Never needed to bail out of a jet or a rebreather.... but fully prepared to do either..

With formal schooling at the degree level in diving science and several years spent as an industrial mixed gas diver using rebreathers every day, my opinions are based on the facts personally observed in the conduct of literally thousands of mixed gas dives *averaging* 500 FSW. In the oil field, what we do as divers for "extreme sport" is a daily job.... just another days dive and depth bonus opportunity.

02 cleaning is a great idea if you are working with *high pressure* 02, but is nonessential in a low pressure environment. Feel free to do it, but low pressure seals in a 02 environment can be lubed with about anything. Feel free to use Halocarbon if you like, but we survived using vaseline or normal siliconme grease at low pressure and reserved Halocarbon for HP regulators and valves where there *was* the potential for high temperatures caused by debris impinging into a sonic velocity gas stream. Ain't nothing else going to cause enough heat for a fire!

In water-pure 02 deco at 40 FSW was observed by me personally for literally *thousands* of hours., right out of the US Navy dive manual and using the tables custom produced for us by Dr. Bill Hamilton..... and we never saw an 02 tox symptom ever. We did *much* longer 40 foot chamber decompressions (hours) after the in-water portion of the deco was done and never saw an issue there either. Every 6 months each diver did a 60 FSW for 30 minute chamber run on pure 02 for the "02 tolerance test" and in literally hundreds of chamber runs we *never* had a hit. Don't take me wrong: 02 tox *is* an issue, just that it's a "fuzzy" limit and not a "hard" one. Go see how the SEALs use LAR-V's for emergency combat escape dives to 75 feet plus (diving in an emergency to below hand-grenade sinking depth) and then talk to me.

My only point is to just be reasonable in your approach to these things and let's not all get nuts about "02 compatability of scotchbrite pads", that's all. They are a great tool for many things. Come to think about it, we used them as noise silencers in our helmets too (Divex 3000 and Aquadyne GH-2, each with their umbilical-fed SCC rebreather systems).


Sorry to get off topic.... but it's good data. I only saw two divers die offshore... both due to low PP02 (in one bell-bounce system accident...) but never saw an 02 fire or a 02 tox symptom ever.





Dave