Secondary Victims

Over the last few days I have had the same conversation with four different divers and instructors I respect enormously. Several of them about the same couple of divers.

There are a couple of divers out there that are going to die diving. Possibly soon. And they don't know it yet.

They certainly don't behave like they care. They seem to refuse to take the advise of their betters or agree to the long, slow process of mentorship. All they seem to think is, "I am preternaturally good at this and, besides, I'm only putting myself at any risk." They are 100% wrong.

As "technical" diving has become more mainstream over the last decade people have grown hell-bent for leather to reach the very top of the game. They see the empty spools, the gorgeous pictures, or the piles of brass that the rockstar divers bring back and they figure, "If I push really hard I can be doing that in a year or two!"

But they can't.

They selectively ignore that the rockstars have been slowly becoming who they are and what they're capable of for 10, 15, 20, 30 years. They don't think of the countless called dives or minor incidents or long-forgotten learning moments that these people have built their careers upon. They don't romanticize the hours of planning dives and bailout and emergency plans. They don't think of the support required. They just figure, "What's the worst that can happen? I die doing what I love?"

No. The worst that can happen is that you hurt or kill someone else because of your own bullshit ego trip.

When you die underwater you leave buddies who question, "What more could I have done?" You have rescue or recovery teams who have to go get you and carry around the memory of the dead look in your eyes as they find you floating there in their heads forever. Every instructor you've ever worked with (at least those worth a shit) will spend YEARS questioning every moment they worked with you and whether it was their fault for having certified you at all.

You have their families who certainly never signed on for this who suddenly have to become an emotional support network for those who were anywhere near your accident in any capacity. Strangers; people who you may never meet. People who now lose sleep worrying about their own loved ones.

Because you can't accept that you're not as good as you think you are. Because you decided to jump from the very peak of Dunning-Kruger mountain.

Slow down. Don't create secondary victims. You selfish dingbats.

Maybe one day you'll get to where you want to be. Maybe. But it should take longer than you think it should.