Posted by Joe R on November 21, 2000 at 21:40:18:
In Reply to: Re: Florida scuba fatality. posted by JR Gordon on November 20, 2000 at 06:40:26:
That rig isn't as heavy as you think. I agree it was huge and there were possibilities for failure. His tanks were of special composite design, they were high pressure cylinders each tank was only about the size of a 30 or 40 cf pony. I am not just blaming his death on the webbing it was a contributing factor if he had 1 quick release he probably would have gotten out quicker and maybe would still be here.
Most fatalities are due to a series of problems and mistakes. The reason I brought him up in the first place was the original thread about experience he had lots of it, and when the shit hit the fan, all his experience went out the door. The fact is that he had multiple knife wounds from where he TRIED to cut him self free. Obviuosly he had some type of catastrophic failure otherwise he wouldn't have tried to cut himself out. Personally I feel with all the money he spent he would have been better off buying 2 rebreathers, and drag the second one with him for redundancy. I am not advocating use of his settup but rather it was extremely well thought out and had quality construction. I doubt he took any type of o2 hit since it was evident he had to cut himself free and did make it to the surface. his manifold in particular was a well through out design. It had a balance chamber that allowed isolation of individual cylinders all with 1 way valves so that there was never any gas mixing and all cylinders drained equally.