Posted by Steve Taylor on July 07, 2000 at 13:11:46:
In Reply to: Re: Buddy Diving - Is three a crowd ? posted by John Walker on July 07, 2000 at 00:14:33:
Mr. Walker,
You've mentioned these names on posts here and other bbs and ngs before and I held back, but now I must ask you. Would DIR gear and theories have kept Darren Douglass from jumping back in the water when his son failed to surface? I understand you were on the Westerly that day, so perhaps you can shed some light on the difference between panic over a missing son and Doing it Right. Are you implying that even with several thousand dives under his belt, that Darren died because he taught NAUI instead of IANTD?
Darren Douglass, Sheck Exley and Rob Palmer have one thing in common, they all drowned. Grouping them together as you have is wrong. They all died for different reasons. Darren tried to save his son without stopping to think things through. Sheck died pushing the envelope. Palmer died..well we will never know what he was thinking, perhaps insanity set in. You seem to be saying that unless diver are DIR, they will surely die. This makes as much sense as people like Jammer calling everyone who is not DIR a stroke, then writing a trip report about his solo dives at Catalina. Does this mean he is no longer DIR, or attempting suicide?
Believe it or not, there are divers out there who have dived longer than you and still use "stroke gear" who are not just a statistic waiting to happen.