David Blaine show and free dive death?

Hi,

The recent TV program of Blaine trying to hold his breath showed a film clip
of a woman dying while trying to set a free dive record.

At over 500 feet, when she was ready to ascend, her CO2 charge failed to
fire to fill the lift to rapidly elevate her. But there was a diver with
her (I assume on mixed gas). He brought her up, but much too slowly for her
to get to the surface alive. The "voice over" claimed that breathing the
compressed gas from the diver would "explode her lungs". But would it?

Say he either gave her his octopus or had her "buddy breathe"? Then rose
with her (slowly!) breathing with her? Why would she not still be
conscience since she had just been trying to inflate her lift? And even
if she did pass out for some reason, the diver could have given her a breath
of compressed gas and then taken her up slowly while forcing the expanding
gas out of her lungs as they rose.

By not giving her some of his compressed gas, she had no oxygen for over 5
minutes by the time she was back on the surface and that proved to be too
long.
(Not a good sign for David Blaine's attempt to hold his breath for 9 minutes


Should the diver have given her compressed gas at 500 feet?





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"Jim Blair" <jeb@wisc.edu> wrote in message
news:e4flc1$2ab$1@news.doit.wisc.edu...

> Should the diver have given her compressed gas at 500 feet?

The whole event was a CF that cost her life;

http://www.cdnn.info/news/article/a040709.html

As always, it wasnt a single integer that caused the fatality, it was a
sequence of events and poor decisions that added up to her death.

Really, simply, tragic because it could have been so easily avoided.

Jim Blair writes:

> The "voice over" claimed that breathing the
> compressed gas from the diver would "explode her lungs". But would it?

Embolism, not explode.

The backup diver was no doubt instructed not to buddy breathe to avoid an
embolism.

"Richard J Kinch" wrote

>> The "voice over" claimed that breathing the
>> compressed gas from the diver would "explode her lungs". But would it?

> Embolism, not explode.

> The backup diver was no doubt instructed not to buddy breathe to avoid an
> embolism.

Embolize only if she stopped breathing.
There's no way in hell the backup diver was instructed not to share gas with
a freediver in distress. That's what they are there for.

Statements by her husband, supposedly based on statements by back up divers,
are that she had already stopped breathing by the time the first safety
diver got to her. I know of no way to share gas underwater with someone who
is not breathing.

Lee

"Richard J Kinch" <kinch@truetex.com> wrote in message
news:Xns97C718507A64Esomeconundrum@216.196.97.131. ..
> Jim Blair writes:
>
> > The "voice over" claimed that breathing the
> > compressed gas from the diver would "explode her lungs". But would it?
>
> Embolism, not explode.
>
> The backup diver was no doubt instructed not to buddy breathe to avoid an
> embolism.

Absolutely incorrect.

"Lee Bell" <pleebell2@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:C5Zag.24795$Sl4.7539@bignews1.bellsouth.net.. .
> "Richard J Kinch" wrote
>
jeb:
> >> The "voice over" claimed that breathing the
> >> compressed gas from the diver would "explode her lungs". But would it?
>
> > Embolism, not explode.
>
> > The backup diver was no doubt instructed not to buddy breathe to avoid
an
> > embolism.

LB:
>
> Embolize only if she stopped breathing.
> There's no way in hell the backup diver was instructed not to share gas
with
> a freediver in distress. That's what they are there for.
>
> Statements by her husband, supposedly based on statements by back up
divers,
> are that she had already stopped breathing by the time the first safety
> diver got to her. I know of no way to share gas underwater with someone
who
> is not breathing.
>
> Lee
>
Hi,

I recorded the David Blaine program so I could skip over the commercials.
After reading the CDNN link story, I replayed the scene several times.
Unless the film was edited, it looked like a backup diver got to her while
she was still trying to activate the lift device. He seemed to be close to
the maximum depth- lift device. at 561 ft. (And why would he be anywhere
else?)

I would expect that in the event of a lift failure, he should have been
prepared to both provide her with air (more likely He/O2), and disconnect
her from the lift, in case it were to activate after she had drawn a breath
of compressed gas.



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_______________ooo___(_O O_)___ooo_______________
(_)
jim blair (jeblair@wisc.edu) Madison Wisconsin USA.
This message was brought to you using biodegradable
binary bits, and 100% recycled bandwidth. For a good
time call: http://www.geocities.com/thetropics/8092

Scott writes:

>> The backup diver was no doubt instructed not to buddy breathe to
>> avoid an embolism.
>
> Absolutely incorrect.

If you read the article, the diver says the victim was unconscious and
exhaling bloody foam, and he didn't attempt to feed her air.

The article also says the accident was caused by the pony tank that was
supposed to inflate the buoyancy bag being, by mistake on the part of the
support crew, practically empty.

The article also strongly suggests that the support crew was recklessly
negligent in their preparation procedures, but that their cavalier attitude
was consistent with the edgy risk-taking nature of the sport.

You get the strong impression that the stunt was supposed to be enhanced by
a lack of gravity in the preparation, affecting an "xtreme" pose. They
didn't want to look like they had tried too hard. The sea is unforgiving.

Richard J Kinch wrote:

> If you read the article, the diver says the victim was unconscious and
> exhaling bloody foam, and he didn't attempt to feed her air.

So there was no hint to the fact that the sledge downline
was not taut, and the sledge got stuck, which took the time
necessary for a safe ascent?

Matthias

"Richard J Kinch" <kinch@truetex.com> wrote in message
news:Xns97C7A36D455D7someconundrum@216.196.97.131. ..

> Scott writes:
>
> >> The backup diver was no doubt instructed not to buddy breathe to
> >> avoid an embolism.
> >
> > Absolutely incorrect.
>
> If you read the article, the diver says the victim was unconscious and
> exhaling bloody foam, and he didn't attempt to feed her air.

Regardless, your assumption and assertion that "The backup diver was no
doubt *instructed* not to buddy breathe to
avoid an embolism." is wholly wrong in theory, basis and fact. <emphasis
mine>

How do you know what the backup was or wasnt instructed to do?

You dont, you assume.

I called you on it, as did several others.

Learn.

> The article also says the accident was caused by the pony tank that was
> supposed to inflate the buoyancy bag being, by mistake on the part of the
> support crew, practically empty.

Actually, that mistake was made by the diver who bet her life on the unknown
information she was given that the pony was filled.

The "unloaded gun" shoots the loudest.

This is why we constantly bitch at people about discipline and routine. No
fatality is ever the result of a single event, it is always a combination of
events called an "accident sequence".

No one else who allegedly did or didnt check that particular bottle is going
to lose their life if it is empty. They will be left with the guilt, but
they are still alive to feel bad.

Reasonable man doctrine demands that anyone placing their life in the
position of having one single piece of gear fail (and this one was simply
inexcuseable) and beginning the accident sequence, be the one who last
looked at the pressure in that tank before the stunt. There *absolutely*
should have been a backup pony bottle or inflation device. Period.

It was a bullshit stunt that went wrong for all the obvious reasons.

> The article also strongly suggests that the support crew was recklessly
> negligent in their preparation procedures, but that their cavalier
attitude
> was consistent with the edgy risk-taking nature of the sport.

Of course they do.

The next thing, as you read, is the attempts to justify and romanticize the
death of a vibrant young lady.

Pure bullshit, all of it.

These people couldn't have done much more to assure a death. *Especially*
the egos.

> You get the strong impression that the stunt was supposed to be enhanced
by
> a lack of gravity in the preparation, affecting an "xtreme" pose. They
> didn't want to look like they had tried too hard. The sea is unforgiving.

Well, as you so succinctly pointed out, the "xtreme pose" was what bit them
in the ass, and cost a young lady her life.

How anyone can even try to turn that into a romantic notion of any kind is
beyond me.

It was a clusterfuck from the start until the horribly predictable end.

The sea and Mother Nature have been smashing ego's on the rocks for
millennia, but each generation pulls up another rocket surgeon that thinks
he/she can beat Mom at her own game.

Bad idea since the Big Bang.

Look up shallow water blackouts, and the mechanisms behind the same.

Scott writes:

> How do you know what the backup was or wasnt instructed to do?

I don't, but given that he deliberately didn't force air into her
unconscious airway, and there is no critique in the narrative of that
decision, it suggests that he was following an agreed procedure.

But having read the narrative, now I would have to say, who knows what
boneheaded procedures they had in mind for crisis situations, if they
had any procedures at all. While it is easy to criticize from the
armchair, it seems like the diver stations along the descent line were
there simply to observe, not to act.

> Reasonable man doctrine ...

Eh?

> ... demands that anyone placing their life in the
> position of having one single piece of gear fail (and this one was
> simply inexcuseable) and beginning the accident sequence, be the one
> who last looked at the pressure in that tank before the stunt.

We all hinge our lives on equipment we can't possible check. There's
nothing unreasonable per se in that.

The tragic problem was simply not designing a positive signal on the
state of the pony bottle. I wouldn't even trust my memory to that; I
would think I would want some kind of flag or other visual indicator.