Cave diver drowns - Jackson Blue Springs, Florida

[Underwater Tourist]

For the oxygen shutoff case, do you know if the cave changes depth around the area where the diver drowned?

While I am not ccr certified my understand is that:

if the diver forgot to turn O2 on (or bumped it closed accidentally) and then the there was a depth change, then the O2 shutoff system is clearly responsible for the death. On the flip side, if the cave runs at the same depth for awhile, and then for whatever reason O2 was off, then it does take awhile to breathe down the loop to a hypoxic level. In that case, there is more blame on the diver for not monitoring his po2.

 

[Manatee Diver]

if the diver forgot to turn O2 on (or bumped it closed accidentally) and then the there was a depth change, then the O2 shutoff system is clearly responsible for the death. On the flip side, if the cave runs at the same depth for awhile, and then for whatever reason O2 was off, then it does take awhile to breathe down the loop to a hypoxic level. In that case, there is more blame on the diver for not monitoring his po2.

Regardless without the oxygen shutoff the diver would be alive. That is the core cause of the accident. Sure the diver might have broken the accident chain by monitoring their PPO2 better, but it was the oxygen shutoff that put him in the position on that particular dive.

 

[rjack321]

For the oxygen shutoff case, do you know if the cave changes depth around the area where the diver drowned?

While I am not ccr certified my understand is that:

if the diver forgot to turn O2 on (or bumped it closed accidentally) and then the there was a depth change, then the O2 shutoff system is clearly responsible for the death. On the flip side, if the cave runs at the same depth for awhile, and then for whatever reason O2 was off, then it does take awhile to breathe down the loop to a hypoxic level. In that case, there is more blame on the diver for not monitoring his po2.

There's an entire culture, in the mCCR universe especially, of "breathing down" a modestly high ppO2. The combination of this culture/training and the o2 shut off which is an aftermarket add-on part of that culture/training is what led to his death.

The O2 bottle itself was on, the shutoff was off. (note this was in Ginnie and not this thread's accident)

 

[cerich]

There's an entire culture, in the mCCR universe especially, of "breathing down" a modestly high ppO2. The combination of this culture/training and the o2 shut off which is an aftermarket add-on part of that culture/training is what led to his death.

The O2 bottle itself was on, the shutoff was off. (note this was in Ginnie and not this thread's accident)

weird, breathing down high PPO2 isn't something in my circle of MCCR divers/instrs (sidewinder) are doing teaching. Make no sense, fix it is seconds and carry on or drag it out a while at higher risk for what?
To the shut off, I go semi closed when in tight stuff that involves zero viz, one less thing to worry about. Thus I like the shut off, it is something else to be aware of always of course. Honestly, anyone diving MCCR should be catching an accidental shut off early, or they really need to rethink diving MCCR. I do see too many folks that dive MCCR like ECCR, and that's a problem

 

[rjack321]

weird, breathing down high PPO2 isn't something in my circle of MCCR divers/instrs (sidewinder) are doing teaching. Make no sense, fix it is seconds and carry on or drag it out a while at higher risk for what?
To the shut off, I go semi closed when in tight stuff that involves zero viz, one less thing to worry about. Thus I like the shut off, it is something else to be aware of always of course. Honestly, anyone diving MCCR should be catching an accidental shut off early, or they really need to rethink diving MCCR. I do see too many folks that dive MCCR like ECCR, and that's a problem

It was explicitly part of my crossover in May 2018, including adding the shutoff to the stock MAV and "breathing down" a higher ppO2 (e.g like 1.35 down to 1.2). The sidewinder instructor at the time had "5000 hours" on the unit but hey maybe he's changed his practices based on the Ginnie fatality.

I think the entire shutoff idea is dubious, along with not having a HUD, and only having one wrist monitor, the lies about the scrubber capacity are just icing on a whole raft of dubious practices within the sidewinder community/culture.

 

[tmassey]

Repeating the same causes of deaths in cave diving may seem redundant, and it did to me for a long time.
However, I now think that it cannot hurt for people to be reminded of the things that can kill us and also providing examples of how it did kill someone.

I’ve tried to make this point before.

People say the same thing: it’s always the same reasons, we know what they are, why should we rehash them? What have we learned?

Do these people not have children? or coworkers? Do you know how many times you have to tell someone about the consequences of something before they begin to hear it – even after they have personally suffered the consequences of something?

I have made this point before:

Ginnie Springs diver missing - Florida

Not trying to be difficult, and asking (sincerely) for information: who is/are 'they'? "They" is the people who are afraid of being sued by ambulance chasing slip and fall bottom feeding lawyers.

scubaboard.com

It’s too easy to ignore a single anecdote. I love that video snippet. There’s always 50 small decisions that lead up to a single disaster, and you can use too many of those to discount why they don’t apply to you. But after you see the same thing six, seven, eight times… Only then do you start to think: maybe there’s something to this.

But it’s great to hear a pillar of the cave diving community make the point. It certainly has a lot more impact for a lot more people. So thank you very much for sharing your change in perspective.

 

[Six Feet Under]

Accident analysis is a tricky thing, and while FOIA sounds simple enough it can be a long process, and some states/jurisdictions have limitations on it so sometimes you can get denied if you're just a random person making a request out of mobid curiosity. The hardest part is that those writing up the reports (law enforcement, coroners, etc.) may not be divers, so their interpretations lack some understanding. This is why we rely on boards like NSS-CDS for their final interpretations in a report. I know its hard on us, since we're all 6 degrees from the Kevin Bacon of diving and in some ways we all know each other. When one of us doesn't make it we all feel it, and it makes us a little more human than we'd like to admit.

First: I'm not saying the recovery divers "don't do enough" in what I'm about to say next - I understand fully the impact that dealing with bodies has on a person's psyche and that's without taking into account the fact that in such a small community, the deceased and the recovery team have probably crossed paths at a minimum, if they are not out-and-out friends:

If the hardest part is getting the detectives investigating the deaths to have the understanding of dive terminology and technology in their report writing practices, are they not utilizing the information from local subject matter experts (AKA, the recovery team) to adequately explain what happened?

I've conducted death investigations on land before, and anyone that was present or witnessed the event somehow that had an equal or greater understanding of what happened than my own got entered in as a witness that I spoke with, with a detailed explanation of what was discussed and how every piece of that discussion was relevant to the incident in question.

Does the NSS-CDS need a volunteer (or team of volunteers) to compile information from statements provided by the recovery team and the actual law enforcement report? I have to agree with whoever posted it - doesn't ever seem likely that we're going to get reports out of the CDS, if we're still waiting on accident analysis from 1-2 years prior...

 

[boulderjohn]

If the hardest part is getting the detectives investigating the deaths to have the understanding of dive terminology and technology in their report writing practices, are they not utilizing the information from local subject matter experts (AKA, the recovery team) to adequately explain what happened?

Yes, the police rely heavily upon local experts. The IUCRR reports went directly to the police and would become the official reports. I was once involved with an accident Investigation, and the police stood around taking notes while we looked at the gear and explained everything to them.

 

[Johnoly]

... the police stood around taking notes while we looked at the gear and explained everything to them.

Very different from the Palm Beach guys. After on board, they wouldn't let us near to check comps, psi, valve position, purge, mouth piece, weight pockets,etc. Gear picts were also not allowed/blocked. The excuse has been 'Tainting a scene', but in reality they didn't want report conflicts with the M.E. office. If it's not an obvious gear/external issue, then you need to know in advance how to talk & write the statement to the M.E. onsite and which lab tests you want done so they don't get skipped to save money & time. It was the overly extensive lab tests in 2 cases that saved some butts.

 

[boulderjohn]

BTW, the incident was at Jackson Blue, and Edd did most of the talking as we looked at the gear. My main contribution was calculating the PPO2 for the incident.