SO>        Four divers are dead; the result of a job and subsequent 
SO> rescueattempt gone wrong. The tragedy began Saturday, March 15 when 
SO> tworecreationally trained scuba divers entered a half-mile long, 
SO> underground,water-filled tunnel to complete some work for a local 
SO> irrigation district.
SO> They were without a stand-by diver, without a tended line, without
SO> communications, and without surface supplied air. After the divers 
SO> failed toemerge, two rescue scuba divers went down- only to meet the 
SO> same deadly fate.
This is exactly the kind of situation that I was referring to.  The 
conditions of the dive( ie confined water, the depth, potentially hazardous 
current, extremly limited visiblity and the object to recover being on the 
scale of a car) should have pu the divers off to begin with.  In the letter I 
hear much blame being passed around but nobody seems to be blam8ing the 
divers who took the job and who should have known that they were beyond their 
level of training.  I should probably not be picked to be on the jury for the 
law suits coming out of this incident because I feel that the ultimate 
descision to enter the water was that of the divers.  I can't even recall how 
many times I've agreed to do some light job, locating and recovering 
someone's propeller for example, that I've called off on site due to the 
diving conditions (most of the time the person trying to get a diver does not 
understand the situation enough to give me the pertinent info before hand).  
I know my training and have a good handle on my personal limits and have 
problems telling someone that I'm just not going to dive today (even if I 
blame it on a missing O-ring).  I also have no problems terminating a dive 
that I think is getting out of hand or may get out of hand.  Maybe I'm just a 
weenie in my old age, but, at least I'm getting to experience my age.
 
Keep in mind that I think there are a considerable amount of light jobs out 
there that a recreation diver can do just fine.  Search and recovery 
specialties and the like can be helpful but the bottom line is to recognise 
the limits and keep the crayon inside the lines.  Big jobs, like the one in 
the article, or day to day diving activities witrh lots of bottom time simply 
fall outside the range of recreational dive training.  (Incidently, one of 
the organizations that I teach for is the YMCA which was referenced in the 
article.)
 
Be wet and well.
 
Dennis
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