Newsgroups: bit.listserv.scuba-l
Date:         Wed, 26 Aug 1992 17:24:54 PST
From:         Peter Brueggeman <brueggep%sandnet.UCSD.EDU@SDSC.BITNET>
Subject:      scuba deaths in san diego

Divers Feared Dead After Pushing Limit for Depth
Los Angeles Times - THURSDAY July 30, 1992
By: JOHN H LEE; San Diego County Edition; Section: Metro; Page: 1, Pt. B
  Col. 2

    They pushed each other. The way thrill-seekers do.

    Scuba enthusiasts Scott Lansinger and Ed Brennick set out to dive
deeper than either had ever been. They set their goal at 250 feet, which
amateur and expert divers say is about 100 feet beyond reason.

    "I heard their plan," said Lansinger's fiancee, Tisa Ozar, "and thought
it was insane." Ozar, 21, is a certified diver.

    The two men were reported missing Tuesday night in a deep sea canyon
off La Jolla Shores. After three searches, lifeguards told relatives and
friends Wednesday afternoon that there was little hope the pair would be
found alive.
    Shortly after Lansinger, 31, of Escondido and Brennick, 30, of Poway
were reported missing, their car was found in the Shores parking lot.
Inside were two full dive tanks that the pair usually kept on hand for a
second session of diving. They were last seen about noon Tuesday, when they
set out to beat their personal bests.

    Just last weekend, Ozar said, the two had come back from the deepest
dive of their lives--197 feet for Scott, 200 for Ed.

    "Scott and Ed would just encourage each other to go to the limit," Ozar
said. "In anything they did, they were totally competitive."

    Friends for years, Lansinger and Brennick were both certified as dive
masters from the same school. Brennick, a carpenter, had about six years'
diving experience; Lansinger, a computer repairman for IBM, had 12.

    During last weekend's dive, friends and relatives said, the two men
experienced nitrogen narcosis, a disorienting and, sometimes, euphoric
feeling that comes from breathing air at depths below 150 feet. "Rapture of
the deep," as it has been described by oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, has
led divers to mistake down for up, and shallow for deep.
    "Two hundred fifty feet is like suicide," said Werner Kurn, a master
dive instructor and president of Ocean Enterprises, the diving school where
the missing men were certified. "If I hear anyone talking like that, I stop
the conversation right there. It's like saying, 'I'm going to play Russian
roulette. I'm loading the gun . . . ' "

    Ozar said she asked Lansinger on Monday if he experienced the "high" of
nitrogen narcosis on his last dive.

    " 'Yeah, big time,' " Ozar quoted her fiance as saying.

    "Don't you think it's stupid to go farther?" she admonished before he
set out on the last dive. "He laughed."

    "It's cool," was Lansinger's reply.

    For Brennick, diving was a natural fix for an adrenaline craving felt
since childhood. He was particularly excited about being certified as a
dive master just this month, and his enthusiasm for diving seemed
heightened in recent days, said his brother, Kevin Brennick.

    Also an avid rock climber and parachutist, Brennick knew how to take
risks, his brother said: "He didn't like to sit home and watch TV."

    But he also knew about people pushing themselves too far, his brother
said.

    Ed Brennick had recently been on an extensive boat trip to Mexico. A
rescue during that trip stuck with him, Kevin Brennick said.

    "Ed was on a team looking for a lost diver," Kevin Brennick said. "He
was the one who found the guy's body wedged in a rock at 160 feet. . . .
That really hit close to home. Ed seemed a lot mellower, a lot more
cautious after that."

    Kevin Brennick said his brother's fiancee, Patricia Silva, is eight
months pregnant, and the family had hoped that the baby would tone down his
acts of daring.

    Late Wednesday as the families of the two men clung to slim hopes of
their survival, Kevin Brennick described a familiar feeling of dread.

    "We have always worried about him," he said. "And it was always nice to
get that phone call from him saying everything's OK."
    Lifeguard Lt. Brant Bass said all Coast Guard and city lifeguard teams
in the area were told of the disappearance and will continue to keep on the
lookout, though formal rescue efforts have been halted.
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