3 unaccounted for after a flooded magnesite mine 'Maria Concordia' dive in Poland

[ginti]

I am wondering if the mine structure is in such dire conditions, why is it open to divers?

Just trying to understand here, I do not want to criticize anyone.

 

[Baron015]

The attitude to safety is different in Europe in general, and there are a lot of Poles diving (theres like 80 of them on my island right now). Couple that with them being a well off nation with disposable income and there is a lot of middle aged, less then capable people trying to achieve records and push boundaries.

Like there aren’t a lot of well off middle aged less than capable people in the USA or other countries.

More reasonably there are some very famous Poles who have accomplished things in diving, and lots of very enthusiastic young Polish divers who want to replicate those achievements.

 

[cathal]

Like there aren’t a lot of well off middle aged less than capable people in the USA or other countries.

More reasonably there are some very famous Poles who have accomplished things in diving, and lots of very enthusiastic young Polish divers who want to replicate those achievements.

Just wondering what these ‘achievements’ are? What exactly did they achieve?

 

[ginti]

Just wondering what these ‘achievements’ are? What exactly did they achieve?

This guy, for instance, was mentioned in the opening post:

Krzysztof Starnawski - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Tomasz Stachura is another example:

Tomasz Stachura

Tomasz Stachura jeden z najbardziej aktywnych nurków wrakowych na Morzu Bałtyckim. Specjalizuje się w podwodnej fotografii wraków na d

santidiving.com

By the way, there was a discussion about this topic (higher rate of deaths among east Europe's divers) here on SB some time ago. I am a bit sceptical since there are no accurate statistics about it. And, also, the middle age issue was not mentioned - frankly speaking, what would be the difference with other countries? Advanced divers are almost always "aged" because this activity requires lots of money and much experience. However, some cultural differences with western's countries emerged about the perception of risk. You guys may want to have a look at that discussion, just search for it

 

[Vicko]

Both of those divers and their way of diving would be considered sucidal on this forum.

 

[ginti]

Both of those divers and their way of diving would be considered sucidal on this forum.

The point was not about their style of diving, but about what they achieved. And I also believe we are going a bit OT...

 

[BlueTrin]

About the state of mines, I have never been in caves or mines but I have an interest in doing it in the future, so trying to read about it.

While following Facebook groups about other mines, I have sometimes noticed posts complaining about the state of the wood/timber underground but I have read from some posts that there isn’t work in all of them to fix the underlying issues, sometimes due to reasons like the owners of the minerals …

I have never read anything about this mine though so wouldn’t know how it is managed.

 

[Marie13]

I was happy when I discovered that the mine I dive is dug out of solid rock. No wooden supports holding up the ceiling. Watching videos with wooden supports in other mines made me a bit nervous.

 

[Hiszpan]

Krzysztof Starnawski, Polish cave explorer and dual rebreather diver, has just posted this on his FB account (Google translation with corrections):

"It was supposed to be a joyful countdown to Mexico trip, but not this time

I've got home now and it's time to cool down and analyze internally what has been going on over the past two days. As you all know, 3 days ago there was an accident in the Sobótka mine - Maria Concordia. Three people died.

I found out about the accident in Gdynia, and a few minutes later I received a phone call from the commander in charge of the action on the spot, asking for support. Fortunately, I had diving equipment in my car, although my visit to Gdynia was related to participation in the KOLOSY travelers' meeting and not diving.

I got to Sobótka in the middle of the night, Witek an hour later, and Jarek in the morning. None of us hesitated but a minute about deciding what we should do at this point.

Over time, I will describe in detail our exploration/extraction activities that we conducted there because it is worth showing the full professionalism of Witek and Jarek from GRJ (Cave Rescue Group), divers, and members of the high altitude rescue section from the Fire Brigade and the team handling transport to the mine. Even more so as we all acted under a lot of pressure and with a lot of "weight" on our minds and souls.

Concurrently, the accident and rescue efforts exposed deficiencies in legal regulations in this type of activity. It also exposed the goodwill of decision-makers and the courage in making difficult decisions by people in positions of authority. The officer in charge of the operation allowed us to take full advantage of our experience and provided us with ongoing support in every area we needed.

Although this is not my first extraction operation of this type, the surreal background of these rescue efforts and the image that started to transpire slowly from what we started to see with our eyes, or rather feel with our fingers underwater, together with Witek, will remain in my memory for a long time.

On this occasion, I would like to thank everyone who actively participated in the operation for their time, commitment and professionalism. As for the accident analysis itself, there will certainly be time for that as well, and I think it will be compiled very soon. However, I myself would not like to get involved in this topic anymore.

My only request and plea to all of you are that we, as a diving community, should strive to improve safety standards on the diving courses! (emphasis added)"


Below is the picture posted with this entry, presumably showing a rescue operation underway.

 

[Hiszpan]

News 5

'Andrzej Kruczkowski, a local cave diver and explorer hypothesized what could have happened in the Maria Concordia mine. He has dove and trained other divers there numerous times:

"In this mine, the problem is not the narrow corridors, but the very high risk of silting. Sometimes you can't see anything at all."
"This adit is so specific that you have to slide down 40 meters to get to the water surface. You can kit up on the platforms and from there you go down into the water. This is an additional attraction. There are several levels under the water. The shallowest is 6 meters, then the level is 14-16 meters, the deepest is even 36 meters."

According to the information provided by the divers' community, the group that went down to the former mine in Sobótka on Sunday, October 3, was to undergo emergency training and carry out exercises to search for a missing diver and pull him to the surface:

"In such training, the person designated by the instructor or he himself hides in the mine, and the others are to find him and conduct a rescue procedure," says Kruczkowski.

He suspects that one of the causes of the tragedy in Sobótka was the enormous silt out of the water:

"I conducted classes there, additionally I marked the guidelines because I knew that during the exercises, the students would silt out the water so much that after a while I would not see anything. There, most likely, there was a situation of total lack of visibility and it is possible that one of the students panicked. He may have become entangled in his own guideline, perhaps he decided to cut it, and was unable to find his way out, despite the fact that he was certainly an experienced diver" suspect Kruczkowski.

According to him, the "Maria Concordia" mine is very well prepared to conduct training there:

"Relatively easy to navigate. Side corridors run off the main corridors, during the extraction of magnesite they were blocked for better ventilation in the working corridors. Now, after removing there, you can dive in them as well. There are guidelines in the corridors, i.e. lines along which divers swim and thanks to which it is possible to get to the surface, even with significant siltation"

"The problem is the very high risk significant of siltation. Some mines and tunnels silt very quickly. When the water becomes cloudy, visibility is completely lost. "Nothing" or "zero" is not 20 cm visibility. When siltation in the adit grows, we may not be able to read the dive computer or watch, even by holding it to the diving mask. You can't see anything at all. We can't do much without a guideline. It may happen that we swim by the body and we do not notice it."'