A deceptively easy way to die

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The whole debate is heating up, both you and Bob are usually among the "zen-est"

I guess any topic related to deaths will have the potential to touch deeply those who lost someone dear while diving. I just hope an otherwise excellent and informative thread will not derail because of that. For instance, I don't recall a single post saying cave diving is perfectly fine for OW divers and yet quite a few replied as if that had been the case.

From what I read so far everyone is actually on the same page with regards to:
1) diving is a risky activity and for it to be consistently fun it has to be consistently safe
2) caves are as dangerous as it gets. Just don't go in unless trained
3) proper instruction and training are paramount to prevent accidents

The main (only?) disagreement is regarding the tone and the best way to convey these messages, which quite frankly is a rather small issue compared to the actual content...

You are a kind man, and its a nice post.

Generally I dont respond to adverse opinions, and there have been a few cloaked ones directed to me in this thread, its okay, everyone's mileage is different, however the post that riled me was the one where a member who has no idea who I am, based on an assumption he formulated in his head, decided it was okay to insult me and question my integrity on a public forum, unfortunately I am never going to let that slide.

I am over it now, its done. My opinion remains but we move forward.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

You know what NWGratefuldiver, I dont come here a lot, because in general I find its a lot of hot air and testosterone been pumped around,..... but, by and large I have always considered your posts as one of the few which were levelheaded and well thought out, I am rather surprised you have succumbed to the general Scubaboard malaise of "only I can do this well, so best you dont dive, you may die" attitude.

I regard cave diving as incredibly safe - but that's based on extensive training, about 10 years of experience since my initial training, diving on a regular basis to stay current, a habit of taking a new course every year or two to continually expand our skills sets and keep us sharp under the critical eye of an instructor, proper equipment and proper dive, planning including the navigation, gas plan and deco plan and related contingency plans.

Cave diving is the ultimate in control, as once you have the equipment, training and planning aspects there isn't much short of poor judgement or deviation from the plan that can cause a problem that you're not well equipped to deal with.

I also freely tell people that, non divers, OW divers, or anyone else that asks. But if they are a diver, they won't hear that without also hearing all the qualifiers and the simple truth that diving without proper training is one of the fastest and surest ways to kill yourself, and that there are hundreds of examples that support that statement.

Anyway, I've been in caves hundreds of times, if by caves you mean those holes in the rocks in Hawaii, and if by "in" you mean within free-swimming distance of the mouth, but I know you do because we're told that emphatically (see #137 above, or any of hundreds of other posts throughout this thread and the archives).../

/...I'm only OW certified, well Rescue recently also, and not knowing what I don't know, I'm either the luckiest man in the world, or the most preternaturally insightful, or perhaps simply a well-trained cave-certified diver reincarnated. Or there's more nuance to it than that. But maybe like the AGW warrior-scientists said, lying to us is a small price to pay for saving the world.

What you've just described is a classic example of normalization of deviance.

Most non-cave trained divers don't just swim blindly into caves on the first dive. They tend to proceed on a more progressive basis, poking their heads in this dive, going all the way in the next dive, going a little farther the dive after that, until eventually they're ok with going as far in as they can and still see the exit and they regard it as a safe and normal practice.

Under some limited circumstances it might even be a more or less "safe" practice. For example if the "cave" is a long swim through that is flushed of any silt on a regular basis that prevents loss of visibility (and the related ability to see the light from the exit), and in addition has no offshoot tunnels or areas where the diver could be come lost and lose direct line of sight to the exit, the major risk in that case is that the diver might experience an OOA event under the overhead, so it's safer than most overhead environments.

That same reasoning is applied to opening up ships as artificial reefs with extensive efforts taken to create swim through passages where the diver is never out of sight of an exit. Now...I have my doubts how well that will work in practice 20-30 years down the track as those wrecks decay, or get rolled over in a storm, fill with silt, etc. In that case, non advanced wreck trained divers who've grown accustomed to easy those "easy" penetrations will find themselves in situation they are not trained to deal with and while a fair percentage of will get lucky, a fair percentage will die.

The same thing happens to divers with "hundreds" of dives in the caves you describe. The divers go somewhere else, like north Florida and they swim into a pretty cavern with 100' visibility but then discover that silt has obstructed the visibility to the point they can no longer see the exit. If they are not incredibly lucky they'll end up deeper in the cave or in a dead end alcove in the cavern while trying to find their way back out.

The problem of course is that they've had possibly "hundreds" of dives in what they've defined as "caves" and they thought they knew what they were doing as it looked very simple and straight forward. Unfortunately, they lacked the training to recognize the risks or to realize that the conditions were in fact substantially different, and they lacked the training to exit when those conditions they could not foresee arose.

You might feel that I'm just painting scary pictures and making up scary stories - and you'd be wrong. You might conclude that it's all about showing what an elite diver I am because I can do it and you can't - and you'd be wrong about my motives. You might also read between the lines and conclude that I consider you to be an untrained idiot who is too proud to listen to reason and is as such just a cave fatality looking for a place to happen - and you'd be dead right.

Please prove me wrong.

 

[Yank]

You win... I have no words.

Do you feel like you were dragged down to his level and beaten by experience?

 

[oya]

Perfect post

Bravo.

 

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I regard cave diving as incredibly safe - but that's based on extensive training, about 10 years of experience since my initial training, diving on a regular basis to stay current, a habit of taking a new course every year or two to continually expand our skills sets and keep us sharp under the critical eye of an instructor, proper equipment and proper dive, planning including the navigation, gas plan and deco plan and related contingency plans.

Cave diving is the ultimate in control, as once you have the equipment, training and planning aspects there isn't much short of poor judgement or deviation from the plan that can cause a problem that you're not well equipped to deal with.

I also freely tell people that, non divers, OW divers, or anyone else that asks. But if they are a diver, they won't hear that without also hearing all the qualifiers and the simple truth that diving without proper training is one of the fastest and surest ways to kill yourself, and that there are hundreds of examples that support that statement.
.

Sure, I dont have an issue with that. Similarly I have maintained from the get-go there is a progression in everything, and informed training is part and parcel of that progression. I am fully on the same page.

Explaining to someone in a positive manner "this is not a good idea" and backing up your statement with good reasoning is respectful and diligent, no one will see it as anything else,... pushing the dooms day mantra is just patronizing and vain.

 

[SeaHorse81]

Explaining to someone in a positive manner "this is not a good idea" and backing up your statement with good reasoning is respectful and diligent, no one will see it as anything else

I'm thinking this nicely describes A Deceptive Way to Die, but maybe my perspective differs from yours.

 

[victorzamora]

Is dry caving no prep at all for cave diving? He doesn't know what he doesn't know?

No, it's not. The reverse is also true. Dry caves and wet caves have almost nothing in common with regard to the necessary skills. Dry caves know nothing about line or gas management or necessary equipment. As a cave diver, the same is true for me in dry caves. I would NEVER enter one without training.

One thing they share is that people absolutely need mentoring, training, and discipline to do either.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Yeah, Yeah, everyone jumps to worst case scenario. The reality is you run a risk walking out your front door everyday, but billions of people do it, you run a risk eating that sirloin steak tonight, you may choke, you may even die, are you now going to stop eating steak because it may save your life, doubtful, you mitigate those risks by looking left and right before crossing the street, and taking smaller bites of the steak and chewing well.

Its the same in scuba, you mitigate your risks by informed training, there is no secret formula. Sure its great to stroke our egos, scratch our chins and sagely tell everyone, "Gee this is such a dangerous sport", best you dont get involved because its beyond you or you dont have the passion for it or you dont want to further your education or whatever",.... but of course I am good to go, that goes without saying!.

The reality I would argue is almost every new student is hopelessly unprepared for their first dive, and often many dives after that, in fact with modern teaching methods I would argue many basic qualified vacation / recreational divers remain hopelessly unprepared throughout their diving lives, they do and will continue to make mistakes which "could" kill them, but you know what, millions of them continue to dive and 99.99% pop out afterwards none the worse for wear,... despite this been such a terribly "risky and dangerous game".

Most of them actually even enjoy it,... heaven forbid, we dont want that do we.!

That is the reality,....not this BS about "Oh maybe you shouldn't dive cos you may die" attitude.

Sure, someone somewhere will look at a situation, reconcile himself / herself with the risk and gamble, maybe they will die, nothing you or I can do will change that, however 99.99% of divers will heed their training and little inner voice and back away, so maybe we just need to give people more credit and cut the drama, its also not necessary.

You know what NWGratefuldiver, I dont come here a lot, because in general I find its a lot of hot air and testosterone been pumped around,..... but, by and large I have always considered your posts as one of the few which were levelheaded and well thought out, I am rather surprised you have succumbed to the general Scubaboard malaise of "only I can do this well, so best you dont dive, you may die" attitude.

I have no idea what you're reading, but nowhere did I say or insinuate what you just claimed I said.

What's a "worst-case" scenario? Some newly certified diver going out into a situation they have no business being in because a newly-certified "dive pro" assures them it'll be OK? That's how we lose people here every year. OK, you can blow off those few who die as inconsequential, because they're a tiny minority of divers. But the majority of people who get certified ... roughly three out of every four ... drop out of scuba within a year of their initial certification. There are a number of reasons for that ... one of the significant reasons is that they do something to scare themselves out of diving ... something they came out of their initial training patently unqualified to manage or even imagine. Most simply learn to rely on someone else to "keep them safe", which is well and good I suppose if you're diving in a tropical tourist destination where the dive guides are used to seeing people who dive at that level, and are prepared to manage them. They only lose a few per year in places like Cozumel, and what the heck ... there's plenty more where they came from. So let's not "scare" these people before they go spend their money supporting the industry. Yeah ... that's real sustainable. I get it that those who "market" scuba want to get them in, and get their money before they drop out and go find something more comfortable to do with their recreational dollars. But that approach doesn't work well where I live and teach. There's memorials on way too many dive sites here ... mostly for fairly inexperienced people who died out of ignorance, or because their instructor de-emphasized the risks in order to not scare them away. And that's the problem ... if you don't emphasize the risks, there will always be those who think they're not important. That's why you see so many divers not even bothering to follow things they do cover in their basic training ... like buddy checks ... because they had instructors or dive buddies who downplayed the risks, citing the high percentage of divers who "don't die" every year.

Yeah, the reality is that we can die in other, more commonplace ways. But the question is why do things that increase the probability of it? Why engage in risky behavior ... either because you don't know any better, or because you don't believe that the risks really apply to you? That's the attitude that gets engendered by those who believe we shouldn't talk about it.

Stick your head in the sand, if that's what makes you happy. Pretend that the risks aren't real, or that the statistics don't bear out that emphasizing them aren't worthwhile. But people aren't statistics ... every single one of them matters. And I won't be a part of that approach to marketing the scuba industry ... not only because of the safety aspects, but because I believe it's ultimately creating more drop-outs than talking about the risks will. The only difference is that before they drop out, they'll get certified. They may even take another con-ed class or two, because that's why instructors are taught to upsell those classes before the current one is even completed. Maybe they'll go on a trip or two. But sooner or later, they'll do something that'll scare the crap out of them, because they were taught to put themselves into that position by someone who believes as you do that talking about the risks of scuba is bad for business. And that will be the last time they dive, whether they survive the experience or not.

That's not my idea of a good time ... and having a good time, ultimately, is why we all dive. I want my students going into it with their eyes open. I want those who will be inclined to drop out to do so before they invest thousands in scuba classes and equipment ... because selling scuba gear and certifications is not my priority, keeping my students alive and having fun is. And don't mistake what I'm saying here ... it CAN be engaged in with a reasonable degree of safety. But you must know the risks, and how to prepare for them, before you can really do that. And that means having a frank discussion about what those risks are, how to avoid them, and what to do if you can't avoid them.

I have never said that "only I can do this well". There are thousands of highly qualified instructors out there ... I know several personally just in my area. Many of them are engaging in this conversation, and trying to present the same perspective I am ... but you're blowing them and me off because you don't agree with what we're saying.

The incident I described yesterday is, sadly, not the "worst case". But it is a good example of a dive professional who is ... whether he means to or not ... teaching his students to dive dangerously, to not consider or prepare for an acceptable level of risks. He will ... I don't doubt ... be very successful at selling them the next class, and probably thousands of dollars in equipment purchases. And the industry will view him as being a successful dive professional. But over the course of the next few years, the chances of his former students dropping out or finding themselves the victims of a diving accident will be, statistically, much higher than mine ... or any number of those professionals who train their students how to avoid the risks, rather than engage in them. A couple years ago I went through my student folders from the past decade or so ... and I can account for about 80% of my students still being active divers. What do you suppose the typical drop-out rate is in our industry? How would you account for the difference? Who do you suppose is really representing the interests of the industry better ... the instructor who churns out a high number of certs, or the one who is more selective but manages to help train students who will be comfortable enough with the activity to keep doing it for years to come?

I think those of you who say "don't talk about it" are kidding yourselves ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

---------- Post added December 8th, 2015 at 09:02 AM ----------

Anyway, I've been in caves hundreds of times, if by caves you mean those holes in the rocks in Hawaii, and if by "in" you mean within free-swimming distance of the mouth, but I know you do because we're told that emphatically (see #137 above, or any of hundreds of other posts throughout this thread and the archives). And the point as well is, this is the way every topic of risk is handled here (by many). Do you find that approach helpful? insulting? patronizing? Do you accept that you are not worthy of better, because your life is at stake and soto concede any capability on your part to handle nuance would be a dis-service to the role of protector/policer?

I'm only OW certified, well Rescue recently also, and not knowing what I don't know, I'm either the luckiest man in the world, or the most preternaturally insightful, or perhaps simply a well-trained cave-certified diver reincarnated. Or there's more nuance to it than that. But maybe like the AGW warrior-scientists said, lying to us is a small price to pay for saving the world.

Sounds like the argument you get from smokers ... "I've been smoking my entire life, and I'm fine. So clearly they're lying to us when they tell us that smoking is bad for your health."

Tough to argue against "logic" like that ... why bother trying?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[IVC]

That is the reality,....not this BS about "Oh maybe you shouldn't dive cos you may die" attitude.

Sure, someone somewhere will look at a situation, reconcile himself / herself with the risk and gamble, maybe they will die, nothing you or I can do will change that, however 99.99% of divers will heed their training and little inner voice and back away, so maybe we just need to give people more credit and cut the drama, its also not necessary.

I am one of those "new OW divers" and I don't perceive this thread as anything close to "don't dive because you'll die" or otherwise being "elitist" (minus the battle of egos, of course, but that's par for the course on Internet forums.)

The way I see it is that there is an activity (cave diving) that doesn't appear to be especially dangerous based on common sense developed on land. You'd be hard pressed to call me ignorant or an idiot (you haven't, it's just a figure of speech) for not recognizing dangers that are unique to underwater environment and are not only not obvious, but are contrary to the dry land experience - going into an open and well lit cave while hiking is no big deal. That's where the video kicks in. It doesn't tell me "you'll die diving," it tells me "here are hidden and unique dangers associated with underwater caves that you won't figure out by yourself at the entrance of a cave while looking inside and thinking 'hey, this is interesting'." More importantly, it tells me "these dangers have a nasty property that you learn about them at the precise moment when it's too late to mitigate them."

If anything, I'd compare it to educating divers about DCI in the basic OW class. It looks nasty. Pulmonary embolism looks even nastier. Yet, it's important to learn about those concepts as they represent risks that are significantly different from anything on dry land. One cannot derive the need for slow ascent from common sense or experience on land. (Even if one can calculate that lung overexpansion MUST occur if holding breath.) So, some aspects of underwater environment absolutely require additional warnings with explicit details such that people can know what the risks are, not merely rely on "don't do it" disclaimers.

Finally, I was taught to "stay within my training" and "dive in environments similar to the one I trained in." The problem is (again) that "within" and "similar" mean something completely different under water than what they would mean on dry land. For example, I would consider half the visibility I had in Hawaii to be "similar." I would also consider having much colder water and much thicker wetsuit to be "similar." How would I know that wandering into a cavern is not "similar enough?" Sure, there is a specialty course about caverns and if I read the intro I'd know it's very dangerous, but if I just glanced at the specialty courses I could easily think that going into a cavern is as risky as, e.g., fish identification (another specialty course.)

 

[spoolin01]

You win... I have no words.

Because nuance is just too much for the internet. Last summer I swam under a diving board - or does it actually have to touch the water to present this black or white danger?

---------- Post added December 8th, 2015 at 10:23 AM ----------

Sounds like the argument you get from smokers ... "I've been smoking my entire life, and I'm fine. So clearly they're lying to us when they tell us that smoking is bad for your health."

Tough to argue against "logic" like that ... why bother trying?

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Beat that horse. He's made of straw and won't be hurt.

I did go in a smoke shop a few times, yet oddly am still feeling healthy. There's logic in that, you can be sure.