Posted by Eins on September 08, 2000 at 17:10:12:
In Reply to: Re: were they solo? posted by MHK on September 08, 2000 at 16:50:35:
MHK, there are two issues:
1. Injured divers
2. Injured egos
Re 1.
Since you asked:
Yes, having a buddy nearby should increase your chances of survival significantly.
Yes, as far as I know, all of the lost divers were alone at the time of their death.
No, they were not all solo diving.
Jason beat me to it with his response, and I fully agree with him. Your broken record plays a perfect scenario. Where, in the real world, does it happen? Recreational divers are just that. You can't compare them to the WKPP team or with dedicated tech divers. So, in reality, there are lots of buddy teams who are really solo divers at the moment when crap hits the fan.
I'm not saying that solo diving per se is safer than buddy diving. I agree with you and others that a good buddy team increases the chance of survival, should something go wrong. And I also say that an experienced, well prepared solo diver is safer than the average, fine weather, unprepared buddy team.
Re 2.
I understand that you are upset because you very well realized that your credibility is at stake, at least in my eyes. I don't care how loud you scream and how hard you try to divert blame, fact is, that you use supposedly hard facts (like numbers) but don't know if these numbers are correct.
You are right, it is not important how much a DA costs. What counts is that you state things as facts which are not. As a result, I am getting careful when I see you using "facts" to support your message, because I don't know if you KNOW or if you ASSUME.
Find the blame with yourself.
Eins