Deaths at Eagles Nest - Homosassa FL

[Ron Lee]

Keeping in mind that...

• We are talking about a grown man that was not known to be breaking any laws in regards to his diving.
• Nobody, including the recovery diver, seems to have known that he was bringing his kid on some of these dives.
• The father had a life long history (based on his arrest records) of bad judgment that resulted in other tragedies.

One of the early videos I saw had a guy saying that he sat there (presumably at Eagle's Nest) many times and wondered if they would make it back.

Reference the post above mine, the youngster was not a child, eg 6, 7, 8 years old. He was 15 and is reported to have made several posts about his diving exploits. He also probably could read and there was adequate warning signage.

Update: I looked for that video but did not find it before making this post. Will continue to look for it.

 

[Dive-aholic]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the gold line extended out into open water at the deco log which is outside the cavern/cave of Eagles Nest Sink.

---------- Post added December 29th, 2013 at 11:02

Your original response to not seeing any reels on them was to a photo of them at Little River. The gold line at Little River begins at the outer limits of the cavern zone.

 

[TONY CHANEY]

Nope, pretty much standard these days for good quality courses.

- Adrian

so glad I did not pay those prices and still had great instuctors. (OW, AOW, Deep, Dry suit, Nitrox, Night, Multi level, Nitrox blender, Rescue, DM, MSD, Ad. Nitrox, Decompression, Cavern, Intro to Cave, Full Cave).

 

[Dive-aholic]

On page 7 I posted the question: can anyone tell us what actually happened to the divers?

I agree with everyone that it was atrocious judgment for them to make this dive.

But, did they die from something that training would have prevented, or from some external cause such as a medical emergency or equipment failure?

Sorry but I did not have time to comb through all 30 additional pages to find out what happened.

Well, given the fact that all the fatalities at Eagle's Nest since it was reopened (6 total), all the people that died were diving beyond their training limits, what would you surmise?

Also consider that hundreds more dives have taken place in Eagle's Nest in that time by qualified, trained divers and all of us have survived.

 

[Dive-aholic]

You seem to be working under the assumption that cave divers saw what was going on (specifically the 15 year old doing cave dives) and looked the other way. As a member of the Florida cave diving community, I find that highly unlikely. The cave diving community shames its own members for minor etiquette violations on a regular basis. There is no way they would look the other way if they even suspected that an open water diver and his non-certified son were attempting what is normally a staged decompression Trimix cave dive.

Unfortunately, this is not true of everyone in the cave diving community. I know cave divers that don't say anything. I know cave divers that will tell people about caves that are considered advanced by most cave divers and not ask about certification level. This does need to change.

---------- Post added December 30th, 2013 at 10:26 PM ----------

I've yet to see evidence of them visiting regulated caves (ginnie peacock Madison etc), only open access caves (EN and LR).

Seems to me that if EN and LR were similarly regulated to other park-caves, they wouldn't have went there.

That didn't prevent the deaths in School Sink.

 

[ermaclob]

If one really wants to make the case that it is unacceptably dangerous for trained search and recovery divers to enter caves for S&R, then you are really making the case for closing off all caves for all diving. It is a discretionary adventure activity. It is not like you may find a cure for cancer down there.

I believe the problem in this incident was that they were underfunded for the type of diving they were trying to do. They did not have the $$ for proper training (certification) and they did not have the $$ (or certification) for the gases they should have been using. And they made a fairly big leap beyond their previous experience of 180 feet. They probably did not monitor gas closely enough (narced probably) and the father did not carry enough gas to handle the emergency. It may have simply been a matter of calculating gas requirements for that dive with an overly optimistic SAC and not adjusting the dive plan accordingly (or recognizing the plan had gone bad).

Cave and other tech diving does not only involve higher risks, it also involves higher costs to manage those risks.

i feel some of you guys are giving these two to much credit, as far is i imagine it, the average Open water diver doesnt know much more of planing a dive then with NDL tables. i really dought these guys did any calculation of anything. i can only feel they did some research on how stuff gets done equipment etc. asked around, and then strapped on some computers got some gas and down they went. you never know maybe he did know a thing or 2 but just by his certification level i dought he even knew what the limits of air are. (not to disrespect knowlegable open water divers) 233 feet on air in the EN is defiantly either incompetence or incompetence.

i dont think they where underfunded, i think they where cheap and did not want to get the training because of whatever lie they put in there heads.

 

[gianaameri]

One of the early videos I saw had a guy saying that he sat there (presumably at Eagle's Nest) many times and wondered if they would make it back.

Reference the post above mine, the youngster was not a child, eg 6, 7, 8 years old. He was 15 and is reported to have made several posts about his diving exploits. He also probably could read and there was adequate warning signage.

Do you have a link to the video?

It would have been unusual for no one to have noticed the repeat behaviour of the decreased.

They were not ghosts and neither made it a secret to anyone as to what they intended to do and did repeatedly.

Cave diving is a small world/community.

 

[PfcAJ]

Unfortunately, this is not true of everyone in the cave diving community. I know cave divers that don't say anything. I know cave divers that will tell people about caves that are considered advanced by most cave divers and not ask about certification level. This does need to change.

---------- Post added December 30th, 2013 at 10:26 PM ----------



That didn't prevent the deaths in School Sink.

the keys were handed over to the guys...

 

[HIGHwing]

Add USD 12k for the rebreather and rebreather training you'll eventually end-up buying...

And then another $12k when you buy the next one. Rebreathers have a strange way of multiplying.

so glad I did not pay those prices and still had great instuctors. (OW, AOW, Deep, Dry suit, Nitrox, Night, Multi level, Nitrox blender, Rescue, DM, MSD, Ad. Nitrox, Decompression, Cavern, Intro to Cave, Full Cave).

But even that certification list doesn't qualify you to dive Eagle's Nest. Once you step into breathing helium, the Trimix card is going to cost a couple thousand dollars. You're talking about 6-10 days of instruction, and a fair amount of very expensive helium.

It occurs to me some people might not understand the financial difference between using trimix and being recklessly cheap. Let's say these two had 200cu/ft of back gas each, and they had a clue and planned for Tx15/55. Even at North Florida prices [which we all appreciate], between them that's an easy $200+ for just backgas and their deco gas. Compare that same dive to an air dive they way they appear to have set it up, again using North Florida prices, you're looking at about $35, total. I realize if they had an appropriate amount of back gas and were using higher O2 deco gases the gas price increases probably by another third or so. I can see where someone who doesn't have the training might allow thoughts to enter their head like, "Why should I invest $300+ in fancy gas when I've always survived on the $35 model, afterall the real cave poineers use to do it this way...", and "I can afford to do this 10x as often on air..."

 

[grey2112]

Damn - never realized just how expensive this is! Not that I have ANY desire to ever do cave diving, or even technical diving for that matter - but WOW.