Dangerous psychology- Diving beyond one's training

[GAdiver]

It's funny that I've just stumbled across this thread in an email of the month's "Top Threads". I guess it is begging a response from me. What makes people want to criticize divers, adventurers, thrill-seekers, or whatever they are, so badly? You can't possibly know what training and experience all divers have and it is not everyone's business to jump in and pass judgement, especially unsolicited. Just because something seems daring to you doesn't mean the people doing it didn't take precautions and didn't have experience that you may not see from the outside looking in. If they are willing to accept the risks and live life as they choose, they are most likely not seeking your infinite wisdom in keeping them from taking such risks. I'm sorry if I sound unappreciative of the advice, but I'm smack dab in the middle of dealing with people posting comments on something they know nothing about.

We maintain a website/blog at www.divingintocruising.comand we often publish videos on YouTube of our dives. We’ve received some flack recently over our “Diving Into Cruising – Paradise Springs” and "Diving Into Cruising - Manatee Springs" videos. Apparently some of the cave diving gurus out there think we’re somehow encouraging divers who lack experience to enter into caves without the right equipment or knowledge to do it safely. The videos we publish are simply to portray our own adventures and share them with friends and family and anyone else who cares to see it. Encouraging OW Divers to go beyond their limits....no, we aren't encouraging anything and anyone who simply watches a video and thinks “Yeah, I can do that!”, Well…best of luck to you. I would think that most people are smarter than that and realize this sport requires some guidance and training. That guidance can come in many forms and doesn't always have to be a "certification course" where you get your pretty picture on a card at the end. Getting the experience is much more important than getting the certification.

These “cave diving experts” who think we broke the code of conduct in diving are looking to see high tech lights, double tanks, and other equipment, that may be nice to have, but certainly isn’t required in order to dive these sites safely. It’s a shame that the diving industry has made this sport so equipment induced and convinced divers that there is a need for so many expensive pieces of equipment for which the purpose of could otherwise be accomplished by simply having the right knowledge and experience. We prefer more of a minimalistic approach to diving. As far as encouraging divers to ignore safety guidelines or extend beyond your level of training, we certainly hope it isn’t perceived that way. In obtaining certification as an OW Diver, you should already know that diving is an inherently risky sport and when you start venturing into cave or wreck diving, the risks grow greater. This is the same with any high risk sport. The grim reaper sign in most caverns/caves does warn open water divers of going any further and before we had the right introduction to cave diving, we never exceeded those limits, even though we had seen videos on YouTube of the exact same site. We had sense enough to know that the people we saw doing it probably had training that we didn’t. Hell, I’ve seen videos of people flying off bridges in squirrel suits, but does that mean I would strap one on and jump not knowing what I was doing…I don’t think so! Remember Darwin’s process of natural selection? “You can’t fix stupid!” But....if I had someone show me a thing or two and teach me about the dangers unknown, I might be up for it!:blinking:

You, sir are a unknowledgeable person, re-take your ow class and pay attention to the rules about caves, donate to the IUCRR for the trouble you could have potentially caused them, dive within your limits and move on with your life.

 

[kotik]

No, I think he was saying that, no matter how much you work on landowner relations, and assuring people or the state park system that this can be done safely and responsibly, posts by someone who thinks they don't need training or equipment or experience to dive safely show that your reassurances are hollow. You simply can't stop people from behaving irresponsibly or making mistakes out of wilful ignorance.

Heh-- it's like reading Nostradamus.

I think it means either:

1. Little Timmy fell down a well and we should get help,
2. Wednesday's winning Lotto numbers are 6-15-23-36-39-44, or
3. MSDT476614 should consider installing one of those breathalyzer locks on his keyboard.

 

[MSDT476614]

Heh-- it's like reading Nostradamus.

1. MSDT476614 should consider installing one of those breathalyzer locks on his keyboard.

Actually I should be stopped from using air to dive to 200'! Narcolyzer maybe?

 

[Edward3c]

Only a person beneath contempt misquotes in order to bolster their argument; allow me to replace what you so conveniently removed from that same post.

Hi Dr L,

So what your admitting to is contradicting yourself in one post.

On one hand NO ONE is required to attempt to recover the bodies, yet on the other Public Officals MUST.

Anyway, I missed the second bit in your post, but instead of gently reminding me you feel name calling is the way to correct things - poor you.

Letting Darwin do his work should not result in site closures or nanny statism. However, recognizing that we live in an imperfect (at least to the more libertarian-minded) system, people who dive the sites they're worried about getting closed/regulated should probably work with the site owners/controllers to get more stringent access rules implemented. For better or for worse (or really for both a little of the former and a great deal of the latter), lecturing people isn't going to prevent them from coloring outside the lines. You guys are there, most of you got there via a highly regulated and expensive route, so why not ensure your own best interests by pulling up the ladder after you except for others who are willing to do exactly what you've done to consider yourself qualified?

We have a site in the UK which the owner, local Council, the Press and all diving Agencies agree should not be used - why? Too many deaths. And whilst there isn't any legislation (that I know of, the local Council were looking at new Bye-Laws) to prevent diving there its been made real difficult.

If divers had stayed away when requested the owner would have got funding to turn the site into a dive centre - but no funding body wants to be accosiated with such a 'dangourus' sport.

Kind regards

 

[lowviz]

Thanks, MSDT476614! I was thinking that you were showing me what my posts look like when viewed from another English speaking country twelve time zones away.

-when in doubt, ask. Beats being unintentionally offensive.

so Lynne gets this call...

 

[billgraham]

I'm not saying right or wrong, but all those people you mention who do searches and body recoveries do it by choice. There's a reason lost people are left for dead on the mountain in the Himalayas. It's too dangerous to the search team to make it worth the effort to recover them. IF cave diving took this same attitude, perhaps we'd see less stupid human tricks with respect to cave diving. Perhaps not. Let's not try to imply that anyone is OBLIGATED to go on a search or body recovery though. Is it the right thing to do? Sure, sometimes. Is it mandated? Absolutely not.

I think the only person I've seen imply that training doesn't reduce the risk is Britton, though she may just be keeping her hackles up out of pride at this point rather than actually believing that. (I don't know, that's just the impression I'm getting from her posts.) Dr.Lecter simply said that training reduces but doesn't negate the risk of a rescue/recovery effort being necessary. To imply anything else is disingenuous at best.


As an aside, I know Tech divers tend to prefer DIN regs and you state something about that in your post. In an effort to learn what I don't know, why is it that you consider that a point worthy of note? Is there a safety concern with using yokes in an overhead that I don't understand? Is there really a likelihood of "knocking that yoke off on the ceiling"? Mine are generally very difficult to loosen under pressure, I just can't see the likelihood of doing it "by accident" without some other very significant issues happening first.

Dude, you've got 25 dives. Did you even read my post? You can absolutely knock a yoke reg off the valve. Let's play it out, now you're 1000 feet in the cave, you've got no redundant gas source, your buddy doesn't have a long hose and even if he/she did, you've violated thirds and don't have enough gas to get both of you out. Sounds like a double fatality to me. Britton, I hope this makes sense to you, you want to be around to take your son surfing and skiing.

 

[DCBC]

In the East, real men ski Tuckerman's, on mountaineering skis.

If your skiing the cornice at the top of the Left Gulley on mountaineering skis, your a better man than I am.

 

[Quero]

Britton's cavalier attitude is what rankles, mess up diving and move on, no loss to her. The more I think about it the more it pisses me off.

Hear, hear!

Earlier I wrote:

I prefer to see her as "blissfully ignorant" rather than "willfully egotistical" and to attribute her arrogance to cluelessness rather than to vanity.

I've since concluded that I was wrong in thinking that it was a case of blissful ignorance.

 

[kotik]

Thanks, MSDT476614! I was thinking that you were showing me what my posts look like when viewed from another English speaking country twelve time zones away.

-when in doubt, ask. Beats being unintentionally offensive.

so Lynne gets this call...

Yes-- Please pardon my somewhat lame attempt to lighten things up a little, now I feel a little guilty for poking fun at the expense of something that was really pretty well said, on top of being completely true IMHO.




...and by the way: little Timmy actually was down a well. I just left him there, serves him right for going in without running a line.:cool2:

---------- Post added December 16th, 2012 at 12:08 PM ----------

Steering completely clear of the discussion of whether pulling bodies out of caves is something that has to be done, and also being fully aware that Lecter seems perfectly capable of holding his own in a discussion, I want to point out something he said that it looks like people are missing--

He didn't say that letting people kill themselves if they feel like it would not result in site closures, he says it should not. As I read what he said there, I think he does acknowledge that it can happen even so.

 

[SandyRobinson]

... and for our next exercise we'll perform self-circumcisions ... no training needed ...

I think I do this every time I remove a condom cath.