Virginian diver dead at 190 feet - Roaring River State Park, Missouri

[Wibble]

Gus plugged in a gas that shouldn’t have even been in the cave, that shouldn’t been where his bailout is, that may or may not have had a necklace and be the bailout reg wrapped around his neck…

And! He didn’t NOTOX or team check or whatever else each agency wants to call it when he plugged it in…

Alas we don't know enough to say this.

There's perfectly good reasons for having an air cylinder with you. However it's all conjecture regarding the planning and what went wrong.

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Small point; the PPO2 of 21% at 60m/200ft is 1.47. That's not dangerous. Sure, you'd be narked off your face, but you wouldn't be in ox-tox territory.

@Vicko -- Regarding the Kiss, there's nothing intrinsically unsafe about the unit. Manual rebreathers are as good as fully electronic ones; de-watering means a bailout; etc.

 

[grantctobin]

Alas we don't know enough to say this.

There's perfectly good reasons for having an air cylinder with you. However it's all conjecture regarding the planning and what went wrong.

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Small point; the PPO2 of 21% at 60m/200ft is 1.47. That's not dangerous. Sure, you'd be narked off your face, but you wouldn't be in ox-tox territory.

@Vicko -- Regarding the Kiss, there's nothing intrinsically unsafe about the unit. Manual rebreathers are as good as fully electronic ones; de-watering means a bailout; etc.

Gus is the dive talk person that talks about this in the video and being narked off his gourd (and he was deeper than what he discusses in the video). This is not Eric, the recently deceased. And no, there are no good reasons to have an AL80 of air in your primary bailout position at over 200’ in a cave, let along being dumb enough to have it plumbed into the rebreather. The only appropriate use of air for these dives is inflation gas.

 

[grantctobin]

Alas we don't know enough to say this.

There's perfectly good reasons for having an air cylinder with you. However it's all conjecture regarding the planning and what went wrong.

---

Small point; the PPO2 of 21% at 60m/200ft is 1.47. That's not dangerous. Sure, you'd be narked off your face, but you wouldn't be in ox-tox territory.

@Vicko -- Regarding the Kiss, there's nothing intrinsically unsafe about the unit. Manual rebreathers are as good as fully electronic ones; de-watering means a bailout; etc.

A 1.5 PPO2 at 200’ in a cave is bananas, to continue my tirade

 

[Bob DBF]

Small point; the PPO2 of 21% at 60m/200ft is 1.47. That's not dangerous. Sure, you'd be narked off your face, but you wouldn't be in ox-tox territory.

Being narked off your face would not nessarily be immediately evident, which could lead too other errors of judgment. Having only done deep dives on air, I always always know I am impaired, regardless of how I might perceive my condition. I have been on dives at 200' that seemed like a 50' fun dive, other than I knew that was a false sense of security. If one was diving a mix on a dive that was proceeding as planned, and it was changed to air without their knowledge, they might never know that they were narked.

 

[Vicko]

Air at 60m on a rebreather feels like you are breathing soup, not gas.
Well not that bad but still noticeable.
And no, the mCCR is not inherently more dangerous but it is different and asks for different approaches to diving and planning, this is getting way of topic.

 

[Bob DBF]

Air at 60m on a rebreather feels like you are breathing soup, not gas.

Thanks, I did not know that, a handy piece of information.

 

[DOBY]

Alas we don't know enough to say this.

There's perfectly good reasons for having an air cylinder with you. However it's all conjecture regarding the planning and what went wrong.

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Small point; the PPO2 of 21% at 60m/200ft is 1.47. That's not dangerous. Sure, you'd be narked off your face, but you wouldn't be in ox-tox territory.

@Vicko -- Regarding the Kiss, there's nothing intrinsically unsafe about the unit. Manual rebreathers are as good as fully electronic ones; de-watering means a bailout; etc.

Yes, air at 200 feet on open circuit would give a pO2 of around 1.5ata. But the total pO2 on a mCCR is coming from both the Diluent and the 100% O2 that is being continuously feed into the loop by the orifice. Thus, it would be very easy and not unreasonable to get and maintain a much higher pO2 on decent using air.

I know it’s a common practice by some (not recommended) to just close off the O2 and breathe the loop down before opening the O2 back up if you have a pO2 spike. However, a better option is to be able to easily and quickly Dil flush the loop down to a reasonable level if you spike the pO2 over 1.6ata. But the Dil has to be around 0.9-1.0ata at MOD, as near impossible to Dil flush the pO2 down if the Dil is at 1.5ata to start.

 

[Manatee Diver]

Ignoring the whole "Why did Gus have an air tank?" you have the question of how did he not notice that his dil mix didn't have helium in at. At a bare minimum for a dive to 200ft you need at least 30% helium, with 45% required to meet the max END of 100ft that is common among most American cave divers. And if one follows standard mixes the helium content is even higher often like 15/65 or 10/70. How did he notice notice that it didn't have helium?

The answer is likely that while he has the certs to do these dives, he likely doesn't have the experience.

 

[crofrog]

Ignoring the whole "Why did Gus have an air tank?" you have the question of how did he not notice that his dil mix didn't have helium in at. At a bare minimum for a dive to 200ft you need at least 30% helium, with 45% required to meet the max END of 100ft that is common among most American cave divers. And if one follows standard mixes the helium content is even higher often like 15/65 or 10/70. How did he notice notice that it didn't have helium?

The answer is likely that while he has the certs to do these dives, he likely doesn't have the experience.

It sounds like that the air tank was his bailout and his dill was suppose to be trimix but he didn’t hook it up

 

[Manatee Diver]

It sounds like that the air tank was his bailout and his dill was suppose to be trimix but he didn’t hook it up

I know that, but why didn't he notice the lack a helium? Between the voice changes and WOB an experienced trimix diver would've noticed the lack of helium.

What does the team consider to be the proper amount of experience to do this dive?