Posted by MHK on October 18, 2000 at 17:20:39:
In Reply to: Re: Another solo death posted by Gerry Smith on October 18, 2000 at 17:04:46:
Gerry,
99.99% of accidents you can't state what went wrong with absolute certainty, but what you can do is base your conclusions on the facts that you have.
In this particular case you have a solo diver with approx 2700 psi left in his tank panicking in 3' of water and dying.. I'm very comfortable with the position that he would be alive today if he had a buddy.. The sherriff is quoted in the paper's as saying this person would be a live today if he wasn't solo..
Don't you see the pattern going on??? Everytime we have a solo fatality the solo proponents throw up red-herrings and try to take the focus off the facts because no - one knows the facts.. Well, we know what we know and based on judgement, facts and experience you have to make a decision.. Short of having a video tape there isn't much else that can be done..
How many more diver's must die solo before you think it's appropriate for us to speak out????
Gerry you alsp need to understand that we always try to provide information freely and it is too easy to paint DIR with the same brush.. Some of the responses to my posts also need to be considered, we waste so much time arguing about semantics for the sake of arguing.. By some of the posters own admissions they take positions just to keep the arguement going.. With limited available time a source of frustration builds when you have the same disagreements, over the same issues, with the same people.. I always just at that point say agree to disagree..
In the instant case Frank has requested that we comment on *indpendant diving*, you'll even note when we were trying to agree on a definition between solo and buddyless that Frank posted a couple of times wondering why we didn't comment on *independant*.. From what I can tell of Frank's position it's solo by another name and I have invited him to discuss line by line...
Regards