I have a several issues with the story and the information in it.

For one, the part about "a depth that no rebreather had ever been taken" is
wholly innacurate. Navy and commercial divers have been beating 1,000 feet
for literally decades, but with a PTC, heliox, and rebreathers that are
maintained to what would be considered NASA standards.

I also dont think that glorifying this act, or surrounding it with intrigue
is right, anyone doing dives like this is lucky to survive, regardless of
experience. For example, lets look at the number of participants compared to
survivors/fatalities.

How wise is it to leave your family to grieve in order to set a "record"
that is insignificant at best? Sounds cool at the bar, as long as the widow
isnt around.

"Recovering a body from the bottom of Bushman's Hole was a feat of
extraordinary danger, combining extreme depth and physical work, and Shaw
and Shirley were just the guys to pull it off."

But they didnt "pull it off", what they did was add another death, and, but
by the grace of God, almost two. And they left his skull on the bottom,
which I would hardly call a successful recovery.

The article is filled with the kind of sensationalism and hubris that gets
people killed, and will get people killed for years to come.

"The Hammerhead controller on his left forearm was a wreck." Not something I
brag about, but I did the CAD and protype work for Juergensen on the
Hammerhead, and the housing is made of acrylic, not because it is the best
material for the job, but because it was the least expensive. Which is
*exactly* one of the many reasons we parted ways. And this handset is not
the only one that has imploded. It should have been made of polycarbonate at
very least, and never taken to the depths these folks did under any
circumstances. But hey, to hell with safety, lets focus on profits, I mean
we are talking about a cost difference of $16 per handset before machining,
and actually, polycarb is much easier and more forgiving to machine than
acrylic, so it likely would have balanced out in the long run. I predicted
all the failures that have been plaguing the Hammerhead since day one, as
could anyone with talking brain cells. He also left the machine shop that
did his first two production runs holding the bag on over $9,000 and screwed
me to the tune of $2,500 at a time in my life that $2500 might as well have
been $25,000.

The scrubber in the rebreathers they were diving could not, and were never
designed to operate efficiently at those depths, *especially* with any
exertion whatever, and the O2 addition solenoid could also never keep up
with any exertion at that depth, period. Simple math. These guys were
playing Russian Roulette with 5 of the holes loaded with hollow points.

"Shaw should have done more buildup dives to increase his tolerance for
narcosis." is simply rediculous. Narcosis is affected by a thousand
integers, and can change day to day, dive to dive. If they had been diving
heliox, like they should have, narcosis likely wouldnt have been an issue.

Saying that Shaws death was "better than dying in a car crash" is simply
rediculous.

The whole thing was an absolutely avoidable tragedy, that was all but
guaranteed to go wrong by the ego's and motives involved.

I also dont think that Deon Dreyer would approve of anyone else losing their
life to make a recovery that could have, and should have, been done with an
RPV.

Ask Bob Ballard.

Yes, they did the story. Yes, they showed the video. I was told about
the Nightline story by a diving buddy who saw the broadcast. I don't
know how much of the video they showed or how long they kept the audio
going on it since I won't spend the $4.95 they're asking to see a
crappy digital stream of it.