2 Dead in cave diving incident.

[Rick Murchison]

At least they admit their mistake.
Fred

Fear not... they'll screw up the next one too.
Rick

 

[Curt Bowen]

I have spoke with Debra Green this morning about Larry Green. He is home and resting, she said he was doing just fine and everything should turn out good.

 

[mcm007]

My condolences to the families. But as it was mentiopned before 250 is not a recreational dive.
Personally, and this is just my opinion, you are asking for trouble at this depth.

Cave diving is not my thing, i see why now..

 

[Wayne A]

My condolences to the families. But as it was mentiopned before 250 is not a recreational dive.
Personally, and this is just my opinion, you are asking for trouble at this depth.

Cave diving is not my thing, i see why now..

I think that might be why they call it technical diving.

 

[CarBabe]

You're right 250 is by no means a recreational dive, nor should any recreational diver even THINK of attemting a dive like this. However, these were not recreational divers, and we shouldn't jump to the conclusion that it was the depth of the dive that was the problem. The fact of the matter is, noone knows what actually happened. Let's not speculate until the reports come out. Cave diving may not be your "thing" and that's fine, but to say that it was the depth or the fact that it was a cave that led to their deaths is simply ridiculous.

 

[Curt Bowen]

My condolences to the families. But as it was mentiopned before 250 is not a recreational dive.
Personally, and this is just my opinion, you are asking for trouble at this depth.

Cave diving is not my thing, i see why now..

I know all the details of the recovery and depth, besides increasing the rate of gas consumption and maybe a little narcosis had very little to do with it.

One of the divers did run out of gas, if the cave would have been shallower, maybe it would have baught him the extra time needed to find his way out.

Eagles Nest is BIG, DEEP, and a hard technical dive no matter how experienced you are. Do Not Take this cave lightly and if you're not full cave with lots of experience and technical mixed gas trained. DO NOT DIVE THERE!

All the details will be released once the recovery divers have made their reports and the sheriffs dept gives the approval.

 

[Spectre]

One of the divers did run out of gas, if the cave would have been shallower, maybe it would have baught him the extra time needed to find his way out.

Curt. I'm going to assume that you didn't mean to imply that the other diver had gas, but rather you don't know for sure what the status of the other diver's gas supply was?

 

[GDI]

To the families of Craig and John My deepest wishes and respect in this time of their loss. I personnally knew both Craig and John and have made several dives with them. I also know Larry Green and Debra and wish Larry a speedy recovery.
The IUCRR will look at this accident as a lesson to improve diver safety aka Accident Analysis. (We should all do the same) They in themselves do not conduct any investigation, The IUCRR through the volunteer recovery divers make a report of what they observed relating to the recovery. Lets not speculate anything.
They are my friends and may God Bless and protect their Families
Rick Murcar aka R2 to the cave divers

 

[Cave Diver]

First off, my condolences and deepest sympathies to the family and friends of the deceased. Additionally a sincere thank you to the members of the recovery team and support personnel who sacrificed to bring closure for the families.

I may get flamed for my opinion, but perhaps it would be better if DPV's were prohibited in caves. Even if both divers had individual DPV's and one became inoperative, the additional load on the remaining DPV pulling 2 divers could cause it to prematurely exhaust its battery resulting in the same sort of tragedy mentioned in this thread.

A DPV is a tool. Like any tool, it can be used or abused. Proper planning, then following that plan would allow for such a contingency. Banning the use of DPV's would be like trying to ban automobiles because they cause wrecks.

Others will know far better than me - but I was under the impression that gas management using a DPV was supposed to be rule of sixths. Shouldn't that leave enough gas to get them out in case of a DPV failure?

Again we come back to proper planning. Many people fail to recognize that rule's of thirds or sixth's are often MINIMUM rules for planning. If one thing goes wrong, it may get you out. If three things go wrong...

Some feel there's a trend here. At one time it was only non cave trained divers who died in caves. That's not true anymore.

I think as cave diving becomes more mainstream, there are more people who are exposed to it that may not have the right mindset. It seems as if there are more people who think that the rules (of accident analysis) don't apply to them, or who think that they can bend them "just a little bit."

And maybe they can once. Twice. Even three times. But sooner or later its going to turn around and bite you in your cushy posterior area.

I'm not in a position to speculate what happened with the two divers at Eagles Nest. What I do know is that history has shown that cave fatalities are almost always attributed to the breaking of one or more rules.

The point I think many people need to realize is that receiving proper training is no guarantee you'll end a dive safely. Following proper training is a much safer bet.

 

[H2Andy]

The point I think many people need to realize is that receiving proper training is no guarantee you'll end a dive safely. Following proper training is a much safer bet.

to follow up, one of the things we discussed in cavern/intro to
cave was that diving above the training and experience for
trained cave divers is a contributing factor to accidents that
involve trained cave divers.

for example (i'm not saying this is the case) it may be that
these divers didn't have the training or experience to do the
sort of dive they were attempting at the time. in that case
(again, i'm just using this as an example, not saying that's
the case) then they would have been exceeding their training
and experience and putting themselves at risk.

hope that makes sense.

i am a rank beginner at this, but sometimes crap just
happens, you know? things go wrong quickly and no amount
of training can save you. i know we don't like to think that,
we like to think that we can deal with everything that happens
in a cave, but i just don't think that's true.

it comes down to acceptance of risk. how much risk are you
going to accept. if you are doing aggressive, deep, long,
challenging dives, you are accepting A LOT of risk. and sooner
or later, you're gonna have to deal with that. hopefully,
your training will get you out, but just remember, there's no
guarantee of that.

it's tempting to think "oh they must have made a mistake" so that we can
feel "safe," or say "i would have never been
that (dumb, aggressive, slow, silly, whatever), or to think
that no matter how much risk we take on, our training can
get us out.

on the other hand, safety is an acceptable level of risk, so
what do i know.