Sixteen Years ......

[BobK]

It's more then this. We all are going to die someday. Well, actually I'm undecided on my own death, but anyway...

Each night, when we go to bed we should ask ourselves if we are prepared to live or die with the choices we have made in our lives. Because we all love diving, but we really all love life.... If we die diving, or driving to the dive site, or watching a dive video on TV while eating too many potato chips - In the end it won't matter. We'll be remembered, or dismissed, based on those memories we leave behind and those people we touched.

FWIW

[Sludge]

We'll be remembered, or dismissed, based on those memories we leave behind and those people we touched.

Bingo. Chris and Chrissy touched a lot of lives, and very few that met them ever forgot them.

[mfascuba]

I did a dive at Ginnie on Saturday morning and the whole time I kept asking myself why I didn't turn at the beginning. To start out my light was tangled up in my waist strap when I put my tanks on, then the Tekna ran noticeably slower up the run, I figured it was my imagination. Dropped the O2 bottle and hit the trigger, it took off, figured OK, we're ready to rock. On descent I was kicking myself for not taking the sudafed on the way up in the morning, water was murky, got to Sweet Suprise, another diver was already in there (jump reel in place and stage stowed on main line), figured I'd go to Mainland and relax a bit, as I went in I kept getting colder (semi-dry), hit Mainland, went in about 150 ft, said OK, time to listen to the voices and turn the dive. Cold as anything, scootered out and deco'ed thinking about the Rouse's ashes embedded in the cave walls. Short deco, fortunately no sinus/ear problems, but it was a reminder that sometimes it's better to call the dive than risk the bad stuff. Not one of the better days by a long stretch. Sobering is probably a better word, just too many things were "off" and I ignored them. Fortunately it worked out OK.

Mark

[RN]

Thanks for the post, Joel. I, too, appreciate the reminder every year. This past year for the first time, someone I knew in person died while diving. I could never have predicted how I would feel about it. It happened about a month ago and still affects me. Keep posting this, Joel!

[JS1scuba]

Thanks for the post, Joel. I, too, appreciate the reminder every year. This past year for the first time, someone I knew in person died while diving. I could never have predicted how I would feel about it. It happened about a month ago and still affects me. Keep posting this, Joel!

It will affect you for years. As i mentioned I did not know the Rouses well, or for that matter at all. I knew only thier friends and the impact it made on all of them. I've been the victim of having friends die while diving and not diving and I can tell you that it affects me all the time. Not a single time I go diving or teach a class does not one of them come up for conversation. It will always affect how you do things. Every now and then something comes up and I will tell my wife .... "I'm still pissed off at Tony for dying." or "Steve that &*$# he knew better." It never goes away.

Some people ask me why I won't do back to back 300s or some silly kind of dive that I can do with realtive ease and it comes down to this. I've had a lot of fun diving over the years. I've learned that some dives are just not worth the price tag. I have developed new goals in diving. My son Jona is 7 now, and a great little diver. I want to be able to take him on some cool things when he's older and need to be around for him.

Diving continues to be a dangerous activity. I am completely stumped why we still have fatalities and debilitating accidents. There is ZERO reason for people to run out of gas or for them to not be able to bail out from rebreathers. There is ZERO reason other than earthquake for people to die inside caves or wrecks. The only reason I can find as to WHY is because people are inherently lazy and belive that they can cut the corners and not get caught.

I had a student in an Adv EAN class this past Sunday. He was using large singles (its ok for this level) and we had a gas plan. 3600 psi tank turn pressure is 2,400 psi. (no additional reserve cause it was non-overhead) So i am watching and watching and finally i look at his gauge and its ..... 1750..... so i Thumb it .... when we get back to surface I ask him about it and he said ........ "oh I had enough air" ... For fun on the next dive i passed out on the bottom and let them do a full rescue of me and let his heart rate race a bit.

When the Rouses died it was a tragic accident. It never should haved happend. Too many things were against them but they felt they were invincible. Many of us then did. I would think nothing of doing a 400 foot penetration into the Doria on air without a line. I would not do it today ... heck I run a line everywhere now. (Mostly cause Larry taught me how to use the reels I had been carrying for thousands of dives properly - and i love to show it off to my fellow divers.)

If we could collectively make a single decision that we have ZERO deaths moving forward it would be a good thing. In the 1990s i had a magazine that had a slogan called NO PRETTY FISHIES --- we need a new one to put on T-shirts NO DEAD DIVERS

Morning rant is over.

Be careful out there.

Cheers
JDS

[Jim Wyatt]

Still...a good rant Joel.

[RN]

It will affect you for years. As i mentioned I did not know the Rouses well, or for that matter at all. I knew only thier friends and the impact it made on all of them. I've been the victim of having friends die while diving and not diving and I can tell you that it affects me all the time. Not a single time I go diving or teach a class does not one of them come up for conversation. It will always affect how you do things. Every now and then something comes up and I will tell my wife .... "I'm still pissed off at Tony for dying." or "Steve that &*$# he knew better." It never goes away.

It took me a few weeks to be able to dive Jackson Blue after the most recent death. I've since been there a couple times and each time I take a moment as I pass the location where it happened to reflect on it. Not only that, but it pretty much weighs on my mind the entire dive.

Diving continues to be a dangerous activity. I am completely stumped why we still have fatalities and debilitating accidents. There is ZERO reason for people to run out of gas or for them to not be able to bail out from rebreathers. There is ZERO reason other than earthquake for people to die inside caves or wrecks. The only reason I can find as to WHY is because people are inherently lazy and belive that they can cut the corners and not get caught.

I agree with you 100% on this. As much as it may piss some others off, this is the reason people die in the water most of the time. But I also see the discussions many of these deaths spark on the forums. Just look at the discussion on TDS about rebreathers. Quite a few divers are talking about changes they're making to their pre-dive routines because of what happened. One could only hope at least half of them actually follow through. That's the one good thing that comes out of these deaths - other lives are saved because of the speculation and learning that takes place afterward.

Thanks again, Joel, for getting this reminder out there!