I found this article at http://www.cisatlantic.com/trimix/text/wahwah.txt. I have copied it to my web site and reformatted it for style consistency. It makes for interesting reading...
Here is the WAH_WAH article from the old Aqua Corps Magazine, for those who haven't seen it. This is proof enough in itself that deep air is stupid. It is hard to believe that anyone can be this ignorant. I am not near the level of the other divers on the list, but I am smart enough to learn without bodily harm or death. "STAY AWAY FROM DEEP AIR"
"As I was going up, passing 325 feet, I heard this noise wah-wah-wah-wah-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."' -- Bob Raimo
A handful of leading training agency officials and instructors conducted deep air dives, some exceeding 400f/ 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 Drager/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 NSSCDS 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 carried an 80cf stage as a back-up, 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.
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,'lt'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--minimally first and second stage redundancy--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 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--who included Mitch Skaggs and Jesse Armantrout, as well as Bob Raimo--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 thing about it."'
Gilliam is 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 02 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-boy, you have one regulator failure... It's not like getting a flat on the highway. You don't have a spare.
"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--particularly one below 400 feet--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 exceed Dan Manion's air dive to 513 f/158 m-the deepest recorded-- recently died off the coast of Ft. Lauderdale [see Incident Reports p47]. Reportedly, members of the tech diving community--including Gilliam, Mitch Skaggs and IANTD's Tom Mount--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 technobabies--and I use that in a semi-derogatory form--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 onealmost fatal--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. "l'm not going to tell you that I'II 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.
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 opinion. "Everyone should follow guidelines, whether they're leaders 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--which is why I like diving--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 O"e 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 IP02] 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--with any degree of intelligence--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.
Joe Odom asked me. "How deep are you gonna go? We want to go deep. I said I'II go as deep as I feel comfortable with. I don't care how deep you guys go. When I say that's enough for me, I stop, and I come up, irrelevant to what you guys are doing. I said I'm not here to set any personal records, or industry records. I'm here to have a good time.
They all dove single 80s. I was very uncomfortable diving with single 80s, so I juryrigged some telephone wire to an 80 stage bottle because I refused to 40 deep on a single 80. 1 wanted to at least have a back-up bottle.
On the first day I dove deep I was completely in control, I was completely capable of helping somebody else...which is my measurement of my comfort level. If I feel that I cannot help somebody else, I'm in over my head. I don't like being able to just take care of ,,~ I like to take care of someone else if there's a problem. If I can't. I have no business being there. And I did not feel that way at 300 plus feet. I felt fine. I mean, I was narked, but I checked my guages and stopped at 250 feet on the way up in case somebody needed air.
On the second day, I'm diving a Dive Rite transpack with a travel wing, which is only 30 Ibs. of lift, and I'm in an eighth inch shorty. When we did the second dive. we were out on this cable--it's in 7.200 feet of water, and over 21.000 feet long. The buoy is approximately 75 feet in diameter. It's big. You could have a party for 100 people on top of this thing. There is no bottom reference.
I made two big mistakes. I grabbed my weight belt from my rebreather instead of the weight belt for my single 80. So there's an extra eight pounds of lead on my belt, and I'm completely oblivious to it. Bret wasn't diving this day. Bret and Joe were saying that one of the things that you need to be able to do if you're going deep is you want to get down there fast, and get out of there fast. I said, well, I couldn't keep up with you guys. They asked how I came down? Well, I kinda floated down like I normally do. Joe said there's a lot of drag that way, you kinda have to go down head first. I'm like, I never go down head first. I said I'd go down head first and try and keep up with you guys. So I jump in the water and go behind Joe Odom. and I'm swimming upside down, straight down. I'm kicking to go down to keep up with Joe. I couldn't keep up with the sucker; the guy is quick.
I never discussed with any of them how they do it. And none of us went to the Bahamas with any of this in mind. If I'd have known the week before, I'd have brought some clips and hooks and stainless steel tank bands. I'd have come ready to make real stage bottles, not use telephone wire.
I have no concept of how deep I am...'cause I don't look at my depth gauge. If I know I'm going deep, Ijust try to stay in tune with my body. When I don't feel good, it's time to come up. And sometimes if you look at your gauge and you see a big number, it scares you: Oh. omigod. and all of a sudden, adrenaline, a little bit of CO2, and it makes you worse off than you are. So I like to go down, I'm comfortable. But what was uncomfortable initially was my descent. It was an abnormal descent for me. I'm used to floating down, now I'm swimming down. I'm exerting myself kicking trying to keep up with this sucker.
At one point I'm saying, this is about my tolerance. I was really getting narked, I'm at the limit. If it gets worse than this, I won't be able to help anybody. And as I'm starting to think about this, I look at my depth gauge and it says 340 feet and Joe Odom turns around--he was below me, he was the lowest guy on the line, and I don't know who's behind me at this point, if anybody--and Joe looks at me and I give him a clear-as-day signal of "I'm stopping here." I take my arm and sweep it slowly back and forth saying I'm leveling off. Joe gives me the okay sign. I start inflating my BC. After Joe sees me inflating my BC-because I could see him watching me, making sure that I was okay--he then turned and continued going deeper, figuring I was okay. Which at that point I was. I don't know that if Joe had had a problem that I could have helped him going deeper, but anybody at my depth and shallower. I was okay.
So, I'm inflating my BC and I'm going deeper and deeper...348 feet, 350, my BC's full, 352, and I'm not feeling too happy. I went from feeling really good to feeling really narked. This is where I made what I believe to be the second and almost fatal mistake--I kicked. I used my legs, which is the normal diver reaction. At that point, I just wanted to stop. Not even to go up, just to stop.
I took one or two kicks and I went from being completely in control and just about capable of helping someone, into a complete headspin. That one kick used so much 02 and generated so much CO2... And I was like, WHOA, man, I got really fucked up. And it happened again, and I went, WHOA man...and thank god for that cable. I just reached out with my right hand and--ka-chink---barehanded. This cable had fish hooks on it and was encrusted with all kinds of shit. But believe me, I was so numb, I didn't feel anything. I just grabbed on to this cable. I looked at my depth gauge again, and all the pixels were lit up on my screen.
I had no idea how deep I was. For all I knew I was at 500 feet. I knew I had inflated my BC and my BC wasn't going up. I had about 1400 psi left my main cylinder, and I've got the stage bottle on me. So I decide I'm going to kick and I'm going to pull on this cable. I've got to reduce the pressure. I want to scream out of here and I'm gonna stop when my depth gauge says 100 feet. Now, mind you, I can't read it.
By now, I'm assuming I'm pulling on the cable. Mitch Skaggs, who was at 325, said later that I went by him, but I never saw him. He could have been behind me when I passed him; it's easy to miss people going up and down. He said I had one hand up in the air, my eyes were rolled up in my head, and he thought I would wake up on the way up. That's how I felt: I needed to wake up.
One thing that really scared me was this noise. When I couldn't read my gauges, I heard this noise-wah-wah-wah-wah-really loud. I didn't know what it was. When I heard the noise, I could not see my hand on the cable. All I could see was my gauge. I couldn't see anything else--everything surrounding the gauge was black. And I'm sure I started to breathe really heavy when I heard that noise...of course, more COZ build-up. I'm thinking: the next thing that's going to happen is that I'm gonna black out, and I said to myself, "You're not gonna black out. When this gauge says 100 feet, you're gonna stop and do deco." That's what I said to myself my entire ascent: "You can't black out, you've gotta do deco. You can't black out, you've gotta do deco." I kept kicking--at least I think I was kicking, I might not have been. This may have just been my thought process. I have to go on what other people say because I don't know.
I had a very, very strong desire to live. I really believe staying focused on going to 100 feet to do deco saved me. I haven~ spoken to a lot of people about this, but at the worst point when I was really fucked up, I can understand how people give in to the euphoric feeling and die in deep water black-outs. Because as scared as I was, I felt fuckin' good. I don't know how you can say you feel good and think you're gonna die at the same time. But I can say this: I could have very easily said, "Oh, fuck this." And die.
But I've got a two-year-old boy, I've got a wife. I thought about that when I starting to get that blacked-out feeling. I saw my son on that dive. I said, I'm not leaving the kid, what am I stupid? I'm going to 100 feet and I'm doing deco.
So, I think I'm pulling myself up this cable, and at about 175 feet, I can see blue in the background, everything's clearing up, I'm starting to see some divers again up above me at 130 feet, 150, and I can read my gauge, I can read my pressure gauge--I've got 1,000 psi. 175 feet, 150, 140. I get to 100 feet, I dump the air out of my BC, and I say thank the fuckin' Lord. I do my "Hail Mary"s and "Our Father"s, I swim up to 40 feet, I start my deco, I go over to the 60/40 mix, and I do my deco.
During my deco, Joe Odom swims over. I write on my slate: "Scared myself today," and pass the slate over to him. He writes down: "Were you in control?" I write: "I thought I was, but wasn't.
So we get out of the water and I describe to him what happened on the dive. And he says that noise is very typical. If someone hasn't heard that noise, then he hasn't been that deep on air. That's called the "wah-wah." He says when you hear that noise, you've been fucked up on air, you've been deep on air.
I'm a damn good diver, but I don't do deep air diving. If it wasn't for all of my years of training, all of my years of acquiring knowledge, and general good diving skills, and the strong desire to live, I can understand how people just give in and die.
I probably learned more on that dive that I could do in a hundred dives...about dive ability, about the physiological true effects of gases on one's body, why we shouldn't be diving deep on air. I learned an awful lot about my own ability, tolerance, and desire to live.