The pursuit of Records in Diving (depth, etc)

[cerich]

It is a shame that so many people have died discovering what is now well-known and documented information. It is hard to fathom that so many people are still dying from these discoveries, all of which have been understood for more than half a century!

I am not implying that recreational divers would know all this stuff, but technical divers should. It is all pretty basic and is widely available to anyone who is interested.

they bounce 100 m and figure that is the "trick", then they think they are immortals and the rest of us are just scared.... then they start to bounce deep.... Most of them die with their first brush with HPNS, a few don't, of the ones that don't most are smart enough to stop...a few are gonna be a "record" holder...most of them die far short of the record.

One day, not that long from now, some guy with just enough experience to be dangerous is gonna read these threads and decide we are just naysayers, that they can do it, that the dead "Doc deep" was not as good as them and do the same damn thing....and get the same damn results

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

This whole thing was so tragic on so many levels.
First the family and friends have to deal with this.
Then there's all the support divers, the boat crew, the captain, and anybody else who was there to enable this guy. And it's not over, they still have to go back out and reel him in. Who gets to do that and how long do those images last? And for what?
How many people really thought he would make it? it's just sad to think so many people got wrapped up in something that was so foolish and pointless. And then on top of that, I didn't see anything on any news networks news about this. Where is this being discussed besides a few local newspapers and a few internet boards.
I didn't see any benefit when I first heard about this planned attempt other than a shot of mental medication to his ego or perhaps mental illness. I don't know what benefit to diving there would have been even if he made it....delusional.
Is that all his life was worth is a few threads on Scubaboard? Really!?
Just sad.

It makes you think about a lot of things, mostly about peoples' psyche and what drives them to do some of these things, and the mindset of those that follow and support.
I suppose there are some people that just have no 'off' switch.
I guess the same could be said about freediving record attempts and big wave surfing, amongst other things.

This might seem a bit harsh, but I'm not seeing any hero here. He didn't get chomped by a shark, he didn't die fighting against an enemy at war, this all could have been avoided.
I'm sure there are many people affected by this, not just the Doc. I see it as a very selfish and grandiose way to commit suicide involving a lot of other people who have to live with it.

 

[NAM001]

I think you are mixing apples with oranges. if the last guy went xxx feet what is learned by gong 10 ft further to earn the right to wear a pin. Remember the goal of the dive was to break a record not to find a cure for cancer.

That's a bold statement, I wonder how many times in history people expressed such confidence, only to be proven wrong later. I don't disagree with more knowledgeable divers claiming this was basically a suicide, but in a way, most of our lives amount to a prolonged suicide. If someone chooses to burn their candle faster, their choice. I am personally feeling a little put off by the amount of negativity in this and related threads. I feel the point was made already, and that discussing technical aspects of the dive could prove more effective in discouraging others from following than the incessant bashing and badmouthing.

 

[DevonDiver]

My thoughts, on my blog:

A Fatal Attempt: Psychological Factors in the Failed World Depth Record Attempt 2015

 

[descent]

I have read this entire thread, and have read several people talking about how this dive was foolish/impossible. ...

Yesterday's "impossible" is tomorrow's liveaboard. The word itself is just a weak indication of disbelief, nothing more.

Consider Everest. After many failed attempts, people finally reached the summit, but only by using supplemental oxygen.

With oxygen, a big climb became less of a suicide mission, and more of a risky but manageable form of adventure travel.

Interesting facts emerged. Some climbers needed more oxygen to reach a given altitude, some needed less.

Among themselves, the mountaineers speculated that there might be a climber somewhere who was so aerobically fit (or genetically blessed) that he or she could climb any mountain on Earth without using any supplemental oxygen at all.

Decades passed. It became clear that if such a person did exist, he or she would be beyond exceptional. Doctors started saying that the human body was simply not capable. They used the i-word a lot.

You will probably not be surprised to learn that in 1978, two European climbers with great innate athleticism, exceptional climbing resumes and decades of experience at high altitude became the first to reach the summit of Everest using only the oxygen they could inhale from the thin air. Climbers everywhere hailed a metabolic miracle.

We now know that enormous lung capacity is rare, just as it is rare to be over seven feet tall. Rarer still are people with this gift who also have the many years of highly focused training to hone critical mountaineering skills in an unforgiving, low-oxygen environment. Working against those remaining few are the uncountable dangerous situations that maim or kill climbers as they try to acquire experience at greater and greater altitudes. Escaping serious harm to become a true superclimber is as rare as winning a lottery.

Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler were the first. Many people have had the burning desire to follow in their footsteps, but only a tiny handful ever did.


Was this one man's quest to see if he had underwater superpowers?

Decades of painful experimentation show that bounce diving to extreme depths leads to many unpleasant injuries. Although tolerance varies, no one seems to be immune.

Guy Garman seemed to be betting that he had an unusually high tolerance for rapid compression while breathing helium. The fact that he completed shallower deep bounce dives suggests that there might have been a little bit of truth to that idea.

But since he didn't try to repeat those dives, we will never know if they were a statistical fluke. Did he really have unusual ability, or was he just very careful and very lucky a few times?


Sadly, there is little to be learned from this accident that we did not already know.

 

[Diver0001]

I would like to respond briefly to the general tone of this discussion. Obviously now that it's clear whether or not the dive will be a success, people are coming out of the woodwork to condemn the attempt. Several good points have been made about experience and "record fever" but I think we need to look at this in the big picture a bit too.

First; every record has, by definition, been set by someone doing something unique. It's easy for people to arm-chair quarterback that, especially after the fact. In the original thread I did mention that I thought it was the diving equivalent of "ready, shoot, aim" and I wish I had been wrong about that but we all took a wait and see attitude. Pioneers establish limits with the body count. That's how this game works. In freediving it's the same thing. In mountain climbing, motorcycle racing.... you name it. People put their lives on the line for their passions. They do it willingly and they accept the risks. I don't see this as anything other than that, and to Netdoc, I would say, this was not a "suicide". Unwise? sure. But not inconsistent with the spirit of adventure that have given our sport a large pile of bodies from people pushing (personal) boundaries that serve to define some of our best practices and make the sport all the more safe for everyone else who (to employ a metaphor) crosses the road when the light is green.

We know because of those who went before us, when the light is green and when it is not.

I liked Andy's post because it attempts to analyse what went wrong before the dive even started. What does it take for someone to get into the mindset of challenging their personal limits to this extent? This isn't only an issue for technical divers, but for all divers. Everyone has limits and we can learn from this incident. Lets try to do that and avoid writing off this particular diver for his failings. Ultimately his death may save lives because the many instructors on this board will be reminded to talk frankly and honestly to their students about the mental aspects of pushing boundaries.

Secondly; this dive reminds me a lot of what happens every year on Mt. Everest. I'm not much of a climber. I've never been above 6000m, but I grew up in the mountains and spent my weekends climbing mountains until I was well into my 20's. What happens on Mt. Everest every year is that they take hundreds of "tourists" up the mountain. It's big business and there is a never ending list of people who are ready to take their "ultimate" challenge. The down side to this is that most (if not all) of them have never been in the "death zone" before -- above about 8000m. I've never been there either so I'm not speaking from experience but the parallels to this incident are striking to me. "Tourists" in the death zone on Everest (which would be a very straight forward climb if it weren't for the altitude) die at a rate of 6-10 per year, many because they get "summit fever" and won't turn back when the climb is going pear shaped.

Likewise, Dr. Garman comes across to me (as I mentioned on the original thread) as someone who took a big leap of faith in doing this dive. Similar to suddenly climbing Everest when you had never been above 6000m before. To my way of thinking, and I apologize in advance to any friends and loved ones who may be reading this, he seemed from what I have read on the internet to approach this dive like an Everest "tourist".... and he met his end as many Everest tourists do. One aspect of the discussion that I think really needs some focus is this apparent shift. Has technical diving become so mainstream that "tourists" think they can set depth records?

R..

 

[Wookie]

It's hard enough to fill a liveaboard without turning it into a commercial dive vessel. This dive was not any kind of record, those go to the commercial boys and the Navy boys. This was one poorly qualified diver's attempt to make a dive where he didn't know what he didn't know. Sadly, due to poor planning and a lack of understanding of "how it works", his didn't measure up.

I like Netdoc's analogy of teaching pigs to fly. You can spend a zillion dollars to graft wings on a pig, and when you overcome that hurdle, then you can teach the pig to flap, then ....on and on. Or, you can build a set of plywood wings and strap them on (the closest analogy to what Dr. Deep here did) and throw the pig off of a tall building, or you can put the pig in a nice airplane and slop it and give it a place to crap and the pig can fly all over the world. In relative comfort.

In the end, we learned that 1,000 feet is still the human tolerance for a bounce dive, but only for someone physiologically superior to the average human. We don't (and likely won't ever) know why the dive failed, although there are any number of reasons that it could have been. But we know that any of the failings could have been solved with technology. We know this because divers have been to 1200 feet, and returned. This is akin to drag racing a Stanley Steamer, a fine automobile for it's time, but I wouldn't want to race one to the moon and back.

Yesterday's "impossible" is tomorrow's liveaboard. The word itself is just a weak indication of disbelief, nothing more.

Consider Everest. After many failed attempts, people finally reached the summit, but only by using supplemental oxygen.

With oxygen, a big climb became less of a suicide mission, and more of a risky but manageable form of adventure travel.

Interesting facts emerged. Some climbers needed more oxygen to reach a given altitude, some needed less.

Among themselves, the mountaineers speculated that there might be a climber somewhere who was so aerobically fit (or genetically blessed) that he or she could climb any mountain on Earth without using any supplemental oxygen at all.

Decades passed. It became clear that if such a person did exist, he or she would be beyond exceptional. Doctors started saying that the human body was simply not capable. They used the i-word a lot.

You will probably not be surprised to learn that in 1978, two European climbers with great innate athleticism, exceptional climbing resumes and decades of experience at high altitude became the first to reach the summit of Everest using only the oxygen they could inhale from the thin air. Climbers everywhere hailed a metabolic miracle.

We now know that enormous lung capacity is rare, just as it is rare to be over seven feet tall. Rarer still are people with this gift who also have the many years of highly focused training to hone critical mountaineering skills in an unforgiving, low-oxygen environment. Working against those remaining few are the uncountable dangerous situations that maim or kill climbers as they try to acquire experience at greater and greater altitudes. Escaping serious harm to become a true superclimber is as rare as winning a lottery.

Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler were the first. Many people have had the burning desire to follow in their footsteps, but only a tiny handful ever did.


Was this one man's quest to see if he had underwater superpowers?

Decades of painful experimentation show that bounce diving to extreme depths leads to many unpleasant injuries. Although tolerance varies, no one seems to be immune.

Guy Garman seemed to be betting that he had an unusually high tolerance for rapid compression while breathing helium. The fact that he completed shallower deep bounce dives suggests that there might have been a little bit of truth to that idea.

But since he didn't try to repeat those dives, we will never know if they were a statistical fluke. Did he really have unusual ability, or was he just very careful and very lucky a few times?


Sadly, there is little to be learned from this accident that we did not already know.

 

[tomfcrist]

It's easy for people to arm-chair quarterback that, especially after the fact. In the original thread I did mention that I thought it was the diving equivalent of "ready, shoot, aim" and I wish I had been wrong about that but we all took a wait and see attitude. Pioneers establish limits with the body count. That's how this game works. In freediving it's the same thing. In mountain climbing, motorcycle racing.... you name it. People put their lives on the line for their passions. They do it willingly and they accept the risks. I don't see this as anything other than that, and to Netdoc, I would say, this was not a "suicide".

R..

Quite a few of us called it unwise several months ago....I even went as far as stating that its a one way trip. Are we now supposed to act like this guy is a hero or a saint because he did exactly what we predicted?

 

[vincent54]

We shouldn't recognize the record in the first place. The Navy already has gone deeper, so why the emphasis on individual records?

I have a friend whose pursuit of a speed record at Bonneville has cost him the use of his arm. It's an obsessive / compulsive thing with these people. NO talking them out of it. They do get a t shirt for breaking 200mph, similar to the 300 foot club. The records mean nothing. BTW, he went 228 mph on a homemade, handbuilt 1955 english bike that is still a record, but has a claw of a hand.

If you post a record, people will try to break it.

 

[The Chairman]

If you post a record, people will try to break it.

Which is why when I'm asked just how deep I've been, my standard reply is "I've been to the bottom!"