Atomox,
I have one word for you ....
[red]DEAD[/red] ...
[red]D[/red]-
[red]E[/red]-
[red]A[/red]-
[red]D[/red] ....
[red]DEAD[/red] .... What part of
DEAD don't you understand?
Don't go twisting my words and trying to use them against me. Re-read my post, I made myself very clear. Furthermore, I didn't delete anything, as far as I see everything is as I have seen it all along.
You are stuck in a net and can not cut yourself free.
No! It's not that you "can not" cut yourself free, more like, if you have 1/2 a brain your wont go whipping out your knife and slashing away overhead, but rather slow down and use some common sense.
Magically you get free and head up with a pony ... How did you get free? Snap your fingers?
Obviously you either haven't been diving much further than "Don's watering trough" or you dive in a big clear glass bowl that's only about 5 foot deep. Let me explain a VERY real and VERY common situation.
Kelp Beds:
Yes, you can become pretty obnoxiously tangled in kelp but kelp isn't the biggest worry, try cut anchor lines, lost nets and an assortment of other various things the kelp beds like to claim.
The top of your tank (valves) becomes entangled. You suggested snapping your fingers ... Well, your right, actually, if you have a BC like mine it's 2 snaps ... You are now free from your BC and you can calmly turn around and work it free. This could take some time and you could be short on air, but I'm not going to go into it deeper because this should have been common sense, not something anyone that has a lot of experience, or is all knowing such as yourself, wouldn't have thought about before posting.
Plan your dive - Dive your plan
Really? Well that just solves everything, I guess as long as everyone does that then there will never be any problems - ever, whew! Well, at least according to you.
Yep, computers are
NEVER wrong and even those old mechanical ones never fail! OMG! I've been cheated, where can I get one of these perfect machine?!?
be aware of your environment
Oh yeah, Yep, since the Ocean is
always the same and the conditions
NEVER change suddenly! I wish I could control the Elements like you obviously must be able to.
I wont even joke about this one because anyone that goes diving with someone that has an attitude like yours is
NOT diving with a
Buddy anyway! According to you, as long as you stick to the "Planned Dive" everything will be ok ...
(
Note: If you go diving with Atomox and are trapped, tangled, attacked or otherwise troubled, prepare to meet your maker! Because YOUR holding things up and not sticking to the plan so guess what? You're Fish Food!)
[red]Hey Hey Hey - Ignore that Pod of Gnashing Teeth ripping off your leg and that anchor line wrapped around your neck and that tuna net grabbing your butt cheek - THAT'S NOT PART OF THE PLAN, so don't you even have a heart attack on me either![/red]
Because the military might use one. Well they also carry weapons and ammunition. Military divers also use 100% oxygen in rebreathers to 30 feet and in some cases deeper. Using your logic we should take guns with us when diving just in case and PPO2s of 2.0 are okay as well. Military diving practices do not necessarily translate into recreational or technical practices.
As I suspected, you did Not really read my post ...
"Or am I to believe that all those military units out there are just "foolish" for having any kind of redundancy? I mean, majority of the time they are just using a single tank.
Reguardless of whether it's combat or just training or for fun, sounds like a good idea to me."
You were the one that blanketed "Single Tank Dives" as "rec diving".
Additionally, military divers don't all carry weapons and ammunition, nor do they all use 100 percent O2 in rebreathers to 30ft. or deeper; I know for a face that some go as deep as 500ft to 800ft, some simply carry a lift bag, misc equip, communications gear, directional equipment, etc ... My point in using the military as an example is that they are HIGHLY aware, EXTREMELY experienced, VERY prepared, ACUTELY alert and usually as PERFECTLY trained as a diver can be. Your "Dive Planning and Planned Dives" are a pathetic JOKE compared to preparations that goes into their diving. They practice the dive over and over, both above and below water before the "actual dive" ...
So please tell us, why do they use any sort of backup equipment? Oh that's right, because they are IDIOTS! Why do I think I would somewhat know? Because I am one of those Divers. With easily more than *
UNDISCLOSED* logged dives. But do I think I know it all or can overcome any worries just by proper planning? NO, because I'm not such a fool as to believe that I am above the laws of nature and I realize I am human and I do not control the elements, nor am I so arrogant to think I could never make a mistake. Nor do I think that Mother Nature could never throw something my way that just could not be planned for.
Do you really expect anyone to take you seriously when you start your discussion off with telling people that their thinking of carrying an alternate air source is "idiocy". Just because someone wants to add an extra tier of safety to their diving does
NOT make them an Idiot! Why does the traditional diver have an Octo? BAH! "I know my gear, I plan my dives, I dive my plans, I control everything and I know everything, I would never get in a jam, I am cool like dat, I am DIR - Hear me Roar" ... Maybe you need to see an "I" doctor because it seems that you have something in your "I".
I want to see the accident analysis that supports your claim that some diving fatalities would have been prevented by having a pony.
I am beginning to not believe anything you have said so far is serious. It is really starting to sound like you are just trying to cause trouble. I have a hard time believing that anyone that has spent any time at all diving and has just a tiny bit of common sense would really believe any of this crap.
Do you really need someone to explain to you the "accident analysis" of many, if not most or almost all of the "diving fatalities"? I've done my research, maybe you should do yours. I will quickly over simplify it for you. Drowning is cause by a "LACK of AIR" ... If they had more air their chances of survival would have been greatly increased. Sure, things like stupidity, poor judgment, additional complications, etc could have indeed lead to their demise anyway, but when the [red]cause of death is running out of air[/red] then it is only obvious that "[red]more air[/red]" might have allowed them to survive the situation. The quickest case that comes to mind, due to being so very recent, is either Steve Berman or Mia Tegner. Sure there is 1001 different stories "floating" around but the bottom line seems to be that in both situations the end was the same ...
NO AIR and .... well you know the rest. Official cause's of death was ruled as Drowning. I wonder if they wished they had more air?!? Gee, ya Think!?!?
I would suggest that the root cause of the accident is a result of poor planning, inexperience and solo diving.
So now you expect us to believe you have always planned for every single thing that could possibly happen? It's time to rejoin planet earth. Both of the above mentioned situations involved EXTREMELY experienced divers, and especially with the case of Steve Berman, I can't imagine it could be entirely blamed on no planning. Cave divers by nature usually make it a way of life to "Plan, Plan, Plan and then Plan some more".But of course this could never happen to you ... Your "I" sees everything and is prepared for all, remember?
You suggest that being able to monitor, track and evaluate air consumption is arrogance.
No, that is not what I suggested. Actually I wasn't "suggesting" anything. I thought I was making myself quite clear that your, "I am better than all, I am prepared for all, I would never get in those situations, I - I - I ..." is the only "Idiocy". For just a second I will humor you and pretend that you do indeed walk on water ... Now, do you think it is a very intelligent thing to tell everyone, in one big bold blanketing statement, that adding an item of additional safety is to be considered "Idiocy"? Whoops, you just sank! You're not to bright for someone that "Knows All".
In it I mentioned that even if the failure of a primary piece of equipment did go unnoticed my redundancy was my buddy. I would also have planned the dive to address failure scenarios and would have proper responses covered to address problems. In no case would the added convolution of a pony be needed.
(1st of all, Before you try to use Big Words, know their meaning first, then and ONLY then will you have PLANNED well enough to sound at least somewhat like you might have actually fried up a few brain cells thinking of them. Come on now, Plan your words, and stick to the plan! -
convolution - You actually get 4 possible meanings of the word, and unless you know more than The American Heritage, Webster's Revised Unabridged, WordNet from Princeton University or the Academic Medical Dictionaries, I think you will see how this is more and more looking like you quickly got over your head trying to back "someone else's teachings" based on "Blind Faith" alone.)
That is one of the most insidiously ignorant statements I've ever heard!! Did you even attempt to read
that link that I
mentioned above? Try thinking about others for a minute and not just in your own ineluctable Repute that you think you possess.
There are so many overwhelmingly obvious scenarios that can be thought of that obliterate anything you could possibly say about it. You claim, Planning, Experience, Preparation and Knowledge can and do bring about the inutility of an alternate air source, but those things would only call for much more than just a simple little alternate air source.
Case in Point:
On a beautiful dive day, I went with some friends of mine (such as other military divers/instructors/etc - not a one of us being less that a DM with at least 10 years experience) to one of our special secret "Hot Bug Stops" and peered into a rock formation to discover that as usual, there was, once again, a plentiful gathering of very large lobsters just between these 3 rocks in the middle of a small granite hill that lay in about only 35-40 feet of water. Signaling to the rest of us to break out the "catch bags", for tonight we were going to be eating very well - one guy started plucking the treasure from its chest. A couple of us positioned ourselves on each end of the rocks in the case a few of them tried to slip out the side doors while the others were shopping in the "lobster locker" as we had come to know it.
One of the guys wanted to get a birds eye view of just how many were in this hole and circled above and came of rest on the top of the mound that made up the ceiling of this "locker". After a few minutes of all of us taking turns grabbing our share of Bugs, that "mound" above abruptly shifted and settled down pinning one of the guys arm at the wrist. Yikes! You would have never known that this "Mound" was actually more like a rock pile as we found out by the time everything was over and so much of the silt was swished away. The only thing (amazingly) stopping this bolder from completely crushing every bone in this guys hand, wrist and forearm was the casing that held his wrist mounted dive computer. Together, all of us immediately jetted to his rescue in attempt to free him from this prison. At first we did not realize that it was not smashing every bone in his arm. As he pointed out to us that his computer was holding this behemoth at bay we all realized that we had to be able to lift this monster and "Hold It" without letting it lower in the slightest until his arm was completely free, which would be hard since the only edge we could grab to get leverage on the rock was in such a place that it could have also pinned all of us that were trying to help if we in fact could not actually assert our will over this beast. We were only into the dive by maybe 5 minutes and "Air Supply" was no where in our immediate concern. Additionally, all but one of us were carrying additional
backup air like these here ...
When we realized that we were not going to be able to move the boulder on our own without crushing him as well as ourselves, we surfaced and told those on the boat to radio for help. Unfortunately there was no one within any adequate distance that would have been able to help in time. I happen to be one of those type that LOVE "the extras"... In my dive bag I had some of those adapters that snap onto the end of one of your hoses. One of them was the type that you could blow sand or etc off of stuff with a air nozzle, the other would allow you to re-inflate a flat or low on air tire. When those on the boat verified it was still in my bag, they knew what I was thinking and jumped on the radio once again and asked if anyone nearby had an old car inner tube. A reply came back that someone had a few of them and was out pulling people on them from their boat. I then told them to ask if someone had some wide flat wood (like plywood) or even better some medal, a reply came over asking if some pieces of 3ft square - 1/4 inch thick Aluminum would work, the type used for flooring.... JACKPOT!! No one understood why I had asked for that and to this day they all mention that in the heat of moment, they wouldn't have figured out why until it was too late. My experiences with "Search and Recovery" told me that tube would have just been pinched and/or popped and done no good on its own. We needed the pressure to be as spread out as possible to be effective.
The boat with the tube showed up first, and we deflated the tube completely. We figured it would take 3 of us to set this up so one of the guys and his wife got out of the water since they had the most air left, we had all guzzled ALOT of air down there trying to move rocks around to position things as best possible. We had all only
[red]PLANNED[/red] on doing a single tank dive, exiting the water with 1/2 a tank left at that... We just wanted to grab some Bugs to cook... A nice short sweet dive ... We had all already switched to our second tanks that we happened to have aboard and also swapped out our trapped buddies air but air was getting low again, this had taken quite some time by now. Using a couple of the largest of the game bags, we make-shifted a, for lack of better words, Aluminum Plate sandwich with the tube and went below to wedge it into place. Once everything was in place and the one good tank of air was brought down to be used to inflate the tube, and I will admit we all were pretty darn scarred by now. Not a single one of us were wearing our BC's and all our regular tanks had been sucked dry, both our regular and our backup/spare tanks! Only air we had now was the one tank being used to inflate the tube and our small various personal "Alt Air Sources"!! The tube alone wasn't enough but it gave us the extra lift, positioning and control that we needed to quickly and safely defuse the situation.
Now, if you tell me that you always plan that into your every dive, then you're not only a fool but a pathetic liar! There is NO WAY that we could have been able to "Plan our dive and Dive our Plan". This is exactly the sort of thing that I base everything on! So what saved our rear ends in this situation? Extreme Training, Extensive Experience, Clear Thinking, Calm Nerves and most of all ....
[red]L U C K[/red]!!
These fellow divers were/are very experienced men and women of
Steel ... and guess what? Every last one of us were scarred as
H-E-Double Hockey Stick! We each individually feared the obvious, we almost lost a great friend, in clear (great vis) and calm conditions, in rather shallow waters, in a very familiar diving location..
BUT... we had the tools and wits about us to work "outside of the box"! So when I hear someone like you come in here and tell people they are IDIOTS for wanting to add a simple and non-expensive safety device, you're darn skippy that I speak up! You might as well have just slapped my Momma!
Do you realize that when you shoot your mouth off like that, there are people that are very new to diving that either would have never imagined such a thing and because they listened to what you said about "how rare/impossible it is" and "if you plan your dives NOTHING can go wrong" garbage, they opt against the one thing that could possibly have made a difference. And I'm not just talking about "Alt Air Sources" here either, I am talking about any and all matters of safety! Without ever knowing,
YOU could, without thinking, cost them their life! All of us need to be very careful about what we say. During times that I worked as a Professional Rescue Diver, I saw more "experienced divers" get in jams due to completely unforeseen and outside of their control situations. You think these incidents are so rare that you think it's wise to just tell people they need to be more like you and be the end all and be all of diving and everything will be ok? What in the
H-E-Double Hockey Stick gives you the right and authority to make such "Blanket Statements" as that they are IDIOTS for thinking and/or using
ANY safety tool?!?
I'm sure that your
arrogance will stop you from actually thinking "outside the box" and/or using common sense and/or changing you mind, but
PLEASE STOP trying to take others down with you!
100days makes a VERY valid point and I would actually extend it out further than just this topic...
lack of proper training is a bigger problem that people want to admit.
But I will say again, "poor planning and bad judgment" is not the only thing that you might ever be faced with ... Neil hit on the head with something we can all understand - "it's Murphy that rules most of the time" .... Poo-Poo Happens ....
Me? A little worked up? You're Damn skippy I am! If you are the poster child for
DIR then I believe there has been a grave spelling mistake, it would be more fitting if said in a drooling voice it was spelled "
DUH or maybe
DOH!
Don't get me wrong, I am all down with "Doing it Right", whatever "It" happens to be. But you cannot tell me that calling a New Diver, or any diver with a thirst for learning more, an Idiot, serves any helpful, positive, friendly or otherwise productive purpose.
We keep hearing people talking about how the Industry is falling into a slump and business isn't what it could/should be. Well here is a Outrageous/Radical Concept - [red]STOP SHOOTING YOUR SELF IN THE DAMN FOOT[/red] ... WOW, Ya Think that might help? Umm, yeah, just maybe!
I hope I don't embarrass someone here, but let me point something out that I truly admire about someone and I find myself looking up to them as truly embodying what I would consider "
WISDOM"...
If you read through these forums and look at many of the questions tossed the way of our resident NASA Doctor, you might be, at first, kind of blown away at some of the humbling replies he has given when he feels it is warranted. I mean, the man works for NASA at the Johnson Space Center and is the Head of the Environmental Physiology and Biophysics, a position that I think would be safe to say is not something they just give to anyone! I don't think you start out as a janitor and work your way up if you know what I mean! The man kind of knows a few things! Basically, I have even asked him questions in person and got the same sort of response, which goes something like, "This isn't my area of specialty so you probably would get a better answer asking that to Dr. _ _ _ _ " ... And you can fill in the blank with any number of choices.
And if you really want to cook some brain cells watch Dr D and Dr. Wienke (Program Manager for the "Applied And Computational Physics Division" as well as "Counterterror/Countermeasures Dive Team Ldr" at the Los Alamos National Laboratory - oh yeah, another one of those fill out the coupon on the back of a cereal box, include the UPC code and $4.95 for shipping and handling and receive your credentials kind of title) hand off questions right and left the likes that any Professional American Football Running Back could learn and thing or two from.
To me, this is the mark of WISDOM! To KNOW so much that you KNOW you don't KNOW it all. They may not KNOW that people notice or see these types of things, but I do, and I can honestly say that I have, on many occasions, find myself using what, I am sure they unknowingly, impressed on me. Diving doesn't need anymore HERO's, what we need is some selflessness, unity and community especially in the form of leadership.
=-)
