Art,

I think you are missing the point here. That driver who ran the red light
may have died from a stupid incidental decision, not the fact that his car
was poorly maintained or poorly designed, but the fact is that his decision
to run that light is part of his overall readiness to drive. Insurance
companies know that people in financial trouble are more likely to get in
accidents than people who are responsible and pay their bills. Why? It's
part of the overall picture. Laxity in one area often means laxity in
another. A diver who is not attentive to his overall rig, his overall
health, his overall mental fitness to dive, his choice of dive buddies and
his choice of gas and his dive profile is MORE LIKELY to make a bad
decision. This diver's pony may not have caused his death, but a trained and
experienced DIR diver can look at the mess some divers carry and conclude
that THIS diver is more likely to have a problem and time-after-time this is
the case.

Same thing with the CIS-LUNAR. The use of this device can be construed as
poor planning in itself, therefore it follows that someone who is not
rigorous in his choice of equipment may not be rigorous in his dive routine.
The result? Divers who made mistakes in using what appears to me to be an
inherently dangerous piece of equipment. Dr. Kendall, no doubt a wonderful
person and avid diver, made what has been referred to as a "stupid" mistake
that cost him his life. How rigorous could he have been in his approach to
dive safety? I see it all the time. Divers who, when the big dive comes,
take lots of time to plan, rig up, do the dive, survive the dive, then do
what they consider to be an "easy" dive and get in trouble. Why? Because
they don't have a holistic approach to diving and dive safety. They are
faulty divers. It may not the be rebreather that gets them or the pony
bottle, but someday, some piece of equipment that was poorly chosen and
thought out WILL kill them or come close to it.

When that death or near-death occurs, like you, they or their buddies will
say, "Oh, it was that faulty second-stage that malfunctioned, fix that and
I'm OK." When in reality it was the fact that they chose the wrong
regulator, rigged it wrong and then compounded the problem by not servicing
it rigorously. Good decision-making is at the heart of DIR diving and it
starts with the person and his health and his dive equipment. Get in shape,
take what you need, leave the rest at home.

Later,

JoeL

----------
>From: "Paltz, Art" <Art.Paltz@R2*.CO*>
>To: "'kirvine@sa*.ne*'" <kirvine@sa*.ne*>
>Cc: Mike Rodriguez <mikey@ma*.co*>, Joel Silverstein
<joelsilverstein@wo*.at*.ne*>, techdiver@aquanaut.com
>Subject: RE: Petting the Air Pony: was Re: Doria Deaths - Let's dive  some air
>Date: Tue, Aug 17, 1999, 2:16 PM
>

> The air pony,
> stupid to have or not, was not a factor.  He did not breathe from it so did
> not contribute to his death.  We're trying to weave all possible stupid
> things into one and say the combination killed him, I don't think this is
> the case.  Regardless if he had, had one take off, it would not have
> contributed to his death.  I think we need to focus on what really happened
> and not infer that something else would have killed him.  Kind of like a car
> accident where the car runs a red light cause the drivers got to be
> somewhere.  The car may be out of inspection or need to have a recall item
> replaced but was not a contribution to the accident.  The driver did
> something stupid by running the red light, that's what caused the accident.
--
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