A FB friend posted his brother died today in Ginnie Springs

[Dhboner]

Why he dove this gas will likely never be known. I liked Carlos a lot... larger than life, and a real booster of the sport. He was very sure of himself, and in his relatively short diving career, he had done a ton of diving... and I don't mean banging off four a day in a quarry, or Bonaire. I mean more than a few cave dives, 250 foot mix dives here in the Great Lakes, and the Doria just a couple of weeks ago. He put in the time to take the training, and he opened his wallet to get the best gear. He absolutely loved diving AND divers, and would spend whatever time was necessary to help less experienced divers. His gear bag was open to everyone to borrow whatever they needed... Our local dive community suffered a significant hit with his passing.

Having said this, some of us that have been diving forever, expressed concern to one another that his confidence, (Some would say cockiness) might eventually end up with him finding himself in trouble. I want to choose my words very carefully, because he really was a good diver (in my limited experience diving with him) in spite of his relatively short period of time in the sport. His "online personality" could be seen as arrogant, but the real Carlos was genuinely a nice guy who would do anything for you.

Our concern is that his "proteges" who perhaps lacked his skill, dives, confidence, or wallet might too find themselves in over-their-heads, if you will please excuse the bad pun. Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I think that there's a lot to be said for racking up hundreds of dives as one works up to these advanced technical certifications.. not a bunch of dozen.

I'm going to leave it at that, but will maybe finish by saying that confidence is no substitute for the basics like analyzing gas. We all know that, and if any good is to come of this, Carlos' tragic death will serve as a reminder that even the very skilled can have a very bad day. He'd be the first to agree, which makes this thing that much harder to understand.

Very well said.

 

[ucfdiver]

I'm torn on this. On the one hand, the buddies asked.

On the other, if a buddy said, "Dude, those tank markings make me nervous. May I analyze your tank, just so I feel better?", then it would have been a 'catch point'.

There are many who immediately want to "blame the buddy" for someone else' ****-up. Where does one draw the line? How big of a PITA does one be??

GI3 had it right. Don't dive with strokes. He came off as a prick, but did some amazing dives and is alive to tell about it. Despite his lack of politeness, I think there's a lesson to be learned.

Convert that to today's gentler, nicer way of phrasing it. Don't dive with unsafe divers. If someone's mislabeling tanks and not analyzing gas, you don't need to check their gas, you need to find a new dive buddy.

If I ever find myself with so little trust in my dive buddy that I feel the need to check their tanks, I hope I have the guts to abort the dive and tell them exactly why I choose to do so.

I don't blame the buddies at all here for his death. I don't blame his instructors or mentors for his death. I'm 100% confident Carlos knew he was cutting corners just due to the fact that I know he browsed the web and there's so much information on gas switching freely available. I think they (buddies) made a bad decision, but they weren't guides or instructors, they were buddies. They are a SECOND CHECK, not the primary. Adults are free to make their own bad decisions.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

Then you do blame the buddies, they let him take the wrong gas which is part of the combined breathing gas. I'm not saying its all the fault of the buddies but they sure share in it - if not then whats the purpose of a buddy? Part of the buddy's job is the throw the bull **** flag when things don't look right.

You missed the part about why I'd demand such a tank be analyzed: for me, not for the other guy. If I "blame" the buddies for anything, it's not looking out for themselves terribly well. Maybe I'm too much of a solo diver, but the only person who's responsible for any diver's safety is that diver. Period.

 

[openmindOW]

Was the alleged tank mislabeling accidental or deliberate?

If deliberate, why?

 

[tstormdiver]

But the other was a failure of the buddies, that they were willing to dive with him with that tank. I'm sure they regret it, but this incident has just reinforced my determination to remain a major PITA as a dive buddy, as far as checks and protocols go. They are there for a reason. I don't know if this diver would have gone solo, if his buddies refused to dive with him with that tank, or whether enough stubbornness on their part would have made him analyze the tank, but we could hope it would have changed things.

I once ticked a buddy off before making a dive at Ginnie, when he didn't analyze his cylinders. I simply refused to go in until he did. He is much more advanced than I am, but that doesn't make him better. I told him that I didn't want to have to haul his butt out, if he went to the wrong mix. In the end all was good & my mind was at peace, that we were proceeding properly. It doesn't take more than a minute or 2 to analyze a tank. One thing I teach my recreational students from the very beginning is,... If you have not analyzed it or witnessed the analysis, you don't know what is in it! I do this even with cylinders I fill personally. Yes, I should know what is in there,... but I am human.Don't assume.

 

[Doppler]

I once ticked a buddy off before making a dive at Ginnie, when he didn't analyze his cylinders. I simply refused to go in until he did...

Just in case anyone reading this has ANY doubt, here's the bottom line. YOUR BUDDY IS CARRYING YOUR CONTINGENCY GAS... IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT IT IS (first-hand, having checked for yourself) THEN YOU ARE AN IDIOT. PERIOD. There can be NO credible argument in my opinion.

 

[TSandM]

My understanding is that this diver brought the tank with him to the dive site. It was properly marked as an O2 cylinder with a 20 foot MOD. However, the diver was convinced he had filled the tank with air, and that is what he told the people who were diving with him, when they questioned his intention to utilize the tank as a stage. They did not insist that he analyze the tank (and from what I have learned, he probably would have refused to do it). He was wrong, and he died for his mistake.

There is, as Jim Wyatt said, nothing new to learn here. Mark your cylinders; analyze your gas before every dive. Pay attention to your buddy's cylinders and if there is anything that seems untoward, make sure you resolve the issue before getting in the water. For myself, I would add that this incident crystallized an amorphous disinclination to ever dive with a cylinder whose markings were inconsistent with the contents, whether that cylinder was carried by me or by my teammates.

 

[Doppler]

Just one more "preach" and then I have to go get dive kit ready for presentations and diving...

Let's not lose sight of a couple of items that help put this dive and the people doing it into some sort of context.

First of all, let's be clear. This was not exploration, and it was not a highly technical dive. It may seem like such to some of the less adventurous out there but this was a pretty run-of-the-mill cave dive in a well-traveled tourist cave in North Florida. Ginnie is essentially a training site. Nothing was to be gained for the good of the dive community and nothing new and exciting was going to be opened up as a result of this dive happening. It was just another fun cave dive with a few friends. Another tick in the logbook.

Unfortunately this is exactly the sort of dive where people **** up and become super complacent... I think it fair to say that most of us have been there and done that. We got through it. This diver and his buddies have been punished severely for their mistakes (intentionally plural).

We, those watching this train wreck and scratching our heads in wonder, can and should take some things away from this that may help us avoid making the same or similar gross errors of judgment on future outings. What Lynn said in the post above this contains one of those lessons.

"... this incident crystallized an amorphous disinclination to ever dive with a cylinder whose markings were inconsistent with the contents."

 

[fdog]

My understanding is that this diver brought the tank with him to the dive site. It was properly marked as an O2 cylinder with a 20 foot MOD. However, the diver was convinced he had filled the tank with air, and that is what he told the people who were diving with him, when they questioned his intention to utilize the tank as a stage. They did not insist that he analyze the tank (and from what I have learned, he probably would have refused to do it). He was wrong, and he died for his mistake.

There is, as Jim Wyatt said, nothing new to learn here. Mark your cylinders; analyze your gas before every dive. Pay attention to your buddy's cylinders and if there is anything that seems untoward, make sure you resolve the issue before getting in the water. For myself, I would add that this incident crystallized an amorphous disinclination to ever dive with a cylinder whose markings were inconsistent with the contents, whether that cylinder was carried by me or by my teammates.

I guess I'm "that guy" that is a PITA; I go further than this.

There's a fashion to leave stages intended as bottom gas completely unmarked. I'm not happy with the ambiguity this can leave about the contents (and how those contents can vary from dive to dive).

So, every stage is marked for MOD. Every one of them.


All the best, James

 

[616fun]

I may look stone cold in asking this, but did the guy do this to take his own life? I mean - filling a stage to 98% is no remedial task. That's boosting the O2!! If he truly did fill it himself I have a hard time believing he didn't remember the work he did to get the cylinder to 98%.

Or he possibly could have filled one cylinder and packed another. MOD stickers are great - but unless there is duct tape on the neck with my analysis and date written on it - it's not going in the water.....