GUE and smoking

[DanLVolker]

i feel this thread is straying from the original question. i don't think there is any disagreement that smoking is no good and obviously you can choose to dive only with non-smokers, non-drinkers... The issue was if GUE pulls your card for smoking and how they go about it and I would add if they pull it for smoking shouldn't they pull it for other unhealthy behaviours that affect dive safety (obesity, lack of cardiovascular fitness) and that arise after a diver earned their GUR card?

All I can offer is an opinion here---to me, if you are highly fit, and get the training for the GUE cert..do the big dives, and then a few years go by and suddenly you find you are a huge fat slob--as long as you are not doing tech profiles, that does not mean the card should be pulled, ......but if you are doing the tech profiles you know a fat, poorly perfused diver SHOULD NOT be doing, then you should have your card pulled. If you found your weight has spiked up, and your cardio is down--you can put off the big dives untill you have the time to regain your previous level of high fitness and high VO2 max. Once that happens, you would know it is time for you to be doing the big dives again. You never lost the knowledge, and your actions would then prove this.
How GUE could enforce this, beyond social or cultural norms, I have no idea...it is not like it would be appropriate or desirable to create a spy network to catch offenders---where terrible violations are occurring, and are seen often, I would expect this would get back to GUE at some point, and Jarrod would have to make a call on this.
Dan Volker

 

[rookers]

I am fine with the policy, and I wish the fitness requirements were a bit more strident as well. Its a boutique agency and a personal choice as to whether or not you wish to be associated with it. The fact that someone has already said, (para) 'I quit because I wanted to take GUE-F' is a positive sign.

 

[DIR-Atlanta]

Somebody please find me the research that shows that smokers are an inherent risk to a dive team, or that the incidence of DCS is higher, or the risk of medical emergencies underwater are higher, or that SAC rates are higher...

Click here. If you like, you can start with these two articles specifically:

Relations of smoking and diving experience to pulmonary function among U.S. Navy divers
EFFECT OF SMOKING CESSATION ON TRANSCUTANEOUS OXYGEN MEASUREMENTS - A CASE REPORT AND REVIEW

There are dozens more similar articles on that website.

 

[GreenDiverDown]

Smoking's easy... it's black and white... it really shouldn't even be up for discussion.

Now fitness... that's a topic that could use some serious discussion. Big dives or little dives... doesn't matter... fitness is central to DIR. Yet, somehow, its almost never mentioned. I guess it's just too damn hard.

 

[Doc Intrepid]

This is the disclaimer on the front of the site providing my favorite dive planning software:

"The author and HHS Software Corp do not warrant that this program accurately reflects the Varying Permeability Model algorithms, or that it won't get you bent or dead, or that it will produce safe, reliable results. This dive schedule is experimental and you use it at your own risk. Diving in general is fraught with risk, and decompression diving adds significantly more risk. Deep diving utilizing multiple gasses, including helium, or rebreathers is about as risky as it gets."

When you are planning to routinely perform deep ocean decompression dives using multiple helium-based and high-O2 content gasses, you are way out there on the edges of the risk/reward curve.

Considering the manner in which one team member's emergency potentially compromises the security of the entire team, it would be my personal choice that I would not plan these particular sorts of dives with a guy who smokes - not because I don't like the guy or don't approve of smoking. The issue is that his lungs are unlikely to physiologically work in the same manner as the rest of the team, and there is some - un-measurable - additional risk as a result. That additional risk is not risk I'm willing to assume.

GUE or no GUE. GUE's policy is irrelevant to my perspective.

Your mileage may most certainly vary.



This is Ross Hemingway's site (thank you Ross):
V-Planner VPM & VPM-B dive decompression software

 

[wreckchick]

Click here. If you like, you can start with these two articles specifically:

Relations of smoking and diving experience to pulmonary function among U.S. Navy divers
EFFECT OF SMOKING CESSATION ON TRANSCUTANEOUS OXYGEN MEASUREMENTS - A CASE REPORT AND REVIEW

There are dozens more similar articles on that website.

With all due respect, those both say that smoking is bad for you. I get it. What I asked for was some statistics that link smoking to dive injury or, secondarily, injury of the smoker's dive partners.

I probably don't have to look very far to find that fitness is a factor in dive injury.

Anyone can dive with or without anyone as a dive partner as they see fit. I'm not questioning anyone's right to be selective but I think excluding smokers is baseless as a means to qualify a dive partner based on any empirical evidence.

R

 

[Thalassamania]

With all due respect, those both say that smoking is bad for you. I get it. What I asked for was some statistics that link smoking to dive injury or, secondarily, injury of the smoker's dive partners.

I probably don't have to look very far to find that fitness is a factor in dive injury.

Dive accident investigation is usually so poor that picking up on a secondary cause like smoking or physical condition is next to impossible. Especially when you consider that the dive industry does not, as a whole, consider a fatal underwater heart attack, that there's a good chance would have been survived if it had occurred whilst out on a stroll, a diving accident. They breathe a sigh of relief and chalk it up to a preexisting medical condition rather than diving.

Anyone can dive with or without anyone as a dive partner as they see fit. I'm not questioning anyone's right to be selective but I think excluding smokers is baseless as a means to qualify a dive partner based on any empirical evidence.

R

Both those articles provide sufficient empirical evidence to exclude someone smokers from diving. One need not point to dead bodies that are were directly caused by smoking and diving. Most diving accidents occur because a diver winds up in a panic state, highly reduced respiratory function (remember me, down 40% on one cigarette) sets somebody up for panic if stressed.

 

[wreckchick]

One need not point to dead bodies that are were directly caused by smoking an diving. Most diving accidents occur because a diver winds up in a panic state, highly reduced respiratory function (remember me, down 40% on one cigarette) sets somebody up for panic if stressed.

All I'm saying is that there are folks on the board that say that there is a trail of dead bodies because of smoking divers. If there is, let's have it. If there isn't, then stop preaching the "if I dive with a smoker, I'm going to die" red herring rhetoric.

There is zero correlation between smoking and panic reactions. Beating the same dead horse, the unfit diver is in far more danger of setting up circumstances that will lead to panic.

R

 

[CameronMartz]

All I'm saying is that there are folks on the board that say that there is a trail of dead bodies because of smoking divers. If there is, let's have it. If there isn't, then stop preaching the "if I dive with a smoker, I'm going to die" red herring rhetoric.

As others have pointed out, accident data only looks so far into the cause of a dive accident. There are many interesting questions that we'd love the answer to regarding risk factors:
What did the diver eat?
Do they exercise on a regular basis?
What was their hydration status?
Were they agitated or stressed before the dive?
It goes on and on...

Most divers die of cardiovascular arrest. Were they smokers? Were they out of shape? Did they start to drown first, then suffer MI? Most of the time, the accident report doesn't say.

The reason that you probably won't see too many new lab studies regarding smoking's effect on diving is that we know very well what smoking does to gas exchange (both acute and chronic effects), and we know very well the role of gas exchange in safe diving. We also know its effect on CO2 retention, and we know the effect of high CO2 levels on risk of CNS oxtox.

Smoking's effects on dive safety really isn't a controversial issue for dive physiologists. There are better things to spend limited research funds and time on than this.

There is zero correlation between smoking and panic reactions.

There actually are many studies on such a relationship, both directly and in the inverse. Smokers seem to be more prone to panic attacks, and people prone to panic attacks are much more likely to be smokers. Search PubMed (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez) for "smoking panic" and you will see several pages of them.

There are also studies linking panic attacks to respiratory illnesses, of which smoking is a contributing factor.

All that said, I think that there are more compelling reasons not to smoke as a diver.

Beating the same dead horse, the unfit diver is in far more danger of setting up circumstances that will lead to panic.

R

While it would be difficult to quantify which is more likely to lead to panic, I absolutely agree that a lack of fitness can be a factor.

It is perfectly reasonable for these GUE smoking threads (there have been many) to end up asking why GUE doesn't have stricter fitness standards. This is actually a topic of frequent debate within the organization.

In the end, it usually comes down to the fact that fitness can take a long time for someone to develop once they commit to a program. That is one reason GUE is a little softer on fitness standards than many would like to see.

However, either you are a smoker, or you are not. You can change your status in either direction with a single decision.

Cameron

 

[Thalassamania]

All I'm saying is that there are folks on the board that say that there is a trail of dead bodies because of smoking divers. If there is, let's have it. If there isn't, then stop preaching the "if I dive with a smoker, I'm going to die" red herring rhetoric.

The odds of your dying are pretty slim in either case, but I fell that they are significantly greater when diving with a buddy that I can't trust to be there for me, that it is more likely that I will have to rescue.

There is zero correlation between smoking and panic reactions. Beating the same dead horse, the unfit diver is in far more danger of setting up circumstances that will lead to panic.

R

A correlation is a statistical link coupled with an implied causality, here we have an implied causality coupled with studies that indicate an increased risk . I'll buy it, if you don't want to I'm not going to beat you up about it, but I will tell you that scientifically and statistically you are wrong. A smoking diver is somewhere down the continuum of unfit divers, exactly where I don't know, but of much greater concern to me is that smokers, almost by definition, don't understand how to manage risk and believe themselves invulnerable, both traits are very, very bad juju in a buddy.