Posted by jr gordon on March 16, 2001 at 19:35:17:
In Reply to: In Memoriam: Mia Jean Tegner posted by RaiderKarl on March 16, 2001 at 08:58:31:
Thanks for the post.
I'm embarassed to say that it was so easy to forget the 12 deaths we had here in SoCal last year. Mia Tegner's death probably bothered me the most due to what I perceived was the extreme ignorance of basic safety protocals. Here was a diver my age, with over 4,000 dives who apparently had little knowledge of the issues we debate daily on this list. I understand the source of ignorance as I've grown up with divers from the 60's & 70's, but the most have evolved from that mindset and learned that there are safer ways to dive. Notwithstanding the principles of DIR, it somehow it appears Mia Tegner and her group were blissfully unaware of safety protocals that we consider basic like proper weighting, air management, equipment upkeep, and OOA procedures for in-water recompression.
Sadly I attended her memorial service in January at Scripps. Though I didn't know her, my son and dive partner is a undergraduate there and I was visiting him that weekend. I wanted to shout out how unnecessary her death was but of course I knew it would serve no purpose. I had intended to dive The Yukon that weekend but that memorial service really got to me.
A caver died last week in Mayan Blue, my absolute favorite cave in the Akumal-Tulum corridor of Southern Mexico. He went in solo after a dive with his wife following the same route. He made a simple mistake and swam off the gold(main)line to another line 60 ft. away in clear water. He must have thought he didn't need to run a line over there because he could see the other line and it was only 50-60 ft away. They found him on the end of that new line his safety reel unwound as he had obviously been searching for the main line to exit on. He couldn't find it 60 ft. away in clear water. It was a basic cave rule # 1 that he ignored, "always have a continuous guideline to the surface". Basic rules, knowledge, protocals.
Is anybody listening yet?
JRG