2 divers dead in Dominican Republic (Feb 9th)

[lhalifax]

Dear all,

I waited to post here since recovery operations are still ongoing, and no discussion can be effective - to the learning and in-depth analisys focuses of this forum - before an official statement has been released after a thourogh investigation.

Nonetheless, given that unfortunately many media sources begun spreading unverified informations, with the consent of the families involved I'll share some info, without breaking the NDA I'm bound to.

The following is first-hand information, most of which is already public; I'm sharing it here to help distinguish between fantasy and facts. Please be advised that maybe I will discuss some of them, but I will not share any further details not included in this post. I don't want to sound harsh, and I sincerely hope you all will understand that at present there are many details that can't be made public (yet).

Firt of all, for those that do not kown the Dudu system, a brief description.

Dudu "lakes" actually is a small underwater system in a carsic environment, composed by a bigger pond (like a small cenote) and a much smaller one, connected by two underwater tunnels. From the bigger one, departs another tunnel divided in two parts, a cavern and a cave. I'll try now and upload a map:

 

[lhalifax]

(continuing)

As you can see from the map, at the beginning of the cavern tunnel departs to the left a cave. This is the point where DRSS did drop a sign saying that from that point only tech cave divers can proceed safely.

Dudu is visited every day by many tourits, families, etc, who simply enjoy the park, take a bath in the two "lakes", do zip line dips, etc. The cavern and the cave are dived by both recreations divers (cavern) and tech divers (cave). The cavern is super safe for any decent recreational diver, as there is always a clear exit to surface within 60 meters or less, no or very little visibility issues, no small tunnels or passages. The regular dive consists in entering the bigger cavern, reaching the giant air bubble (yellow in the map), surface there (air is safely breathable), enjoy the cavern, resubmerge and swim to the 1st tunnel, smile at the tourits in the smaller pond, go back to the 1st one by the other tunnel. Average depth is less than 10 mt and never deeper than 15 mt.

The tech part I didn't dive into, as I'm not cave certified, but there's a beautiful footage by DRSS here: https://www.dr-ss.com/el-dudu

The two lost divers are in the tech part, near to the beginning, in a tunnel.

DR-SS was alerted immediately after it became clear something happened, when the two divers didn't emerge after the planned dive time; from that point on, they didn't save any effort to first try and rescue them, and when it got clear that rescue was impossible, to locate and recover the lost.

To date, despite what media say, a diver has been located and identified, the other one reasonably being a little further in the tunnel.

There is no evidence of what happened there. Efforts are focused to the recover operations.

Families are here, constantly informed of any little or big news.

The only official sources for any update are Philip Leeman (DRSS) and the Italian Embassy.

Please, don't speculate about certifications, imprudence, big wild anacondas (yes, I've read that too - not on this forum of course): the staff and families are aware of the details, but they will be made public in a later timeframe.

At the time of writing, the only official news are that two experienced italian divers entered the Dudu system, didn't emerge and were declared lost on saturday 9/Feb/2019. Subsequent searches located and identified one of the divers, the other one supposedly being not far, further in the tunnel. Operations are in progress, in an hostile environment due to the narrow tunnel and visibility wich ranges poor to zero, due to the large amount of silt.

 

[philliplehman]

At this point the family has asked us not to disclosed any direct information, there will be an official DRSS accident report in the coming weeks.
I can say this: we have located one of the victim's and body recovery is ongoing, second victim has not be physically seen yet but we know with certainty were he is located a bit further in the same tunnel.
The area where the accident happened is a SM section and has a ceiling height of no more that 2 to 2.5 feet max and is extremely complicated, all recovery efforts are in zero viz as percolation and silt turn any slight viz to zero in a mater of seconds.

 

[Caveeagle]

Stay safe!

 

[fozzy]

Thanks for your effort.

 

[bamafan]

Stay safe Phillip.

 

[rabe]

Thanks for the update

 

[boulderjohn]

The remaining body has been recovered. Edd Sorenson and Mike Young performed the recovery using rebreathers.

 

[boulderjohn]

Just a note from someone who knows both Edd and Mike....

They did a great job, going to the site with no funding, although a gofundme site was since setup to reimburse them for their expenses. On their web sites, they announced that they got it done, and they heaped credit on the divers from the local Navy, with Mike saying that they "assisted" the Navy in their efforts. Assisted? This was a zero visibility, tight restriction recovery requiring their enormous skill and their unusual sidemounted rebreathers.

On the Cave Divers Forum, however, some people decided that the fact that they mentioned the rescue on FaceBook, where they received oodles of well-deserved praise, was an odious act of self-aggrandizement, and implied they should be vilified for it.

It is so sad. This sort of thing goes on all the time in the cave diving community. It is not the reason I have essentially stopped cave diving, but it is a reason I don't miss it.

 

[rabe]

It is so sad. This sort of thing goes on all the time in the cave diving community. It is not the reason I have essentially stopped cave diving, but it is a reason I don't miss it.

Well, this might be off topic, but very interesting...
I'm starting to consider cave diving as a "long project", therefore I don't know the community yet. However, from what I understand from your words, is not a nice environment.
This is very sad, especially in situation like this one.