I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. It’s queued up- watch until 4:06.
He talks the talk, and he walks the walk. He does what he says.
Medical News
The Physics of Manslaughter
Today’s post comes from the UK, and I try not to talk about legal issues in other countries because I just don’t understand the laws in other nations, and don’t want to stick my nose in them. The difference here is that the case involves some technical issues of SCUBA diving and of dive medicine, areas where I feel like I have some level of mastery. This is a technical post, so for those of you who are not interested in physiology and physics of SCUBA, this may or may not be interesting.
A diving instructor in the UK was teaching an experienced recreational diver a course on deep diving. The dive that they did was to 115 feet.
On this dive, they were diving at around 4.5 atmospheres, and this requires some level of care. I don’t see in this account where the instructor messed up, with the exception that I wouldn’t have had a student doing a check dive like this with an 80 cuFt cylinder (which is what the Europeans call 12 liter).
In this case, however, the government brought in a diver from the UK Navy as their expert witness. He testified that the instructor was wrong in three ways- the dive violated the rule of thirds, they were down longer than the dive tables dictated for that depth, and he held his struggling student underwater when the student was attempting to get to the surface, causing his death by drowning.
Let’s start by addressing each of these in turn. The rule of thirds. The rule of thirds is a rule that says you use one third of your air supply to get into the dive, one third coming out, and hold one third in reserve. This rule is generally only used when you are “diving in the overhead,” meaning that there is either a physical or physiological barrier that would prevent you from surfacing. A physical barrier would be diving in a cave, a shipwreck, or diving so deep for so long that you cannot surface because you have a decompression obligation to work through before you can surface. Neither of those was the case here. In that case, the rule is to ensure that you surface with at least 500 psi of gas left in your tank.
The second argument, that the dive tables’ “no decompression” limits for that depth had been exceeded is ridiculous. When you are a new open water diver, you are taught to use tables, but no one, and I mean no one, follows them. The invention of dive computers has rendered them obsolete. The reason for this is that the dive tables assume that you descend at the maximum safe rate from the surface to the maximum depth, then ascend at the maximum safe rate to the safety stop. This is called a “square profile” and no one dives like this in real life. A dive computer monitors your depth every 30 seconds or so, and gives you “credit” for time spent at shallower depths. This has the effect of more than doubling your permissible dive time. Everyone today “dives their computer.”
A great example of this is the standard dive on Florida’s coral reefs. Off the coast of West Palm Beach, there are several reef lines. The most interesting one from a SCUBA perspective is about a mile or so offshore, in 60-100 feet of water. If you were to dive the top of that reef, the tables say that you can spend a maximum of 40 minutes at 70 feet of depth before exceeding the no decompression limit. Most divers will spend a minute or two at that 70 feet, maybe 5 or 10 minutes at 65 feet, then more time at 55 or 60 feet, etc. The result is that divers with computers might well spend 55 to 65 minutes and still not exceed decompression limits. The Commander would have known this, himself being a certified PADI divemaster.
Instead, he contends that the “out of air” situation was so dire that the diver should have been permitted to make an unrestricted surfacing, despite the fact that the student was breathing on the instructor’s plentiful air source. Ridiculous.
I actually did this exact dive here in the states when I got my own extended diving certification some years ago. It is standard practice at the end of any dive that is deeper than 40 feet to stop at a depth between 15 and 20 feet for three minutes. This is called a “safety stop” and is intended to give any gases that have been absorbed in the blood time to diffuse out of the blood and prevent hyperbaric injuries. It’s recommended by each of the three big certification agencies. (NAUI, PADI, and SSI)
Another protocol that some divers follow is to stop for one minute at half of your current depth. So if you had been at 120 feet, a one minute stop at 60 feet is followed by a one minute stop at 30 feet, followed by a one minute stop at 15 feet. No matter how you do it, coming up as slowly as you can is how you avoid hyperbaric injury.
In fact, three of the dive accidents that resulted in injury, and the only diving fatality I have ever been present for was related to a diver ascending too quickly. The physics and physiology of breathing pressurized gases is technically demanding, especially so when diving to depths below 99 feet. Safety stops are VERY important, especially when you are diving at pressures higher than 4 atmospheres of pressure (99 feet).
I myself have had four diving emergencies that required either emergency surfacing or my buddy’s intervention. Three of them were due to equipment failure, and one because I was a moron. One of them required sharing air. We still had time to do our safety stop.
Even so, it’s obvious that the prosecution wanted to railroad this guy. The student in question had a history of high blood pressure, and the autopsy showed that he had alcohol and cocaine in his system. None of this was known to the instructor at the time of the dive.
In this case, the signs of immersive pulmonary edema were there. For those of you who may dive, or who may work in the medical field, pay attention. Immersive pulmonary edema is very similar to the flash pulmonary edema seen with heart failure patients who are suddenly taken off of CPAP. It’s complicated by the changes in pressure caused by depth changes messing with the Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System (RAAS), which regulates blood pressure. Also adding to the complications is the creation of nitric oxide that occurs with sudden pressure changes in SCUBA diving. In patients with hypertension, heart problems, or kidney problems, this combination can be life threatening.
The signs were there: The student was easily winded with mild exertion, he couldn’t perform underwater navigation while at depth (indicating possible mental status changes from hypoxia), and was complaining that he wasn’t getting any air, even though everything was working perfectly ( a sign of shortness of breath). If he was taking an ACE inhibitor for his high blood pressure, this could even make this condition worse.
So how do you treat this? While diving, adopt the rules that I have always followed:
- Any diver on any given dive can terminate the dive for any reason. This is done by giving any diver in your group a “thumbs up” sign, and is called “thumbing a dive.”
- Any diver having apparent confusion, disorientation, or an equipment problem should cause the thumbing of the dive.
- Any diver having shortness of breath should be placed on oxygen as soon as they are on the surface.
- On the way down, take a few seconds at 65 feet or so to get organized. Look each other in the eye and make sure everyone gives you the “OK” sign.
- At any dive below 60 feet, make sure that you do your safety stops.
- Follow other safe practices like ascent rate, NDL limits, and make sure that everyone is diving within the limits of their training and experience.
My Qualifications
My Internet handle has been Divemedic for more than two decades for good reason. I am a certified Master diver, deep diver, mixed gas diver, public safety diver, and Rescue diver. I am certified by all three of the big US recreational SCUBA training agencies at one level or another: NAUI, PADI, and SSI. I have been SCUBA diving for about 30 years. I used to be on a professional dive rescue team. I have been employed at various times as a rescue and salvage diver and had more than 2,000 dives in my logbook, representing more than 900 hours underwater before I stopped bothering to log them, 16 years ago. Enough dives that I have literally worn out a few sets of equipment. I have been present for half a dozen dive casualties, one a fatality. So I understand many of the issues. With that being said, let’s get into the post.
Guns
Annual Pistol Competition
The folks over at GunFreeZone post about cops who don’t take well when losing IDPA matches. Let me add my own stories to that.
About 20 years ago, I was competing in IDPA matches. I went on a vacation to Mexico, and it just happened that an employee of the Public Works Department and the head of the police Department’s SWAT team in the city where I was employed as a firefighter were on the same trip. Some smack talking ensued, and the cops decided to set up a pistol competition. The police, fire, and public works departments would all compete, and any revenue would go to charity. It was billed as the First Annual City Pistol Competition.
The cops really screwed the pooch when they didn’t do their homework. The deputy fire chief was a Master level IDPA shooter and placed in a couple of state level matches, and the director of Public Works was the President of the Florida Cowboy Pistol Shooter’s Association. I was a decent shooter as a Sharpshooter that had one a couple of local matches, and I barely made the team for the FD. There were some really good shooters on the Public Works and Fire Department teams. I felt outclassed.
The results of the match were embarrassing for the cops. Public works walked away with it, the fire department came in second, and the cops were a distant last.
The rules were modified by the cops to heavily favor their elite SWAT skills. For example, the cops didn’t have to conceal, but everyone else did. A reflection of Florida law, they claimed. Also, there was no ten round magazine restriction. One stage in particular was tough because it required multiple reloads, even with the larger magazines.
There was one stage that was setup to look like the inside of a church with about 40 IDPA targets inside. I think 8 were painted blue, 8 painted red, and the remainder not painted at all. At the beginning of the stage as you entered the church, the RSO would hold up a paper plate that was either red or blue. The color of the plate was the one you weren’t supposed to shoot. It was a mess of a stage, because there were so many non-threats in there. It was way easy to plug a hole in one by accident.
When I did that stage, I shot it clean. As the RSO held up a red plate, I yelled out “RED IS MY FRIEND” over and over again, so I wouldn’t screw it up. I managed to engage every blue target while missing every red and unpainted one. As I remember, I got a decent score. Not the best, but not bad.
The SWAT team’s sniper (we will call him Darryl) was next. As he entered, the RSO held up a blue plate. That dumb sonofabitch went in there and drilled every single blue target. Twice. It took them forever to calculate all of the penalties for engaging all of those non-threats, and probably involved some calculus. I even saw one of the cops take off his shoes so he could count higher. Darryl wound up finishing dead last in the entire match. Since we were friends, I gave him no mercy at all for months about that one. Holy hell, it was hilarious.
Darryl still doesn’t find it funny. I do. It turned out that the First Annual City Pistol Competition was also the Last.
Blog News
Spam
Due to a large amount of SPAM comments (well over 200 in the last week) trying to sell discount drugs:
- I had to disable comments on the “Training Manuals” page.
- I also had to add IPs addresses in Cambodia and Turkey to the IPs that are not permitted to post comments. Comments from those IP addresses will go to the trash. I won’t even see them in the moderation queue.
So any of you who have VPNs, don’t use those countries to comment.
Me
Rion and family: February Update
The last time we talked about my grandson’s progress was December 1. For those who don’t know, four and a half months ago, my grandson was hospitalized with an unknown illness that was later determined to be viral meningitis caused by the enterovirus. He spent weeks in the intensive care unit. There was a time when I was unsure that he would survive, although I would never have told my daughter that.
I posted about his illness on this blog, and many of you told me that you were praying for him. Well, it seems that those helpful thoughts were successful, because he is doing better than I had hoped. All of the things that he used to be able to do, the things we all take for granted, he has had to learn all over again. He had to be toilet trained all over again. Walking, reading, writing, speaking, feeding himself, all of it had to be learned again.
He now walks and runs nearly like a normal, six year old boy. and is no longer in a wheelchair, although he does occasionally wear leg braces. He relies on the braces less and less as time goes on. He even returned to ice skates two weeks ago. One of his favorite things to do was play youth league hockey. He still isn’t back to that, but he is pushing himself.
He still doesn’t have the fine motor control he had, but he can write (sloppily), His speech is still stilted and somewhat robotic, but also improving. If you want to read his entire story as posted on this blog, click here.
The care that he received was second to none. My daughter’s boyfriend works at a different hospital in that hospital chain, and the nursing director of his hospital personally made the drive to the hospital where his stepson (my grandson) was, so that he could visit and deliver gifts that included gift cards, food, cash, and stuffed animals. The entire staff of the hospital where he works was wonderful. They offered to care for the other kids, cooked meals for the family, and even came over and cleaned the house. What large companies do that anymore?
Education
Woke College
The Florida legislature is looking at a bill that would eliminate majors in useless subjects like Critical Race Theory, Gender Studies, or Intersectionality at all state funded universities and colleges. The left is losing their shit and calling it a ban that threatens academic freedom. Bullshit. It isn’t a ban. If you want to spend five figures on a major like Women’s Studies, knowing that you will never get a job as a result of that degree, you can do so. Just not at a taxpayer funded college.
Another part of the same bill changes how universities will be able to hire their professors. In the future, professors would be recommended for hiring by the college President, but the board of trustees would have the final say in hirings and firings. The bill would also allow a professor’s tenure to be revoked. The bill explicitly bans state colleges or universities from using woke policies like diversity, equity, and inclusion statements, Critical Race Theory rhetoric, or other forms of political identity filters as part of the hiring process, including as part of applications for employment, promotion and tenure, conditions of employment, or reviewing qualifications for employment.
In other words, there will be accountability, and college professorship will no longer be a liberal jobs program and professors will not be eliminated for failure to be woke enough.
Additionally, the bill bans use of university resources to “promote, support, or maintain any programs or campus activities…that espouse diversity, equity, and inclusion or Critical Race Theory rhetoric,” whether directly or through grants, contracts, or service agreements. Done are the days when taxpayer money can be used to support liberal causes.
The times, they are a changin’
Anti American left
The Miami Herald Supports Child Pornographers
The title from the Miami Herald reads:
He was homeless and mentally ill. A judge sentenced him to 150 years. Is that justice?
The article tells a story about a man who they allege is mentally ill and was caught in possession of child pornography after he sat in public with his computer and was showing that porn to multiple passers-by.
In 2016, he walked into a Sweetwater Best Buy and snatched a laptop and other merchandise. When employees confronted him, he pulled out his own laptop, declaring, ”Look, I have child pornography!” He began publicly showing his computer screen, lying down between two sets of sliding doors and perusing the illegal images as customers walked by.
Prosecutors offered him a plea deal, where he would plead guilty to one count of possession of child pornography and receive three years. He refused that deal.
So they pressed on with 30 counts of possession, that being what was found on his computer. Throughout the trial, the defendant refused to talk to his attorneys or participate in his own defense. He also refused to undergo mental health evaluations.
So he rolled the dice, went to trial, and the judge gave him the maximum sentence for each of the 30 counts. The total was for 150 years.
After the conviction, after all appeals have been exhausted, now this criminal and his attorneys begin screaming that NOW he has submitted to a psychological exam, and the psychologist claims that he is “unlikely to reoffend.” Why is that? Have his psychological problems been cured? Why wait until after sentence has been passed? Sounds to me like the reactions of a logical mind that is now hoping for a second bite at the apple and using his schizophrenia as an excuse. You don’t get a “do over” simply because you gambled and lost.
Now the Herald whips out the race card. They claim that in a perfect world, Stephens would’ve received treatment for his mental illness. He would have never become homeless or walked into that Best Buy. No, in a perfect world, those children would never have been victimized, and in a perfect world, the defendant in this case wouldn’t have victimized them a second time by having photos of the crime, and victimized yet a third time by him displaying photos of their victimization to the public.
It’s hard not to wonder what Stephens’ fate would have been were he not homeless, mentally ill; if his family had been in court and not thousands of miles away in Michigan, where they didn’t even know that he had been arrested; if Stephens weren’t Black, factors that historically have put defendants at a disadvantage.
What the Herald fails to mention is that, after moving to Miami in 2015, he racked up a list of criminal convictions in Miami Dade – 8 of them for 2015 and 2016, everything from trespassing, to petit theft, and even felony battery. Now this. The man moved to Miami and became a one man crime wave. Through these 8 cases, his mental issues weren’t used as a defense by his attorneys once. Not once.
What next? Rape a child? Kill someone? At least in prison, society is protected from this menace. I am willing to be that this behavior didn’t just begin when he came to Miami. The Herald engages in typical liberal hand-wringing over this criminal’s need for psychological help, while ignoring the child victims of his crime. They merely wave away possession of child pornography by saying “Stephens wasn’t accused of producing or distributing the pornographic material.” which is false, because he was sitting there in the middle of the mall, showing the photographs to passers by. That is, in fact, distribution.
I am sick and tired of the left yammering on endlessly about the rights of criminals while ignoring the rights of the victims of their crimes. However, if my child were one of his victims, I would be sorely tempted to plea for his release so I could mete out the vengeance that his crimes are screaming for.
I am willing to bet that, should that happen, the Herald wouldn’t be running stories to celebrate my cause.
Uncategorized
Your Family was the Reason for the Next One
Prince Harry says that he doesn’t understand the First Amendment and thinks it is “bonkers.” See, no one should be allowed to bad mouth him because he is rich, or royalty, or something. If he doesn’t like that Amendment, wait until he finds out that his 6x great grandfather (and also his 5x great grandfather, due to Royal inbreeding) was the reason for the next Amendment and what that Amendment means.
Government
Useless
The UN passed a resolution demanding that Russia withdraw all troops from Ukraine. Such a resolution is meaningless without troops to enforce it. Of course that means the US. Is this the excuse Biden will use to get us into a war? What will China do?
The UN is useless.