Man Dies Attempting Record Free-Dive

robjvargas

Rob J. Vargas
Banned
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
6,543
Reaction score
511
Free diver Nicholas Mevoli died after attempting the free dive record in the Bahamas.

Nicholas Mevoli, a 32-year-old from Brooklyn, hoped to reach 72 meters (236 feet) with one breath of oxygen and without the assistance of fins.

When he surfaced, he flashed the OK sign and then lost consciousness 30 seconds later, organizers said.

Mevoli was going for a record at Dean's Blue Hole in the Bahamas. At 202 meters (663 feet), it is considered the world's deepest blue hole in seawater.

I think these folks are nuts. But I've seen video of this event, and they have divers in full scuba gear following the free divers down and up.

He clearly loved doing it, and there's something to be said for dying while doing what you love. But death is always a tragedy.
 

Elaine Margarett

High and Dry
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 24, 2007
Messages
1,718
Reaction score
282
Location
chasing windmills
I am mystified by these record seeking individuals. I don't know why they seem to seek validation this way.

I see your point about dying while doing something you love, but to me it's a stupid way to die.
 

Shadow_Ferret

Court Jester
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 26, 2005
Messages
23,708
Reaction score
10,657
Location
In a world of my own making
Website
shadowferret.wordpress.com
I always here that. "They died while doing what they loved" and I don't get it. It might be better than dying helplessly in a burning car as it plunges off a cliff onto jagged rocks but its still dying.

I doubt Id take any consolation from dying at my writing desk. Just seems like a silly saying.
 

slhuang

Inappropriately math-oriented.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 11, 2012
Messages
2,906
Reaction score
1,140
Website
www.slhuang.com
I am mystified by these record seeking individuals. I don't know why they seem to seek validation this way.

I see your point about dying while doing something you love, but to me it's a stupid way to die.

Beats cancer.

(IMHO.)

I don't think it's about validation. For me (and just to be clear, I am not a record-holder in anything, but I do like extreme sports and stuff others would consider "thrill-seeking"), it's not about prestige or anything else, it's about doing it. Doing it longer, faster, better -- pushing the limits of human endurance, pushing myself.

This sort of thing is something I feel like I understand. I don't find it to be stupid. In the broader scheme of things, if no one ever tried anything new, or tried to push anything harder, that would be a sad society to live in.

I wish he'd made it.
 

slhuang

Inappropriately math-oriented.
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 11, 2012
Messages
2,906
Reaction score
1,140
Website
www.slhuang.com
I always here that. "They died while doing what they loved" and I don't get it. It might be better than dying helplessly in a burning car as it plunges off a cliff onto jagged rocks but its still dying.

I doubt Id take any consolation from dying at my writing desk. Just seems like a silly saying.

Erm. I'm one of those people who would prefer to die doing something I loved, so maybe I can explain by putting it in writer-speak.

For me, it's about agency. I'd much rather die because I made a decision that had some value to me than because my life was taken from me.

Note that the word "value" is important. I'm actually quite risk-averse in a lot of ways (I'm a careful, defensive driver, for instance, because going 50 in a residential neighborhood is pointless and also dangerous to other people and is most emphatically not something I would find any value doing). But, say, to put it in the most extreme terms possible -- if I died saving a bunch of other people's lives? I'd prefer that to, say, dying of heart disease. Because that would be a decision *I* made that had value to it, for me. I wouldn't want it to cause my death, and don't get me wrong, dying for a "valid" reason isn't so important to me that I'm trying to cause it to happen or something, but I would much, much rather die because I was doing something I loved than for no reason at all. (Important in there is the "because," I think. Keeling over at your typewriter is a little different because writing hasn't caused your death. But what if writing were a much riskier thing to do? What if it were subversive, if you lived under a dystopian regime that had outlawed telling stories? Does that make it easier to empathize with? It's about what's important to the individual, I think.)
 

AVS

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 13, 2008
Messages
529
Reaction score
73
Location
Beacon and mountain, river and road.
"I don't want to achieve immortality through my work... I want to achieve it through not dying." Woody Allen.

I second that not quite apposite emotion. I have a mixture of admiration and disbelief (better understood as a lack of comprehension) when I see folk deliberately undertake sports or events that involve extreme danger. This would include bungee jumping, parachuting, lion taming and so on. Though the odds of disaster are usual quite small, they begin to gravitate towards 100% when continually repeated.

I tip my hat to the thrill seekers, but then I scratch my head in puzzlement.