ESPN “No Limits” Audrey Mestre Film Airs Tonight at 8pm EST

Raph said:

I am somewhat new to the world of freediving as I started after this accident.
The paralel between Tanya safty procedure and Audrey was the best part of the documentary imho.

Without making any judgment, I would argue that we should take it with a grain of salt : the ghostwriter part and the "I will deliberatly not fill the tank to save her" part.
Not that I believe he actually was surprised by a soviet sub mid dive (how silent can this subs be ?) But a ghostwriter is a writing expert, her opinion on what happened is interresting but I believe not very helpfull to understand what actually happened.
Pipin might be a complet lunatic, but if he is somewhat sane, the scenario where he doesn't fill the tank, then he has to rely on the deepest safety diver to make the decision to risk his own life to pull Audrey to the -100m mark so Pipin can air dive (at the 6 min mark ??) to go and rescue her. Well ... it seems far fetched to me. Was he looking for his watch the all time and decided at some point "Ok, I gave enough time to the safety to pull her up to where I should be able to air dive. Let's go !"

What do you guys think ?

Click to expand...

Purely from the facts and letting all 'human' aspects/factors aside, a few (random) thoughts/questions that I had while watching it:

1. From a safety planning point of view, obviously very far off the mark in so many respects - basically no real planning, rehearsals etc.

2. Was a bit puzzled even with the limited scuba cover why a lift bag couldn't have been attached to her suit to bring her all the way up. Tanya had a lot more cover obviously but even so, it would still take quite some time to carry someone to the surface by passing from diver to diver so I am guessing the lift bag would still have been the primary action for very deep problems.

3. Regarding NLT - apart from other things, goes to also show how important proper funding is for safety.

4. Just an obvious comment but diving to -90m on air and carrying someone back to surface is to my limited knowledge extremely dangerous.

5. Again just a comment without inferring anything either way but I can personally see why someone wouldn't want random people messing about with crucial equipment (even to check it) after it had been thoroughly checked according to a plan (don't think that the more people check it the safer it is) but obviously based on the outcome it was not checked properly at all. No idea of reasons/motives etc of course or the real cause of the failure.

Carlos Serra in his book relays puzzling utterances by the bottom safety diver after the accident, who may or may not have been in on Pipin's "hero" plan. Maybe they thought that Audrey would've taken air from the bottom diver or something, and then she didn't and everything went to hell. Maybe the safety diver expected the lift tank to be empty, which explains why he's so quick to try to fill it with his own regulator. But yes, that's all speculation.

Regarding having a lift bag as backup safety or similar measures, Pipin's and IAFD's attempts ... didn't make use of contingencies. An attachable air bag or an air vest with a pony bottle or any back up lift system would've saved Audrey's life. Which is easy to see in hindsight.

If being the devil's advocate, freediving safety was still heavily under development then, and nothing was standardized. Maybe it still isn't. If being harsh, Pipin was already notorious for flouting safety, including his own, while other record divers were much more intelligent in their approach, eg. his nemesis Pelizzari. Serra has suggested, that this indifference to safety was Pipin's machismo, the sea was supposed to follow his bidding, not vice versa.

I believe it was summed up best as a "reverse icarus" story: a terrible tragedy due to overconfidence. (and a competitive drive essential to this discipline) Speculation over whether Pipin's failure to fill the gas bottle was intentional or not will remain speculation. Either way I can understand his reluctance to be interviewed. Rest in Piece. May we all learn from this.