Another accident in Tulum Cave Diving

[bamafan]

This whole thing is baffling to me, and I am going to sit back and watch for more developments. Here are the parts that re not adding up for me.

1. Like Tursiops, I wonder how they got access to the incident report. If I were he, I would certainly not release it, and if someone in IANTD released it, it would make me seriously consider leaving that organization if I were a member. I read through the FaceBook page and don't see any explanation.
2. There is still the supposed early report that the exiting team saw her bringing in a spool to be considered. She seemed fine and unconcerned. that makes no sense.
3. It is definitely wrong for him to pull line with someone in the cave, but unless I seriously misunderstood what lines were in and then pulled, someone on that route should still have been able to get out without them.
4. I don't see how he could have lost sight of her, especially since his supposed job for the dive was to get video of her diving. There will be no real loss of visibility because of silt. Even if you crash into the bottom in the worst place you will only raise a fine white cloud that anyone can see through, and it will settle quickly. To lose sight of someone on that route, you have to be very seriously distracted for a good amount of time.

Look on the Sidemount forum on Facebook. There are several discussions in several different places about this. It is clearly stated by the person who made it public that they did it and are appalled at IANTD.

 

[tursiops]

I read through the FaceBook page and don't see any explanation.

Two of the FB comments, by Patrick Widmann, says that it was he who sent it into the IANTD, with the implication that he also distributed the copy we are reading now.

 

[kafkaland]

This whole thing is baffling to me, and I am going to sit back and watch for more developments. Here are the parts that re not adding up for me.

1. Like Tursiops, I wonder how they got access to the incident report. If I were he, I would certainly not release it, and if someone in IANTD released it, it would make me seriously consider leaving that organization if I were a member. I read through the FaceBook page and don't see any explanation.
2. There is still the supposed early report that the exiting team saw her bringing in a spool to be considered. She seemed fine and unconcerned. that makes no sense.
3. It is definitely wrong for him to pull line with someone in the cave, but unless I seriously misunderstood what lines were in and then pulled, someone on that route should still have been able to get out without them.
4. I don't see how he could have lost sight of her, especially since his supposed job for the dive was to get video of her diving. There will be no real loss of visibility because of silt. Even if you crash into the bottom in the worst place you will only raise a fine white cloud that anyone can see through, and it will settle quickly. To lose sight of someone on that route, you have to be very seriously distracted for a good amount of time.

I don't want to get into 1.) but I concur with all the others. I have done this dive, and it's really quite begnin, with exits to Ho-Tul and No-Name right there, and almost no way to lose visibility, and quite shallow. And the deceased diver did have at least one spool on her, so even if a jump was pulled (which should NEVER have happened under the circumstances), she should have been able to get out. And she came across the other team, and could have availed herself of their help, and if it was just to point her to the nearest exit a few minutes away. And she was in sidemount, so even if she paid no attention to her gas, there would have been still something left in the other tank to get her to the nearest exit when she breathed one of the tanks dry. Not to excuse any of the apparently inexcusable actions of the instructor, or the inaction of IANTD, but I still have difficulties grasping how things went so terribly wrong in that spot with a diver who had the training and equipment appropriate for the dive.

 

[guruboy]

What is the FB page? Is it good for Sidemount info or mostly gossip?

 

[shoredivr]

FB Sidemount is good for sidemount
Information not gossip

 

[shoredivr]

I don't want to get into 1.) but I concur with all the others. I have done this dive, and it's really quite begnin, with exits to Ho-Tul and No-Name right there, and almost no way to lose visibility, and quite shallow. And the deceased diver did have at least one spool on her, so even if a jump was pulled (which should NEVER have happened under the circumstances), she should have been able to get out. And she came across the other team, and could have availed herself of their help, and if it was just to point her to the nearest exit a few minutes away. And she was in sidemount, so even if she paid no attention to her gas, there would have been still something left in the other tank to get her to the nearest exit when she breathed one of the tanks dry. Not to excuse any of the apparently inexcusable actions of the instructor, or the inaction of IANTD, but I still have difficulties grasping how things went so terribly wrong in that spot with a diver who had the training and equipment appropriate for the dive.

Perhaps something medical??

 

[boulderjohn]

Perhaps something medical??

Both tanks were empty.

 

[shoredivr]

Then this continues to make no sense.

 

[Redshift]

I think it stopped making sense right at the start when the two divers became separated after a presumably short period with lights out. Started playing hide and seek?
Allied to the fact that there were exits nearby, she had a spool to make the jumps (I assume the jump locations are marked on all the lines to be easily identified?) and that she met another team and didn't say anything... has anyone considered if it could have all been on purpose?

 

[halocline]

I think it stopped making sense right at the start when the two divers became separated after a presumably short period with lights out. Started playing hide and seek?

Maybe I missed something, but reading through the report I only saw that he covered his primary to show her the natural light from the no name cenote. I didn't see anything about a lights out drill. That makes it even stranger that they could have become so separated so quickly.