In a message dated 9/10/2003 4:48:40 AM Central Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:


>
> Actually, I personally consider them extremely brave to even still
> manufacture the things, given the little that we really know about
> pressure related incidents, the increasing prevalence of extremely
> young divers and, dare I say it, the often casual training of new
> divers of whatever other age.
>
>
Christian,

I couldn't agree more.

Let me tell you about this last week of diving.

There is a group of divers in this town that get together about once a month
and usually make a couple of dives together. I've been apart of this group
about a year now but I haven't made that many dives with them but as a group they
are a lot of good people.

This past Sunday we went out and the seas were a little bumpy. Four foot on
average with an occasional 5-6 coming through. It made for slow going to the
first spot.

On the first dive which was a tug boat the anchor was set and there was a tag
line from the anchor to about 50 yards or so behind the boat. (All standard
operating procedures here.) There was a little current but nothing bad enough
to warrant any extra caution

On the first dive one particular gentleman missed the whole damn dive site.
Somehow he missed the tag line and the anchor line and made a sand dive and
ended up about 300 yards behind the boat. We had to get all of the other divers
in and then I had to make a dive to unset the anchor to go and get him and his
buddy.

To make a long story short on the next dive he went into deco and it scared
him and he busted his ceiling. When he got on the boat he told the Capt. He had
plenty of air and told the Capt that he didn't know how to use his computer.

He was put on a hang tank that had a higher blend of O2  BECAUSE there was a
young boy who was about 16 or so that had came up complaining about a pain in
his elbow and he was on the 02 rig. I had an extra O2 rig that I had left in
my truck because of there already being a unit on board the boat. It just goes
to show you that you never quit learning. I'll take my O2 with me on any boat
I go on from now on, We could've used both units.

Anyway we called the Coast Guard and they came out and picked up the boy (by
the way there was not a member of the CG crew that was over 25) and they did a
pretty good job BUT they had no 02 on board which surprised me. The other guy
was not showing any symptoms but he stayed on the 02 mixture all the rest of
the afternoon only taking time out to eat.

The boy went to the chamber where he did a table 6 and then the next day the
guy who broke his ceiling said he had tingling and he too went to the chamber.

These dives were only 98 and 85 feet.

Lets just say I was not impressed with this particular gentleman's skills.

Ray