The straw that broke the divers back.

[HowardE]

What I said was: Most diver mishaps are a chain of mistakes and equipment failures. And in my opinion, in the vast majority of them better fitness would have helped.

For the record... My statement "What do you base this statement on? In the "VAST MAJORITY" of dive related deaths we can attribute people not being in good shape? " Was based on another post, that apparently was edited by the user who posted it.

But even those are the result of a chain of mistakes. Going diving where you might be eaten for example.

The Ocean? Maybe just stay home... there's less chance of diving accidents there.

What do you think the pulse rate is of somebody with their neck in the noose about to be hanged (hung?). Even if they are not exerting themselves at all. I will guess that somepeople even have a heart attack while they are waiting to be hung. But the noose is what kills them.

This by definition is an assumption. Logic doesn't follow this way. If they guy was dead before he was hanged, then they hung a dead man. To say the noose is what killed him wouldn't be valid. One could assume that fear of the noose is what killed him, but that would be an assumption. It is also entirely possible that the guy just had a heart attack and died. "It was his time"

Ditto the hypercapnia. If your heart explodes in 30 sec, instead of passing out in 1 min, you have 30 sec less to fix the problem.

How does hypercapnia make your heart explode? I'm not disagreeing that an out of shape severely overweight person would have a higher propensity to overbreathe, and potentially have an episode of hypercapnia; but with so many non-ccr divers in this thread. I believe that you're making the issue confused for them.

Better fitness means more bullets under extreme stress. Again if my heart had exploded, or if I couldn't keep it together to do the two things I barely managed to do--Get on alternate source of air and grab a rock--I probably wouldn't be here to irritate you today.

Again. I'm not going to deny that better fitness is good, but ability to control panic, and the panic cycle - isn't necessarily a function of how fit a person is. Remembering to do a dil flush, or go semi-closed, or bail out, is a function of remembering your training, and ability to deal with stressors and panic. I don't believe that this is a function of physical fitness.

Again... Let me say... I do agree that fitness is important for all around good health, and certainly divers and ALL OF US should strive to be in good physical condition.

 

[lulubelle]

If you are a couch potato, a disgusting fat body, gravely ill etc.

116 fire, I have been following this thread with interest. It is a good thing that you want to make a point in the interest of diver safety. No one would disagree that good fitness is important to being a good and safe diver. But I find it interesting that despite your protestations that you are not referring to these specific instances of diver deaths, you use them as your template for the entire thread although nothing in the reports thus far indicates that diver fitness or lack thereof was a factor.

I'll give you the couch potato,anyone who is not active in general probably should not be in the water. I'll give you the gravely ill one too, anyone who is not generally well should not be in the water. But as for your reference to a "disgusting fat body", sounds like you have some issues there.

I'm not a girl who anyone would describe as thin. But I am strong and fit and would far rather dive with someone like me than a lean person who does not exercise. I have great cardiovascular fitness, move better and more swiftly in the water than on land, and have a mean roundkick and switchkick thanks to a trainer who also trains MMA fighters. You might want to use some better criteria to judge fitness for diving.

5 feet beneath the surface was a current that was so ripping it made my regulator burp. We were flapping on the anchor line like flags. My dive partner is 170 pounds at 5'8" and I was at the time 5'8" 200.

10 feet down, struggling just to get down to the wreck, we were both in the first stages of panic due to exertion. We gave each other signals, went back up (not uncontrolled). Got a breather, and decided to try again but just go hand over hand back down to the wreck (finning down was what winded us, and the current pushing our regs to belch on top of what starting to tingle that "i cant get good air" sense).
----------------------------------------------------------------------

2 days ago at the health club (I hit the gym 5-6 days a week now after I learned a hard lesson in NC), I saw a new club member who was 35-45, 175 pounds maybe, 5'9", and he passed out during his cardio fitness test! Its not the obesity, although obesity usually is a positive indicator for it.

Guy at work, 42 years old, 5'8", 180, goes to his doctor for a physical and winds up admitted into the hospital for a quadruple bypass. Turns out he lost the genetic lottery for heart disease as his diet/etc wasn't bad.

So yes, fitness in divers is something I think about often, especially reading the DAN report for 2008 which profiled the average fatality as being 40-60, overweight, with significant reduced arterial flow.

Deco martini, it is great that you are ramping up your workouts, but cut yourself some slack in terms of your post mortem analysis of your NC dives. I have seen the fittest of the fit have trouble here if they were not used to our conditions and how they have to adjust their diving to compensate. I always recommend that divers who are new to NC diving buddy with someone who is used to it on the first trip down. Come back sometime.

You also make the point that height and weight are not always predictors of good health and good fitness although no one would argue that obesity is generally a reasonable indicator of the opposite. Bottom line for me is that I want a fit buddy, but I don't really care what they look like. I care about their endurance, cv fitness, strength, and mental health.

 

[Hetland]

ability to control panic, and the panic cycle - isn't necessarily a function of how fit a person is.

Thank You!

I've seen people at the height of physical perfection freeze when things went bad while "disgusting fat bodies" took care of business. No one disputes that fitness is an important part of any physical activity, especially those that take place underwater, but I don't need to jump out of helicopters and do swim drills three times a week in order to be a good, healthy diver. Diving within your limits is a basic concept taught in OW class. Knowing how to sort yourself out when you find you have exceeded those limits starts in that same class, and continues through additional training and experience. Problems are solved first in the mind.

 

[idocsteve]

Common misconception; I have known a lot of flabby people who insisted that their large size was muscle and felt they were in great shape.

Even the drop off of a tropical wall in the carribbean doesn't lead to depths as great as that of the human system of denial and rationalization.

"As he drops crumbs from a Hot Pocket into the convenient table provided by his ever expansive gut, the obese rationalizer is proud of his strong abdominal muscles and excellent fitness and can't wait to get back into the water at the start of the next dive season."

 

[idocsteve]

Again. I'm not going to deny that better fitness is good, but ability to control panic, and the panic cycle - isn't necessarily a function of how fit a person is.

Ah, but that's not the point.

Many if not most diving accidents are avoidable and result from diver panic, and many of those panic situations occur because the diver was not fit for the task at hand and over exerted themselves.

Another way of saying it is that the situation would not have occurred had the diver been fit and diving comfortably within their physical limits, so there would not have been a trigger to begin the panic cycle in the first place.

 

[HowardE]

Many if not most diving accidents are avoidable and result from diver panic, and many of those panic situations occur because the diver was not fit for the task at hand and over exerted themselves.

Another sweeping generalization? And from where do you derive this data?

Another way of saying it is that the situation would not have occurred had the diver been fit and diving comfortably within their physical limits, so there would not have been a trigger to begin the panic cycle in the first place.

Again. This isn't necessarily true. Panic can happen within your limits.

If you are a certified trimix diver... and have 50 dives to 100m - then is a dive to 200' well within your limits? could you still panic if the poop hits the fan? Yup.

The correlation between fitness and panic is a far stretch.

 

[walke121]

Howard... Sadly there is no point of trying to debate anymore... Why I stopped posting several pages back. No matter what is said it is met with some kind of rebuttal (some have substance to them most don't). It has been said that fitness is important but apparantly eveyone here feels it is the most important thing. I have a lot of experience but I definitely don't dive with the caliber of divers you do on a regular basis or attempt dives nearly as difficult. It amazes me how that so many people will argue with even the top divers on the board no matter how flimsy the argument.

 

[Web Monkey]

ents are avoidable and result from diver panic, and many of those panic situations occur because the diver was not fit for the task at hand and over exerted themselves.

Diving accidents happen because people don't follow their training, don't exercise good judgement and don't recognize and deal with stress as it builds up.

Aside from random medical events, you'll be hard pressed to find anything in the A&I section that couldn't have been prevented by following training, using good judgement and handling stress before it becomes panic.

Another way of saying it is that the situation would not have occurred had the diver been fit and diving comfortably within their physical limits, so there would not have been a trigger to begin the panic cycle in the first place.

Panic doesn't happen because someone can't swim fast enough or do enough pushups, it happens because they're not properly dealing with stress and it's cause(s). Physical conditioning has little do do with this, assuming the diver isn't being stressed out by the normal part of the dive.

Terry

 

[Hetland]

Ah, but that's not the point.

Many if not most diving accidents are avoidable and result from diver panic, and many of those panic situations occur because the diver was not fit for the task at hand and over exerted themselves.

Fitness is irrelevant in breath holding.

I guess the reason this thread irritates me so much is because I get the impression that some people believe that the number of sit-ups you do is directly proportional to your chance of survival..... Apparently because you are more likely to panic if you're obese. A persons ability to remain calm is not dependent upon their bmi.

I've not witnessed enough underwater emergencies to say one way or the other, but I spent several years experiencing above-water emergencies, and I can tell you that waist size has nothing to do with mental fortitude and the ability to remain calm and think clearly in life and death matters. When you rip that reg out of your mouth and take a lung full of water, it doesn't really matter if you can run a marathon or not.

 

[deco_martini]

Deco martini, it is great that you are ramping up your workouts, but cut yourself some slack in terms of your post mortem analysis of your NC dives. I have seen the fittest of the fit have trouble here if they were not used to our conditions and how they have to adjust their diving to compensate.

Well, undercurrent that was so hard it was pushing our purge valves, I have been told is not normal and was due to the atlantic hurricane. The next day it had gone away and we had what they call a "normal" current in NC.

Seriously, it was "hold on to the wreck for dear life" that first day. I suspected it might not be normal when I noticed the Amberjacks hiding behind me to get a breather from the current.