Can you elaborate on what you said about helmets causing broken necks or in what way they would cause panic in a diver? I have never heard of this before so a bit curious. Thanks
Those storys I even laught at myself
@OrangeCountyScuba and because of the tragic topic they are hard to translate without offending someone.
In my opinion by the time the stories reach me they have to be distorted so much I cannot guess the true parts from the fiction anymore.
Most stories turn into cave diving stories or something other extreme, I often think things like that more realistic happening to overenthusiastic noobs.
But thay have in common when told that people insist they of course happended to very experienced divers (sic.).
I will repeat two examples that people have told me more than once each:
First the neck-breaking thing.
Quite Easy: floaty helmet not meant for water but for climbing to the dive site (could be cave, could be in the mountains, could be arriving by bicycle
)
When jumping into the water from more than 5m something like that might break a neck easily, true.
I still think it a hoax to win an argument
I do not bring floaty helmets to the dive site myself, so why worry anyway.
Second the panic part:
That is more realistic I think.
Helmets change the sounds drastically sometimes, might collide with mask and hoses, straps might entangle in hoses and regulator.
So I won't go into details and just jump to the conclusion:
For someone with unknown latened claustrophobia a helmet might even prove fatal in open water dives.
For myself I know I would just take of the helmet, so I never feared something like it.
But when people bring it into the argument, I often admit that might be a 'theoretically possible risk', I still insist on 'improblable'.