pointless. The physiological and practical limitations of diving to these depths have been known for decades. Doing it on scuba will result in a high likelihood of getting killed and an even higher one of getting bent. These are not new discoveries.

As far as research about scooters holding out at that ambient pressure, well, I can think of better environments where tests can be performed, with better experiment handling, measurements, data collection, repeatability and no life hazards.

 

[fsardone]

New information.

Sub inghiottito dal lago durante un’immersione di allenamento
The name of the diver has been pubblicly released: Adam Pawlik (do not match with the initials released earlier PK).
He arrived in the Garda Lake campsite with the objective to dive to 333 meters and so beat the Egyptian record (I believe the news refer to Ahmed Gabr Ahmed Gabr - Wikipedia) holding the record at 332. If this is true, the record was set in OC and apparently this is what it was diving.

He dove solo.
Once again no indication of any surface support (in the news source or from official information). Do not get confused with people who (successfully) dove CCR in the same place and the Polish guy who perished last year (same place OC Sub muore tentando record di profondità Recuperato il corpo).

 

[The Chairman]

or not knowing enough to know when and where to stop.

It's not a matter of "not knowing enough". It's a real matter of denial: not ignorance. Trying to break depth records only leads to needless deaths. It's why we will never support those endeavors. Ever. They are stupid, ill advised and appeal only to the diver's ego. There is no benefit to the sport at all.

 

[chrisch]

However idiotic this was I am really sorry that the man died. He did not deserve that. I did my trimix course in Lake Garda and it is a mostly featureless body of water. Every year people die in it due to diving too deep. For some reason that I cannot explain a lot of German divers used to go there to bounce to 100m. There was typically one + fatality every year.

it seems with better technology this has moved on and deeper. I hope this poor chap is the last one to try to reach the bottom for whatever reason.

 

[Bowers]

I'm by no means condoning this type of diving and have far too little tech experience to criticize, but i wonder what SB threads would have looked like if it excisted when Jacques Cousteau or other renowned pioneers of diving were in there prime?

 

[Daedalus]

I wish there was a way to test the depth capabilities of DPVs without a human being coming along for a stunt dive.

 

[boulderjohn]

I'm by no means condoning this type of diving and have far too little tech experience to criticize, but i wonder what SB threads would have looked like if it excisted when Jacques Cousteau or other renowned pioneers of diving were in there prime?

There is a huge difference.

When Cousteau started, people knew so very little that virtually every dive he and others made was a discovery dive. He made tons of mistakes, and the world of scuba learned from them. Their diving techniques were poor, but they improved rapidly. If you go to the deep dive pioneers, you see them learning very much about the limits of the breathing gases. Our knowledge base has grown considerably since then. The early record dives of that era are now required depths for student certification, this time using proper gas mixes that were unknown back then.

But there is still pioneering work being done. Scientists like Richard Pyle take rebreathers to great depths to explore life on deep coral reefs. We have still only explored 3% of the world's oceans. Although most of that is accessible only to submersibles, much of it is still in the realm of scuba-based exploration. Heck, even the work the people with whom I dive is pioneering as we explore the depths of a deep sinkhole in New Mexico, mapping unknown regions of it and seeking potential openings to what must be a serious cave system nearby. Cave systems all around the world are being explored by highly skilled divers.

So what kind of pioneering work was done on this dive? The purpose was apparently to break the world depth record by 1 meter, diving in a featureless lake with nothing to explore. An earlier post (#10) explained that previous dives like this one "pushed the envelope on research and development of scooters handling extreme depths." It did not say what kind of research benefit this dive would provide.

 

[boulderjohn]

I wish there was a way to test the depth capabilities of DPVs without a human being coming along for a stunt dive.

Hanging one at the end of a long rope comes to mind, but there must be a reason that idea was rejected.