A possibility, sure, but not a *probable *one. He wasn’t suicidal. They all know that it happens–they just expect that it won’t happen to them. Even in the article, they say that it was just a case of too many things all going wrong together, where if any one of them hadn’t happened, he probably would have lived.
That’s awesome. I mean, gross, and obviously horrible for anyone it would actually happen to, but wow physics.
Thats really it IMO.
If you analyze accident reports from nearly ANY “dangerous” activity…its not just one thing that goes wrong…its very often several in a row and the person keeping with the original plan DESPITE the changes.
The ones that live know when to fold em and come back on a better day.
The fact the deep diving almost always involves a significant impairment to the thinking process (basically you dive at the very least mildy drunk at best) doesnt help matters much either.
billfish678 said:
This. Deep water diving is already challenging, because you have to be aware of your surroundings so you don’t get in trouble, get tangled up in a line, get eaten by a shark (if they’re around), get lost, lose your sense of direction (up/down esp), and monitor your oxygen use and your depth, and time at depth, because you have to time your return trip with distances and wait times to prevent the bends. All of that requires good thinking skills. But at deep depths, the very air you breathe is impairing your thinking. It’s like drinking a shot of whiskey a minute. And the harder you breathe, the drunker you get.
Everyone knows how alcohol impairs judgment, and how you might end up drinking more than you intended because you lost track, or as you got drunk you couldn’t retain the clarity to stop when you knew you should. Well, now imagine that you are doing that in an environment where a bad decision will kill you. Say, driving home from the bar, but someone is giving you a glass of whiskey every mile you drive, and you have to go 20 miles.
He could have just turned around and left at any time (until his light got tangled). When the body came free from the dirt, it was tied to the line and could have been retrieved, he no longer needed to bag it. But he couldn’t think straight, he was so intent on bagging it, that he was struggling too hard and breathing too hard. Drunker, drunker, drunker. When he finally did give up, he was tangled in the lines, and didn’t have the presence of mind to cut anything, even though he had shears in his hand.
He knew what was happening (gas affecting him), he knew how it should affect him, he knew he needed to stay calm and work slowly, he knew that if anything went wrong he could easily die, and had to know (as an experienced diver) that getting tangled in ropes the first thing you do is start cutting them, yet it wasn’t enough. I just don’t think there’s any preparation that can compensate for [drunk talk] “and Ih’ll havvve anuther” [/drunk talk].
That’s the really challenging part, deciding how to adjust to changing circumstances. That’s where experience and training and preplanning for contingencies can all greatly aid the outcome. If you know what could go wrong, and know how to recognize it, and how to react to it, you’re in a much better position than just having a default plan and expecting to wing it - especially if you are a noob.
See, kids? This is why one shouldn’t have goals. They don’t mix with drinking.
The article says that the head and hands were skeletonized. (In the Youtube video, you can only ever (as far as I could tell) see a brief glimpse of Deon’s mask coming out of the darkness and then receding back into the blackness. I think they must have edited the footage, but it’s quite disturbing even so.) In a cold, anaerobic environment like, apparently, the inside of the wetsuit, anaerobic bacteria can turn fatty tissue into a soap-like material called adipocere. It often happens with people at the bottom of deep, cold lakes, so I guess it’s not too surprising it happened here.