The Call of the Wah-Wah

As I was going up, passing 325 feet, I heard this noise&endash;wah-wah-wah-wah&endash;really loud. It really scared me. I didn’t know what it was. I could not see my hand on the cable. All I could see was my gauge. Everything else was black. Joe Odom says when you hear that noise, you’ve been fucked up on air, you’ve been deep on air. It’s called the "wah-wah."

&endash;Bob Raimo

A handful of leading training agency officials and instructors performed deep air dives, some exceeding 400 f/123 m on non-redundant single 80 cf cylinders, raising serious questions about the dichotomy of individual freedom versus instructor responsibility.

The stunts, as some have called them, occurred at Dräger/UWATEC’s first formal rebreather training seminar in the Bahamas 9-14 July 1995, with over a dozen Technical Diving International (TDI) instructors present. TDI president Bret Gilliam and NSS-CDS Chairman Joe Odom led the dives, and each used single 80 cf cylinders, and had no redundancy.

While all divers survived the experience, New York-based TDI instructor Bob Raimo, who did use a back-up system, nearly died on his second dive beyond 300 f/92 m.

The participants tried to keep the dives secret, both at the seminar and afterwards.

The reaction

Reports of the clandestine dives spread like a wildfire among tech divers, and have provoked a plethora of questions. Why make a deep air dive in the first place when no useful work can be performed at depth, and when mix is available? Why risk diving without a redundant system? How can tech diving instructors teach their students to stay within limits, yet exceed those limits themselves? What responsibility do these industry leaders have to send the right message to their followers?

Many leading figures in the field privately condemned the stunts, but were reluctant to comment publicly. However, reaction in general to the practice of deep air diving beyond 400 f/123 m without a redundant system was strong and one-sided.

"You wouldn’t catch me doing that," said training instructor Lamar Hires, Joe Odom’s associate at the NSS-CDS.

Hall Watts of the Professional Scuba Association (PSA), who trains divers on deep air, said, "Our training standards don’t permit it. If you’re making deep dives, we require enough gas for the dive, plus extra gas on the descent lines in case of emergencies. People do it, it’s okay, but we have to consider, ‘What if?’"

Les Joiner of Ocean Corporation said, "We had to deal with the problem of cowboys in commercial diving twenty years ago."

Another leading tech diving expert, who asked not to be identified, declared, "Natural selection is a slow process."

The consensus on limits and acceptable practices for diving on air is near universal. The maximum operating depth for air is between 180 f/55 m and 220 f/68 m, based on a working PO2 between 1.4 atm and 1.6 atm. As President of TDI, Bret Gilliam ironically said: "I have yet to see anybody that’s got any degree of credibility stand up and say, ‘It’s okay to go to 300 feet on air.’ That’d be absolutely, bloody stupid."

Field experience suggests that maintaining PO2s below 1.4-1.5 atm during the working phase of the dive is optimal, allowing for oxygen levels to a maximum of 1.6 atm during resting decompression.

Experts further agree that it is prudent to have an appropriately redundant breathing system&endash;minimally first and second stage redundancy&endash;when diving in open water beyond about 60 f/18 m. In extremely deep dives and in an overhead environment, it is a requirement. Like the rule of thirds, redundancy is a defining tenet of tech diving.

The incident

The dive originated with Gilliam and Odom. Says Gilliam, "Odom and I do a lot of deep air diving and we had the opportunity on a really unique wall. The only thing available was a couple of eighties. But the breathing rate that Odom and I have is so remarkably low compared to everyone else. We did a dive to 441 feet [135 meters] and we used about 1100 psi of gas."

The pair agreed to keep all divers, including some who were using trimix, above them at all times. "We didn’t want them to get away from us… We were a hundred feet or more deeper than the guys on trimix. And used half, maybe a third of the gas they did."

The other participants&endash;who included Mitch Skaggs and Jesse Armantrout, as well as Bob Raimo&endash;said that they were not pressured in any way, and only attempted the deep air dives because they were in the company of top industry professionals such as Gilliam and Odom. "Joe did not go around the boat, ‘Hey, we’re going to do some deep diving. Who’s interested?’" said Raimo. "It was a very private conversation."

Gilliam rationalizes the dives by boasting of his conservative gas consumption. "I breathe half of the gas volume that other people do that are half my size and half my age," said Gilliam. "I can’t explain that. Part of it is being relaxed in the water, getting into some kind of rhythm that works for you, but I see a lot of these other people that are hopelessly overburdened with equipment that they don’t seem to realize what it does to their performance in the water. Odom and I spent quite a bit of time down there between 375 and 400 and change. We had time to stop and smell the roses. It’s no big deal to us. We were kinda surprised when we came back up that everybody was making such a big things about it."

He’s not concerned about oxygen on deep dives like this, and cited that divers push 3 atms of oxygen in chamber as a matter of routine. He also said that at rest, the chances of an oxygen toxicity problem in a relatively short duration are minimal, and more friendly than decompression.

Yet the accepted standards are not malleable, said an industry insider. "The 1.45 atm limit is not there for everyone except Bret Gilliam and Joe Odom," he said. "The limit is there for all divers."

Gilliam believes that experience and understanding of the risks is what counts. "I’ve been doing this for twenty years," he said. "I have never, ever had even the slightest symptoms of O2 problems, and I don’t expect that I will. But I have also made a career of understanding the underlining physiology to the point where, believe me, every hair and follicle is tuned to the expectation that I’m going to have a problem."

Diving so deep without a redundant system seems to be a non-issue with the pair. "Both of us were diving thirds," said Odom. "From a rules standpoint, hell, we’re diving thirds. Anybody got a problem with diving thirds? I mean, shit, leave me alone.

"What does an 80 have to do with it?" Odom added. "We had air, we went down; we had air, we came up.

Bob Raimo opted for redundancy. "I was very uncomfortable diving with single 80s, so I juryrigged some telephone wire to an 80 stage bottle," he said. "I wanted to at least have a back-up bottle… This single 80 stuff&endash;boy, you have one regulator failure… It’s not like getting a flat on the highway. You don’t have a spare."

risk acceptance

The practice of deep air diving has fallen in and out of public favor over the years. Today, with the availability of mixed gas, extreme deep air diving is again in disrepute, and is generally considered unnecessary and dangerous.

"In the old days, you had to be in the closet," Joe Odom said, "because you didn’t want anybody to know about it. Then deep air was accepted. Now we have to go back into the closet a little. Because of gases, people are chastising the deep air people, saying you don’t need to do that."

Hal Watts, whose training divers to 300 feet is also controversial, is quick to point out that a dive beyond 300&endash;particularly one below 400 feet&endash;is beyond the safety limits on air.

However, divers continue to dive deep on air, and a small number attempt the questionable practice of setting deep air "records." A 27-year-old diver training to break Dan Manion’s deep air record of 513 f/158 m recently died off the coast of Ft. Lauderdale [see Incident Reports p47]. Reportedly, members of the tech diving community&endash;including Gilliam, IANTD’s Tom Mounts, and Mitch Skaggs&endash;discouraged the young diver from attempting the depth.

"You can talk about the sanity of solo diving," said Joe Odom. "But it all comes down to risk acceptance. How can we train the new guys for the emergencies? We can’t. The fact remains that some of us have survived incidents that we shouldn’t have survived. And we’ve got very strong survival instincts as a result."

Gilliam says of inexperienced divers who go beyond their limit: "Unfortunately, it’s nobody’s fault but their own. If you look back six years ago, there was no aquaCORPS, there was no Watersport publishing library…the only way you could get information was if you were in somebody’s clique. Now there’s this whole explosion of information out there."

Odom has a theory about younger divers. "We have a whole generation of techno-babies&endash;and I use that in a semi-derogatory form&endash;that are diving," he said. "These are the people who sit in front of their computer and are able to hit a carriage return and get instant gratification. We’ve got people who believe they can sit in front of a computer terminal and learn how to become a deep air diver. They don’t even know what they feel yet. That’s what years of diving are about."

Bob Raimo, who is an experienced mix diver but who had little deep air exposure, said that he learned more on this one&endash;almost fatal&endash;dive than he had on a hundred other dives. "I’ve taken my experience and learned this from it," he said. "You don’t dive deep on air. That’s mix. I can teach people that from experience now. I can tell them: ‘Look, I got lucky, and luck is never part of my dive plan.’"

Even with his near-death experience, Raimo won’t rule out diving deep on air again. "I’m not going to tell you that I’ll never do it again because the experience has not scared the thrill out of me in diving," he said. "However, if I want to be a respected figurehead in the technical community, then I can’t do deep air diving. So, from that point of view, my answer is no.

"It was a scary learning experience that I wish never to happen to me or anybody else again," he added. "I can say this, if I ever decide to do a deep air dive like that again, I’ll be ready for it. I’ve been there. I’ve heard the wah-wah."

Individuals versus responsibility

Few people dispute each individual’s right to dive as he or she pleases. The libertarian streak among divers is profound. There is, on the other hand, a deep division in the tech diving community about whether leaders have an added responsibility, and if they are sending the wrong signal to less experienced divers. The debate over the Tapson-led Lusitania expedition [see N10/Imaging] symbolizes this colloquy, although in the Lusey situation, the participants were not training instructors.

Where do technical divers draw the line between individual freedom and collective responsibility?

Lamar Hires of the NSS-CDS summed up the conundrum: "It’s a gray area and one that we always come back and fight with."

Hall Watts, however, is definite in his opinion. "Everyone should follow safety guidelines, whether they’re leaders in the industry or John Q. Diver," he said. "It’s ‘Monkey see, monkey do.’ Leaders should do things more safely to set an example."

Bob Raimo acknowledged the problem. "We’re clearly not practicing what we preach. And I have mixed feelings about that," he said. "I’ve always been an adventurous individual&endash;which is why I like diving&endash;and I like to satisfy that thrill, that sense of adventure. And I think for a lot of people, diving deep on air is that sense of adventure, that thrill. Yes, there’s a grave risk, but if one is willing to accept that risk, then one should be allowed to do that. But if people want to be figureheads and leaders in this business, they need to be promoting the right thing. The problem is, do we take away someone’s individuality, the right to do something stupid? And I don’t know."

Joe Odom addressed the dilemma in a somewhat different manner. "The fact that some people want to go beyond 1.6 [PO2] is their personal choice," he said. "But I don’t think anybody in good conscience will train [someone] to go beyond 1.6 unless there’s medical evidence to suggest otherwise. Are we creating a climate of ‘Do as I say, not as I do?’ Well, of course, but that’s the way it’s been since day one."

Odom, who is also a flight instructor, likens himself a test pilot. "Everybody thinks they’re reckless daredevils," he said, "and that’s not the case. They have a program of pushing the envelope a little bit each time, analyzing the data, and saying, ‘The next time, this is what we’ll do.’ Only until you’re comfortable within that range can you&endash;with any degree of intelligence&endash;go forward."

Gilliam believes that his experience will benefit others. "Since I’m using 70% less gas and carrying 70% less gas than you are, you might to at least want to learn something from it," he said. "Experience is a word everybody ought to look up in the dictionary. You don’t get it simply by sewing patches on your fuckin’ dive jacket. You gotta go out there and get wet. We’re doing things with half the effort and half the gear that some of the other fellows are doing, and it’s not that we’re any better divers. I think that it’s just that we’re a little bit smarter and can apply lessons learned over the years of experience."

the problem is widespread

Industry politics and competition being what it is&endash;cutthroat&endash;many people would like to single out Gilliam and TDI for abuse, but unfortunately, the problem of responsibility appears to be more widespread. Bob Raimo said, "I’ve seen IANTD do bonehead things, too. Tom Mounts lists me as a rebreather instructor, and that was before I became a rebreather instructor trainer with Rob Palmer. What the fuck do I know about rebreathers?! You know what my experience was on rebreathers when he listed me? Zero. The only thing I knew about rebreathers was what I read in aquaCORPS Journal, f’r crissakes. I wonder how many nitrox instructors are out there that don’t know anything about fuckin’ nitrox. And I know they’re out there."