2airishuman
Contributor
I disagree with this line of reasoning for a whole bunch of reasons.
Dealing with loss in general and death in particular is part of being a healthy adult. I've seen people die, people I cared about. I've dealt with suicide attempts. Seen addiction's end game. Seen people coptered out from car crashes. No doubt that's all had your "lasting impact" on who I am as a person. It has most certainly shaken me out of any fantasy world I may have constructed where people live forever, or all die painlessly in a rocking chair by the fire in their late 90s, surrounded by compassionate family, friends, and caregivers.
I'm not part of any fire or rescue outfit but I carry a prudent amount of gear around. I have a first aid kit and a CPR mask in my car, my truck, and my desk at work. If I'm shore diving where I think others will be present I usually carry emergency O2. I pay attention to what's going on around me. If I have to rescue someone, whether they make it or not, well, yes, it will affect me. Diving or not diving.
I suppose if I rescue someone on vacation I'll have a bad day or two on vacation and miss some dives. This can also happen because of weather, a bad cold, problems back home, traffic, flight delays, or any number of other things that I accept as being an inherent part of travel.
I'm not going to tell people not to smoke cigarettes even though I've seen people die from lung cancer. I'm not going to tell people to control their drinking even though I've seen people die from the cumulative effects of a bottle of vodka a day over time. And I'm not going to tell people not to dive. They won't listen. And the last thing we need is some sort of regulatory body deciding who is medically fit to dive. We used to have that for private pilots, to no apparent public benefit, and it just finally got dismantled, sort of, earlier this year. In part because people still wouldn't listen, and were flying anyway, because there's always a way to cheat the system.
Back up the bus, folks, it is most assuredly not the deal between buddies that they are contractually compelled to save each other's asses. We've been through this, the industry has been through this, and that's not the way it is.
In any case, I choose my buddies based on many criteria and on the whole I find that most of my dives are either solo or with far less qualified divers who aren't going to save my ass. I don't care whether my buddies are HWP, I care whether they are physically able to do the dive. There are plenty of thin twiggy people who aren't great buddies either. It isn't about body shape, or age, or gender, it's about ability.
Since he was an American, I assume that the shop where he trained respected his choices and encouraged him to discuss his medical fitness to dive with a physician.
