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

[DOBY]

He is talking about Gus, but it gives you an idea of their SOP, they carry what is basically one BO/dil and another that is deco/suit gas.

 

[Manatee Diver]

@DOBY

That was shortly after the incident, so I read it as just covering that it doesn't necessarily apply to Eric's death, as it is too early.

But if the article is correct it follows the SOP they outlined. Though we await the report to conform, I am making the assumption that Eric wasn't so wreckless to plan a 200ft dive without helium. Or that the team allowed him to dive without helium. But I could be wrong.

 

[stuartv]

Hubris or error; what else is there?

I agree. But, I think it would be educational to know which it was. And if it was error, what was the specific error?

Was the cylinder not analyzed? Mislabeled? Was it a cylinder of deco gas he was meant to be placing as a stage bottle, and he plugged it in as his dil by mistake?

I don't know about anyone else, but I'll admit to some personal shortcomings. One is that sometimes I have a voice in my head that says "don't sweat it so much. If your analysis is wrong, the ppO2 display on your CCR will catch it and tell you what you're really breathing, regardless." (I AM very (VERY) diligent on calibrating my handset and NERD and tracking their millivolts, too).

So far, I've had the self-discipline to squelch that voice. But, it is tempting sometimes.

Imagine if Eric heard the same inner voice and actually heeded it. I don't know about him, but until I read about this accident, I squelched that inner voice purely on self-discipline. It never occurred to me that if I were way off on helium analysis, it could result in narcosis that, in turn, resulted in not noticing or paying attention to problems being shown on my handset or NERD. It HAS occurred to me that helium analysis being off could affect deco calculations, but the temptation is still there to say "I'm not going to be taking on much deco on this dive and I'm going to stay at my last stop for a fair bit of overtime, so even if my helium is off by a chunk, I'll be fine."

So, what if he was, let's call it, not diligent in making SURE he had the right dil, because he thought in the back of his mind that if he messed up on that he would catch it on his ppO2 readout? And then he plugged in a mix with no helium. So, by the time his displays were telling him about a problem, he was so narked that he didn't notice or it didn't register as a problem. Is that possible? Maybe.

Thus, inquiring minds would like to know what the details were.

 

[DOBY]

Manatee Diver.

Totally agree. Gus went to the 190ft restriction carrying a deep mix (18/35 ?) in left side mount bottle for BO/dil, and a deco mix (granted it was air) in the right side mount bottle so as to have suitable drysuit gas from the right bottle. Eric was shuttling stage bottles to the same depth at the time of his accident. So wondering if he was following the same SOP of trimix only in left tank as BO/dil w/bungeed BO reg, and right tank a no helium deco/drysuit gas (EAN26) and the tanks got mix up with the EAN26 mistakenly plugged in as off board dil.

Or if the EAN26 was a mixing error. But that doesn’t make sense as should have been caught during analysis and/or pre-breathe.

Hope the NSS-CDS report can shed some light on this. I won’t comment on that SOP. But I prefer to have the same bottom mix in both low pressure steel side mount tanks with deco mixes in separate dedicated Al80’s stages, and a small aluminum 6ft bottle for drysuit.

 

[lermontov]

This is very sad

There are a myriad of things that could have happened, No doubt he was an extremely experienced diver so im going to speculate it was a subtle mistake that slipped past him, maybe something distracted him and he missed a step, or he was excited about the upcoming dive and he wasnt focused
or as @stuartv said maybe he got casual and he thought the computer would alert him, no doubt narcosis would have played a part in him not monitoring his po2 as carefully as he should, well never really know the complete picture, but what we do know and reinforces to me once again is that checklists and systems are important.

Or if the EAN26 was a mixing error. But that doesn’t make sense as should have been caught during analysis and/or pre-breathe.

i was on a trip recently where we had 2 analysers, one was reading incorrectly, nobody was really in charge and people were preoccupied with their own preparation. The faulty one was left on the table.

if your rushing or distracted it wouldnt be hard to see an Fo2 of 26 % and make an assumption its residual O2 from calibration (not familiar with KISS so this may not be possible)

Hope the NSS-CDS report can shed some light on this. I won’t comment on that SOP. But I prefer to have the same bottom mix in both low pressure steel side mount tanks with deco mixes in separate dedicated Al80’s stages, and a small aluminum 6ft bottle for drysuit.

Im with you on this -deep BO in my steel and deco gas in my Aluminium. Dedicated 100% tank with distinctive marking, try to make it harder to get it wrong

We ( I ) need to do better in looking after each other - if someone this experienced can screw up so can I

 

[DOBY]

This is very sad

There are a myriad of things that could have happened, No doubt he was an extremely experienced diver so im going to speculate it was a subtle mistake that slipped past him, maybe something distracted him and he missed a step, or he was excited about the upcoming dive and he wasnt focused
or as @stuartv said maybe he got casual and he thought the computer would alert him, no doubt narcosis would have played a part in him not monitoring his po2 as carefully as he should, well never really know the complete picture, but what we do know and reinforces to me once again is that checklists and systems are important.

i was on a trip recently where we had 2 analysers, one was reading incorrectly, nobody was really in charge and people were preoccupied with their own preparation. The faulty one was left on the table.

if your rushing or distracted it wouldnt be hard to see an Fo2 of 26 % and make an assumption its residual O2 from calibration (not familiar with KISS so this may not be possible)

Im with you on this -deep BO in my steel and deco gas in my Aluminium. Dedicated 100% tank with distinctive marking, try to make it harder to get it wrong

We ( I ) need to do better in looking after each other - if someone this experienced can screw up so can I

I totally agree.

But this wasn’t just a bunch of divers diving off the same boat or same cave site were you usually don’t verify other’s tanks.

This was an Exploration Team. So it’s hard to believe all bottle(s) weren’t analyzed or verified by a surface support/dive controller no matter were they were filled or analyzed prior to the dive site. It just doesn’t make sense it could be a mixing error.

 

[grantctobin]

Gus went to the 190ft restriction carrying a deep mix (18/35 ?) in left side mount bottle for BO/dil, and a deco mix (granted it was air) in the right side mount bottle so as to have suitable drysuit gas from the right bottle.

Makes you wonder what gas was in Gus donatable long hose doesn't it, or why he was diving at hypoxic depths on a rebreather he wasn't certified to dive to hypoxic depths on

 

[Manatee Diver]

Or if the EAN26 was a mixing error. But that doesn’t make sense as should have been caught during analysis and/or pre-breathe.

Could be.

Ultimately we won't know until they release the report. If they list the gases configured in his computer, compared to the gases as analyzed after the fact, it should be pretty clear if it was analysis or plugging in the wrong tank.

 

[Manatee Diver]

Makes you wonder what gas was in Gus donatable long hose doesn't it

I believe @DiveTalkGus said it was just that the wrong tank got hooked up, and that his regs were on the right tanks based on the team SOP.

I am hoping that the NSS-CDS releases the report soon, so we can put the speculation to rest. Either that or someone has to do a FOIA request.

 

[stuartv]

Or if the EAN26 was a mixing error. But that doesn’t make sense as should have been caught during analysis and/or pre-breathe.

Analysis, yes. But, not sure how you would catch that during a pre-breathe.

Makes you wonder what gas was in Gus donatable long hose doesn't it, or why he was diving at hypoxic depths on a rebreather he wasn't certified to dive to hypoxic depths on

The post said 190'. Was he going deeper than that?

I don't know about other agencies, but with TDI, normoxic CCR certification gets you to 200'. And with IANTD, you can get a Normoxic Plus certification that is good to 230.

I don't know what certs Gus has. I'm just wondering what combo of information results in a conclusion that he was diving at hypoxic depths and that he wasn't certified to dive said depth.