Diver dies in Manatee Springs

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Really sad. In old pictures, on maps and on old videos you see people doing the exit. Is it possible that the divers did not know about the collapse? As you can see on my old picture, it is not too narrow. When we did it, we could go back against the current if we wanted from the point I took the picture. I also read that you cannot go back now anymore if you are at that point. Also we don't know if they dove oc or ccr? The way back against current is not that long in meters, but if the current is strong it will costs tons of gas of course (also on oc bo with ccr).
 
Given that the deceased was reported to be in back mounted LP 85s, it's plausible that the team was not aware that it was now a tight, basically side mount only restriction.
 
Does anyone know why the divers tried it then? Did any of the others make it through or was the victim first to try? Does anyone know if the group had a guide with them?

I kind of wish I had chatted them up that morning, I would've pointed them to Reggie or Kristi to make sure that they knew that you don't do the traverse to the mainspring. But hindsight is 20/20.

The more I dive Florida cave the more I realize that there is a lot of local knowledge that you need to glean.

The story I saw said it was a husband and wife team, The husband went first and made it through. The wife went next and did not exit.

The story I saw was that it was three divers, husband, wife, and a male friend. One of the male divers was knocked unconscious and the other male diver brought that one of the surface. When that male diver went back to check on the female diver she was found wedged in unconscious with the reg out of her mouth. It was reported she was using back mounted LP85s.

Of course it could be early reports, and I didn't see a third diver with them at CCDS...
 
You are right, Harry must have changed it. You can still see the link to the article on the blog part of their site, but it just links to the dive site page.

That's unfortunate, the original had some very good and very specific information in it.

I suppose there was pressure not to release any details until there is the final, and usually mythical, accident report.


Does anyone know why the divers tried it then? Did any of the others make it through or was the victim first to try? Does anyone know if the group had a guide with them?

It's reasonable to assume that they were not aware it was now a restriction. Many of the cave divers I know here in the US were not aware it was now a restriction, including myself as we have not dove Manatee in a couple years.

My understanding is that there were 4 divers on the dive (see below), all from China, so no local guide.

The story I saw said it was a husband and wife team, The husband went first and made it through. The wife went next and did not exit.

All the news articles and the post from the SO's office indicated a husband and wife.

However, this post from the Levy County SO's office was re-posted in a facebook accidents and incidents forum by a self reported friend of the divers, Chun Zhou (highlight added):

November 25, 2019

Sunday, November 24, 2019 at 5 PM Manatee Springs State Park officials were notified to contact 911 because a diver was trapped in the main spring outflow area inside of the cave system. Levy County Sheriff’s Office Dive Rescue team members responded to discover the diver, Zhou Min (5-8-91), a certified cave diver from Foshan City, China became lodged in a narrow space while exiting the main spring. Zhou was accompanied on this dive by her husband and two other friends, also from China, who came to the United States on a vacation visa specifically to dive sites like Manatee Springs.

Manatee Springs officials say the outflow from the main boil area has increased over the past few days due to recent rains in this region. This increased outflow hampered the diver’s ability to remove Zhou from the small space where her body had become lodged. Two attempts to remove Zhou were made Sunday evening that were unsuccessful. Today at approximately 3 PM the International Underwater Cave Rescue Recovery Team (IUCRR) a non-profit team locally based in Lake City, comprised of expert cave divers were able to successfully recover her.

This is an extremely sad situation, Sheriff McCallum said. Our hearts and prays are with this family at this time.



The highlighted section is a superb example of poorly worded and ambiguous language. Between the wording and the lack of a paragraph break it's not clear if the victims team mate tried to dislodge her before she died, or if a Sheriff department recovery diver was hampered by the flow when attempting to dislodge her body later during the two unsuccessful recovery attempts.

It's also not clear how the rest of the team(s) exited and the SO's post indicates a total of 4 divers.

As to marital status, in the same thread Chun Zhou also posted "Yes, both of them are my friends. They are a couple who are just going to marry." Taken literally that suggests they were engaged, but it could also mean they were recently married. Normally I'd say that multiple reports of husband and wife would suggest that;s the case, but I suspect the multiple posts and articles all come from a single source, where English proficiency may have been an issue. Either way, a close personal relationship.

Really sad. In old pictures, on maps and on old videos you see people doing the exit. Is it possible that the divers did not know about the collapse? As you can see on my old picture, it is not too narrow. When we did it, we could go back against the current if we wanted from the point I took the picture. I also read that you cannot go back now anymore if you are at that point. Also we don't know if they dove oc or ccr? The way back against current is not that long in meters, but if the current is strong it will costs tons of gas of course (also on oc bo with ccr).

My understanding from Harry's original post(?) was that she was OC with back mounted double LP 85s and he was sidemount and (IIRC) CCR.

When the flow is normal, it's a lot of work to get back upstream once you've started down from Catfish, unless you have a DPV.
 
Does anyone know why the divers tried it then? Did any of the others make it through or was the victim first to try? Does anyone know if the group had a guide with them?
without discussing
The story I saw said it was a husband and wife team, The husband went first and made it through. The wife went next and did not exit.
there were 4 divers on team, husband , wife and two others. One of the two others is a hero. No idea who the two others were however
 
there were 4 divers on team, husband , wife and two others. One of the two others is a hero. No idea who the two others were however

Hero because he brought one out and went back for the woman i assume you mean right? reading about the flow here its hard to image swimming into the flow at this site, I wonder if he went back around and re traversed to get back to the Manatee exit to get her? It certainly does take some big ones to go through unexpected (assume) **** like that, know how lucky you were to make it through then jump back in and do it again.
 
An earlier poster here mentioned seeing who he thought was the husband working on a RB at the local dive shop. Was that a backmounted or sidemounted rebreather?

On a backmounted rebreather, would you be able to get through a restriction that would stop BM LP85 doubles? From the few RBs I’ve seen in person, they seem bulkier than a set of LP85 BM doubles. But that’s not seeing the two side by side.
 
They have posted a accident report on Wechat but the article was too long to translate. Here are some info. The victim was a newly certified WUD Cave 1 diver and her total diving time in cave diving was only 11 hours (they use "hours" instead of "dives"). WUD is a Chinese local dive training agency. Wang Yuan was used to be instructor of some agencies then he founded his own training agency with some Chinese technical and cave divers. They admit that they did not do any prior research on the current condition of manatee springs because some of them had visited the site years before.
Team 1: Wang Yuan (500 hours cave diving experience), Chen Qian (husband, 100 hours cave diving experience),they both used JJ CCR
Team 2: Fu Xiaoyu, Zhou Min (Victim), WUD Cave 1, both cave diving experience were 11 hours using LP95, EAN32. The report has said that they had some high flow diving experience in little river and ginnie.

Team 1 entered from catfish hotel and forward to friedman then swim back to catfish hotel. Team 1 and team 2 planned to assemble at catfish hotel then they all down through the tunnel to manatee spring to see if they can successfully exit there and the accident just occured.

below are the link of the detailed report but it is in Chinese...
事故报告----WUD训练质量委员会审核及发布
 
The report is mostly readable if you use Google Translate in Chrome.

Sounds like Team 1 was using DPVs also. And that Wang Yuan in the only one that made it through without getting stuck. Ms Fu was stuck briefly, but some how freed herself, and the husband Mr Chen was pulled out by Mr Wang. And after another attempt to free the Ms Zhou he gave up because his loop was flooded, and his tanks were too low.

From the report:
After the accident, the park permanently closed the line from Catfish to Manatee spring and removed the main line. A few days later we fixed this sign before the cave exit, hoping to help other divers avoid problems.

I wonder how far down the tunnel it is, I think it would be best to have one outside the cave entrance at Catfish hotel.
 

Back
Top Bottom