I left a comment back when you guys had like 100k subs asking why the guide line isn't thicker because it seems like it woud snap.  Literally the next day you guys posted a video addressing my exact comment, I am not surprised your channel has grown 4x since then because people really appreciate that level of engagement and information.

Thanks @DiveTalk for reacting to my video 👌

In aviation we have this idea that in the case of emergency, you keep on fighting till the end. You fly the aircraft until it is either in the ground or in a million pieces.

Gus "I hate needles" - with an arm full of tattoos. LOL

There's a phrase they use in aviation: "normalisation of deviancy"

It's used to refer to instances where not all the rules and regulations are followed, usual to save time, but nothing goes wrong. The crew then become complacent and deviation from the safety procedures becomes the norm. It is a causal factor in many incidents.

Here, I think something similar has happened. They have probably dived wrecks without lines before and - because nothing went wrong - continued to do so. For them, they've normalised diving wrecks without laying a line.

I think it's a useful phrase to use for instances like this, and that there are a lot of things divers could learn from aviation's approach to safety.

Freediver here: if you hold your breath your heart indeed slows down a bit. But then it speeds up again fighting the sinking o2 saturation. A better technique to slow your heartbeat is to slow your breathing, exhale longer than you inhale, relax all muscles and the rest is mindgames.

The footage showing all the holes is from the upper decks.  They took down many of the interior compartment walls and cut big appertures in the sides.  There is a lot of light and you can pretty much always see an exit.  To go down into the bowels you need to line in.  The question is why it made sense to these guys in the moment to just go on in.
Regardless, kudos to Adam for relating this incident so that others can learn.

I dived the Scylla shortly after it was scuttled. I did my wreck diving certification there. It’s cold, dark, green water diving. Shortly after my dive there, the first fatalities occurred. This diver has SAS level survival skills 😮

One big take away I feel like wasn't mentioned - is: Just because you start off by making a mistake, doing your best afterwards and not compounding more mistakes is a very great quality.

Also I don't think people appreciate that there is a big difference between having emotional control and between lack of emotions or capability to feel them.Postponing the process of going through them is a learned skill.

I think that's a really important point--"you regress to your level of training, you never rise to the occasion." Even people like Captain Sully landing in the Hudson, when someone comes out the other side of some sort of crucible like this, it tends to come down to that person hard-lining back to the fundamentals of their training to address the challenges. People don't tend to spontaneously innovate the solution, it tends to come to sticking to the fundamentals long enough to give yourself the chance to survive when an opportunity arises. Like this guy keeping his breathing calm and knowing how to remove his tanks, Sully coming into the water at the best angle he could for a water ditching and accounting for the speed he needed to be at and how he needed to hit against any waves...those were things that came down to training. There's nothing wrong with people who drill drill drill their training, stick to the earliest-taught and most basic safety measures every time, don't compromise on things that detract from safety buffers in any way, etc. And, in fact, so much comes down to luck. This guy finding a hole he could fit through. Even though it wasn't technically necessary for his flight, Sully had a plane fully equipped for a full water ditching (all the life jackets, rafts, detachable slides, etc that aren't technically required for flights that don't cross water)--had he not, it was much less likely that every single person would have survived. The training is the foundation, and why it needs to be available to the point of being muscle memory as much as possible.

i just wanna say, gus looks fucking amazing. i havent seen a video from yall in a few years, but mad respect that man looks like hes been taking his health serious and he looks fucking amazing. big props to him. glad to see he looks like hes enjoying life now! amazing work dude.

I find it hard to imagine the level of trauma that poor kid must have been left with from the experience alone. To also have the trauma of the other two not making it out and for him to  also have to deal with survivor's guilt is just heartwrenching.
What an impressive young man he is. I'm glad he had a good support network and a good head on him. It sounds like he did / is doing all the right things to recover from the experience, including working on adopting a healthy perspective. I hope he's doing well. ❤

The opening they came in probably looked as black as any wall from a distance. Scary stuff

48:48 I am strict about all my safety checks when climbing. I do them all the same way every single time, no matter where or how we climb, even if I absolutely know the setup is correct, so I know I will always do it right. We were next to some very skilled climbers far above our level, and we did our safety stickler checks, and I felt like a big nerd in front of the cool kids. Then the cool kid said, "It's so good to see people who take their safety seriously." 💜

I've dived the Scylla many times. The top decks are superb and covered in life; I prefer them to the bottom deck, which is scary.

The HMS Scylla artificial reef (sunk in 2004) wreck is located in Whitsand Bay, Southeast Cornwall, United Kingdom, at a depth of 21 meters to 26 meters, depending upon the tides.

Guys, thank you for sharing this fantastic conversation. The guy is incredibly strong and mature, not only as a diver, but as a person. Thanks to him for giving us the opportunity to learn from this tragic accident and help prevent future ones, I am sure your buddies are proud.That is the best way to honor them...stay strong!

A technique used in hospitals to slow a racing heart by holding your breath is called a Valsalva maneuver. You hold your breath while pushing like you're trying to blow really hard for 15-20 seconds. But I only know of it being used to slow an abnormal racing heart on the surface. Idk if it would be a good idea underwater for stress-related racing heart or not. You'll have to breath more to make up for the drop in O2 from holding your breath, and it raises your blood pressure, which comes with its own risks. So I wouldn't presume to recommend it, but personally, I might give it a try if I was in a really bad situation and nothing else was helping.

Hold on!!!! His friends died!!! WOW!!! That's crazy... I thought everybody survived, I thought, that just he make mistake and two of his friends been waiting for him.. I thought that will be happy ending with reminding of be more careful... wow...

The other 2 were found "several weeks later" in the engine room