I think that diving when you have diving-related ear problems is unwise. Diving with an active middle ear infection is often not even possible, because the person can't equalize, which appears to have been the case here. Diving with INNER ear problems which are diving-related is extremely unwise, simply because augmenting the damage already done can result in permanent hearing loss or worse, permanent vertigo. I simply took exception to a blanket statement that diving while taking meds for an inner ear infection was absolutely contraindicated. It would depend, as it does in my husband's case, with the type of inner ear problem, and the medication being prescribed.
I honestly agree with one of the prior posts, that a cave-trained, experienced diver with redundant equipment should have been able to make the ascent from the log, even if vomiting or having severe vertigo, without dying. Honestly, if you let GO of the log, you'll be on the surface faster than you want to be (or, as Jim told me before my first Ginnie trip, "Get as negative as you can before you start the ascent, or the Devil will spit you in the river!"). Something didn't work here, and we don't know what it was, but I really have no quarrel with someone who expected a trained diver to be able to make the 20 foot or so ascent from the log without issue, if she appeared to be fine at the log. I honestly can't remember ever permitting a teammate to make an ascent alone, but I have seen other people do it, and I HAVE allowed a teammate to surface swim in from the ascent point alone, although I watched them. It's really hard to know where to draw a line on what someone can do for himself, and you try to be somewhat rational about your decisions, and things can still go wrong.
The year I learned to dive (or perhaps the next year, I'm not sure) a woman in her 20's died on a completely routine dive to benign local dive site where the max depth you can reach, if you're good on gas and like to swim, is 40 feet. She died, as I recall, in a little more than ten feet of water, and to my knowledge, it was never determined why. She had gotten separated from her buddies, which is all too easy to do in our murky water, and by the time they found her, she was dead. I'm sure her buddies have carried the pain of that around with them for the last decade, or at least I know I would have. Yet there was nothing they did to cause the accident, and may not have been anything they could have done to prevent it, even if they had been with her.
I feel very sorry for Jim.
