My apologies for a long post. I wish I could be more succinct, but there's been misinterpretation of the concept I am trying to raise, so I believe a more full explanation is warranted...
The lesson is that you don't have to give in to panic if you can avoid it. But you dismiss it as something impossible.
Panic isn't a choice. It is neither something you choose to do, or choose not to do.
I believe panic occurs when the person concerned has no further options left - when they accept, or believe, that immediate death is forthcoming. People vary in when they make that acceptance. That acceptance is further varied by factors such as; experience, training and confidence.
Marcia had a lot of training - that tends to delay panic, because the diver knows there are solutions available.
Marcia had a lot of experience - she would have learned that air-depletion was not instantly fatal, that there is time to resolve an issue.
Marcia had a lot of confidence - she would have dealt with many problems in her past diving, which she had survived.
In contrast, a novice diver; who might be weaker in one or more of these areas, might encounter hopelessness at a much earlier stage - and thus, panic earlier.
As we all agree, panic is a bad thing that decreases the chance of survival underwater. It is a thoughtless, instinctive survival mechanism - which ultimately tends to prove counter-productive for underwater emergencies, where problem solving and calm, rational response is optimal.
Panic is one end of a scale. On the other end of the scale is an unnaturally subdued sense of risk. I'd suggest that this was also a bad thing, decreasing the chance of survival underwater. It occurs when the diver develops a very high level of experience, training and confidence. It manifests as a failure to acknowledge the severity of a situation until a very late stage; potentially only when the incident has progressed beyond hope of resolution.
I don't doubt that many divers reading this thread would struggle to accept this point. I mean, since when did "slow, calm, controlled and unperturbed" become a bad thing? HOW can it be a bad thing?
All I can say is... become an instructor, do 8000 dives... and then give yourself an honest assessment. Because, until you're at that level, you won't understand how un-threatening many underwater problems can appear; or how that psychology can negatively influence your response to a critical emergency.
Absence of panic is a good thing, but absence of fear is very dangerous.
I believe that absence of fear is a state that very highly experienced divers do obtain; even in an emergency scenario. We strive to suppress the acute panic response.. and are successful in doing that over a long process of development. However, that suppression is invariably achieved by gaining vast confidence in our ability to resolve and survive problems. It only works for as long as we retain that confidence and its loss can be more psychologically traumatic than if we had less confidence to begin with.
Fear to failure is never a shock. Confidence to failure is a great shock. Panic evolves from shock.
The lesson I wish to draw from this is primarily for very experienced divers. I acknowledge that it might seem incomprehensible to those of lesser experience. I do not want that to sound condescending; it is merely a statement of reality.
You think I'm naive, sheltered and inexperienced for thinking so.
No. I just think your relative inexperience prevents you from seeing the nuance of my point. I mean no insult or criticism in that.
The preceding comments relate to comparatively looking at other less panic prone ways of dying and concluding that they are not necessarily better. So if you have the misfortune to consciously encounter a situation were you might be drowning, you have one more argument against succumbing to panic. I'm not saying it is easy. I'm not saying anybody can do it. I'm not even saying I can do it. I hope I can but, honestly, I am not sure. To you it seems that it is impossible for anybody.
We're all learning different lessons from Marcia's death. The incident has triggered us to think about ourselves, more so than any previous fatality discussed here in the Accidents & Incidents forum. Firstly, because Marcia was "one of us". Secondly, because we knew Marcia... we knew she understood the issues that contributed to her death. We knew she had read the same threads as us, discussed the same failings, learned the same lessons. We also knew she was a very experienced diver and instructor. In short, we can't dismiss her as "some ill-informed idiot". She wasn't... and that's scary.
I've done a lot of self-examination as a result of this. The 'basics' I am content with - diving with unfamiliar equipment, weak buddy procedures, over-weighting, insufficient BCD buoyancy... Those are good lessons learned - and all readers of the thread acknowledge that. BUT.. for me... the real issues require more insight to decipher:
1) How such an experienced diver could get themselves into a situation where they are making such rookie mistakes?
2) How such an experienced diver could fail to resolve those mistakes under such benign diving circumstances?
The first issue can be explained away through 'complacency'. We know and understand this. Marcia knew and understood this. And yet...
she still made that mistake. I believe to draw a real lesson from that, we need to identify how and why complacency occurs... and, perhaps, some definitive guidance to help others avoid it. Merely understanding that complacency occurs is not enough to prevent it. It wasn't enough for Marcia. So what prevents it?
The second issue is much more complex. It's much harder to fathom. I see that it has caused considerable exasperation in this thread already. How could such an experienced diver have categorically failed to enact any successful resolution to their problem, when so many potential resolutions existed? The truth is, that incident was eminently survivable, especially for a diver of Marcia's experience, training and comfort.
'Medical issues' were raised as an initial explanation, but (as far as I am aware) have been ruled out through autopsy. That confused us. So, some people have suggest 'panic' as the answer to that. And yet, 'panic' seems inconsistent with Marcia's experience, training and comfort. Highly experienced dive instructors rarely panic when initially confronted with buoyancy issues and/or air-depletion. There was
time to resolve that and there were multiple
solutions to resolve that.
So why didn't Marcia use that
time, to apply a
solution to survive? This is what we are struggling to understand.
For panic to 'work' as an explanation; to explain why time was not used effectively, it would have to manifested
immediately upon the incident arising. That seems implausible.
So, I look for an alternative reason. I look at myself and how I dive... how I feel when I dive... how I respond to stressors underwater. What I see is the opposite of panic - I see the absence of fear. I see utter calm and control and confidence. I see a diver unable to comprehend the seriousness of the situation due to a profoundly ingrained belief in themselves and their capability. Not a fragile over-confidence... a legitimate, solid confidence.
Except that confidence itself was a downfall. It delayed appropriate response. It meant that precious, finite, time was wasted. It meant the 'emergency' wasn't acknowledged until too late.
How does a diver easily capable of resolving an emergency fail to resolve an emergency? By not realizing that an emergency existed...
Marcia may have recognized the problems at the time. Out-of-air and unable to get positively buoyant. She knew not to panic. Her conditioning and experience allowed her to suppress that panic. However, she may have done so too well... to the point of disregarding the seriousness of her situation.
It's hard to describe unless you've experienced it. I have experienced it.
I have been underwater, suffering air depletion and not given a sh*t. I have been shallow, or had access to redundant gas, or had a reliable buddy... or just plain knew that I could
deal with the issue, one way or another. No drama. It's happened a hundred times, one way or another. No panic.
Only in hindsight, if you take the time to honestly assess the situation, do you realize it was a close-call. Even then... unperturbed... it's a hypothetical.
I think it's plausible that Marcia experienced the same. In very shallow water, breathing fumes, unable to ascend. No alarm bells rang. No drama. Ultimately, that may have contributed towards a significant
inaction.
DumpsterDiver says it would only take 12 seconds to dump weight. Maybe Marcia didn't allow herself those 12 seconds? Maybe she was too relaxed and therefore cut it way too close?
You argue for hypothetical vs practical scenarios saying that military in training and buddied free divers don't panic because they know they have this safety net that will prevent them from dying. So then I'm supposed to believe that solo free divers that down, all drown in panic? Not logical. And military personnel once they get real life harassment outside their training safety net, they all panic sometime before dying?
I don't want this side-issue to distract from the points I've raised above...it's generic, rather than specific to this incident, so perhaps a new thread on the subject if you want to discuss?
beaten out of me on/under it, and being covered by and/or swept along along with it are all NBD so long as I stay relaxed and keep my head. So I can see frittering away time calmly trying various solutions to a problem of being low/OOA but too negative to swim up, even ignoring it entirely for a bit at first, before going for a drastic solution like ditching the rig entirely. 
