Letters to the Editor: Too Much Weight to Dive?

Dear Undercurrent,

As a physician (now retired) and 30-plus-year diver, I have been dismayed by the steadily increasing girth of many young and especially aging divers.

When I am on a dive boat and look around, I do think about the increased risk of an underwater cardiac or other medical event and my potential responses. I have wondered just how any divemaster, no matter how strong, would be able to get a 200 to 250-pound distressed or unconscious diver up a ladder into the boat, even in calm seas.

I, fortunately, have not witnessed an event, but would be interested in hearing stories about others that have been involved in a rescue such as described, so we could study the process and outcomes.

I do not have any simple solutions. In 41 years of medical practice, I tried all manner of techniques to get patients to lose weight with little success.

Michael Rosenberg (Providence, RI)

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Dear Undercurrent,

I'm a bit surprised that the business owner in San Diego hasn't been taken to court (especially in California), but if a professional is at all concerned about a person based on weight, a simple check-out dive would be a great start. As for the instructor giving the heavy student a hard time, that is just plain ignorance and bullying. She deserves credit for powering through and not letting him prevent her from achieving her goal.

The consumers always need to remember that they have the right to take their business elsewhere and file a complaint with the BBB and/or the training agency, and if conditions warrant, the local attorney general.

Chip Wright (Hebron, KY)

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Dear Undercurrent,

I'm told around 40 percent of U.S. adults are obese; that's a big portion of the customer base to write off. Regarding Scuba San Diego not taking out divers with a BMI over 30, I get that difficult shore diving in adverse conditions is a different issue from benign condition diving. But a BMI 30 is not all that hefty. It's my understanding athletic types with a lot of muscle can have high BMIs without much fat. And who's measuring these BMIs? Most people don't know theirs, and it's easy to lie to a point. Does Scuba San Diego whip out a tape measure and record waist circumference of customers?

Not everyone is in optimal condition for a given task, yet many of us choose to do it anyway within reason. I'm not talking about someone physically exhausted from the effort to gear up and walk to the back of a dive boat. But a lot of divers will be 50-plus, chunky (BMI 30s or 40s), not in great aerobic shape, and trying to paternalistically shame them into conforming to someone else's expectation of how they 'ought to' live and be or what they ought to do isn't going to fly.

Richard Lunsford (Hopkinsville, KY)