The world of "deep diving" and the guy who died a couple days ago going to 1200 feet depth

[Splinty]

This is a picture of the record attempt diver a couple years ago and JUST 2 years after he first stepped in a pool to learn how to dive.


Video from a few weeks before the "record attempt" and death:


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKL1h4BIdC4&feature=youtu.be




View: https://www.facebook.com/stxscubatec/photos/a.821287627885963.1073741829.245715405443191/1130227136992009/?type=1&theater



View: https://www.facebook.com/stxscubatec/posts/1130546466960076



Lets put 1200 feet in context.

Your average sport diver dives to 60 feet or less. Some will get advanced training and go around 100 feet.

Deep diving has more hazards and greater risk than basic open water diving.[15] Nitrogen narcosis, the “narks” or “rapture of the deep”, starts with feelings of euphoria and over-confidence but then leads to numbness and memory impairment similar to alcohol intoxication. Decompression sickness, or the “bends”, can happen if a diver ascends too fast, when excess inert gas leaves solution in the blood and tissues and forms bubbles. These bubbles produce mechanical and biochemical effects that lead to the condition. The onset of symptoms depends on the severity of the tissue gas loading and may develop during ascent in severe cases, but is frequently delayed until after reaching the surface. Bone degeneration (dysbaric osteonecrosis) is caused by the bubbles forming inside the bones; most commonly the upper arm and the thighs. Deep diving involves a much greater danger of all of these, and presents the additional risk of oxygen toxicity, which may lead to a convulsion underwater. Very deep diving using a helium–oxygen mixture (heliox) carries a risk of high pressure nervous syndrome. Coping with the physical and physiological stresses of deep diving requires good physical conditioning.[16]

Using normal scuba equipment, breathing gas consumption is proportional to ambient pressure - so at 50 metres (160 ft), where the pressure is 6 bar, a diver breathes 6 times as much as on the surface (1 bar). Heavy physical exertion makes the diver breath even more gas, and gas becomes denser requiring increased effort to breathe with depth, leading to increasing risk of hypercapnia—an excess of carbon dioxide in the blood. The need to do decompression stops increases with depth. A diver at 6 metres (20 ft) may be able to dive for many hours without needing to do decompression stops. At depths greater than 40 metres (130 ft), a diver may have only a few minutes at the deepest part of the dive before decompression stops are needed. In the event of an emergency the diver cannot make an immediate ascent to the surface without risking decompression sickness. All of these considerations result in the amount of breathing gas required for deep diving being much greater than for shallow open water diving. The diver needs a disciplined approach to planning and conducting dives to minimise these additional risks.

Only 12 people have ever dived to 240 meters (790ft)
Only 5 have been deeper than 300m (980ft)

More people have walked on the moon than that 300m goal. And this guy was going to 1200feet?!

If you go that deep, survive, and come back up you might need 14-17 HOURS of decompression time. You have to piss in the water, eat in the water, drinking in the water (take regulator out, bite a snickers in ocean water, replace regulator).

Here's a LONG but great article about a deep dive attempt that went wrong with a lot of control and experience:
Raising the Dead | Outside Online


At these depths, EVERYTHING is experiemental. It is assumed that you lose some amount of lung function permanently just attempting this. In this dive, the diver and team estimated that it could be as high as 20-30%!! wtf.


WHO is this dude shooting for 1200 feet?
It gets worse...
In this site that outlines the bad culture of deep diving
A Fatal Attempt: Psychological Factors in the Failed World Depth Record Attempt 2015

Dr Garman, known amongst his friends as ‘Doc Deep’, had only been diving for 4 years and accumulated less than 600 dives. This works out, on average as only 3 dives per week. He had completed less than 200 dives below 60m, of which a mere 35 dives were below 150m.

To many (most?) in the technical diving community (or professional recreational diving industry, for that matter) this experience total would be considered WOEFULLY small.

Speaking only for myself; my humble experience is more than 10x that of Dr Garman. I’ve been diving more than 25 years; 10 years in technical diving as full-time, professional instructor and diver. Yet I’d never currently consider myself ready to attempt breaking a world depth record. I compare myself with peers in the technical diving community and willing accept that there are many whose experience, capability and knowledge far exceed my own.

Dr Garman had previously dove to a maximum depth of 800ft maximum. The jump down to 1200ft left him under-experienced in his personal knowledge and experience of extreme deep-water hypobaric physiological reactions, especially High Pressure Nervous Syndrome (HPNS)… which is a known killer on previous extreme deep dives. Progressively and incrementally increasing his deep diving range would have better informed him of his personal tolerances and helped shape his descent and gas strategies.

Of course, that would have taken much longer. Years longer. Many, many more dives. And it may have provided a lesson that he was unsuited physiologically to the extreme deep…. or that his hypothetical planning was flawed. The attempt may never have occurred if he’d opted for prudence, patience and critical feedback at progressive, repeated steps over time.

As it is, Doc Deep’s Facebook wall shows celebratory posts commemorating a rapid series of deeper and deeper dives from early 2015 until his fatal dive in August. Each dive was seen as an affirmation of complete success and led to a subsequent deeper dive. The pace of progression was astonishing. The steps between dive depths became greater and greater. Nothing went wrong, so nothing was considered wrong. Each dive became a ‘green light’ to progress further.

“There are old divers, and there are bold divers. But there are no old, bold divers”.

 

[Hired Gun]

You have to be one stupid son of a bitch to try something so god damn idiotic. WTF would someone even want to try so dumb ass shit like this is beyond me.

 

[Splinty]

You have to be one stupid son of a bitch to try something so god damn idiotic. WTF would someone even want to try so dumb ass shit like this is beyond me.

Check the link in my post about psychological factors.

There's an elitism and culture built around it to support it. You get put on a pedestal, in a container.. Your friends and family telling you how great you're gonna do, how you're about to succeed. No one close is saying, man IF you make it, it'll be good. But what do you want me to tell your children if you die tomorrow?

 

[lookoutawhale]

I guess this is like the opposite of Everest.

There was that girl that died last week too.

Natalia Molchanova: world's 'greatest freediver' feared dead | Sport | The Guardian

Natalia Molchanova: world's 'greatest freediver' feared dead
Molchanova was diving to 35 metres in the Mediterranean on Sunday, but never surfaced; friends and family believe she has died

 

[teamquestnorth]

How would somebody even survive the sea pressure?

We rarely went that deep in a sub and that's encased in HY-80 steel.

The sea pressure at that depth is massive. You could hear our hull "popping"

 

[BJTT_Pella]

How would somebody even survive the sea pressure?

We rarely went that deep in a sub and that's encased in HY-80 steel.

The sea pressure at that depth is massive. You could hear our hull "popping"

And that right there kept me off of subs. Built by the lowest bidder and designed to sink, over and over again.