Another Eagles Nest fatality

[Capt Jim Wyatt]

My point is that hubris, and a lack of respect for the commonly grounded safety guidelines based upon the cumulative experience of the cave diving community is one cause of this fatality.

The dive plan and execution of the plan made a statement. The statement was "we know better than all of the cave diving community, and this is a safe dive for a cavern diver".

Caution thrown to the wind....

 

[cerich]

I'm with Jax and Chris on this one. Based on what we know at this point, it doesn't sound like the training was a leading factor in this incident. Sounds like some sort of breathing gas issue whether caused by the gas itself, or the unit. What it doesn't sound like is that if he had been full cave trained, it would have changed anything.

Assuming Brandon's statement is accurate, the only way I can see the cave being a contributing factor is the travel time from where they noticed something wrong to the deco gas at 60-70ft. To hit 200ft in depth, they are no more than 150ft laterally away from a direct ascent, and assuming normal travel times if the mound didn't exist, that's 3 minutes kick over to the center, and 4 minutes ascent to the 70ft bottles. 5-6 minutes travel time with the mount, or not a whole lot more than they would have had if in OW assuming they were in a position that they could make a safe direct ascent.
They also got the diver to the deco bottles, so cave training wouldn't have changed any of that.

Now, where I do agree with you is the fact that it was a stupid dive plan, but I have to firmly disagree with you that based on the information provided, and assuming it is accurate, that it had anything to do with the outcome of this dive.

My point is that hubris, and a lack of respect for the commonly grounded safety guidelines based upon the cumulative experience of the cave diving community is one cause of this fatality.

The dive plan and execution of the plan made a statement. The statement was "we know better than all of the cave diving community, and this is a safe dive for a cavern diver".

Caution thrown to the wind....

indeed,and not to pick a fight with the person that has released the most information to date, even expressed "the dive was not beyond the capability of the divers present. " that individual is a fairly experienced individual.

 

[KevinNM]

Sure. They obviously had an unsafe attitude by taking an unqualified diver on a trust-me dive to eagles nest. The whole 'send a single diver with issues to the surface by themselves from 200 feet' is also evidence of that. If there is an instructor involved I would hope action is taken to keep them from doing this again.

But so far it seems like whatever killed diver 2 wasn't directly related to their being in the cave. I will hardly be shocked to find that what killed him was some sort of overly casual attitude towards equipment or some other "why would he do that!" kind of thing, but at this point it seems we need to wait and see what the investigation finds.

 

[guruboy]

Could people stop focusing on what is most likely an irrelevant point in this incident? This is terrible news for both the divers and the site. We can all agree on that. But going as far as to claim that the ultimate cause was hubris? Is your name Stretch Armstrong?


I'm curious to know how long elapsed between when the casualty stopped moving at the first stop and when they decided to send him up during the second stop.

When is it better to have someone on the surface taking a hit than underwater probably getting no air? More than 5 minutes and you're looking at body recovery...

 

[cerich]

Could people stop focusing on what is most likely an irrelevant point in this incident? This is terrible news for both the divers and the site. We can all agree on that. But going as far as to claim that the ultimate cause was hubris? Is your name Stretch Armstrong?


I'm curious to know how long elapsed between when the casualty stopped moving at the first stop and when they decided to send him up during the second stop.

When is it better to have someone on the surface taking a hit than underwater probably getting no air?

my 2psi,if somebody is underwater, not breathing,not conscious (dead in other words) then they always better off on the surface than underwater..however they may still be dead on the surface and quite probably will remain so (dead)

 

[boulderjohn]

The whole 'send a single diver with issues to the surface by themselves from 200 feet' is also evidence of that. If there is an instructor involved I would hope action is taken to keep them from doing this again.

This is technically off topic since the diver who went to the surface alone was not the casualty, but I still find it interesting that there has been no other comment on this aspect of the case, either in this thread or in the Cave Divers Forum.

In another case a few years ago, a single diver who had individual problems returned to the surface from very near the entrance of the cave and was reportedly observed getting nearly to the surface before the other divers returned to their dive. No one knows what happened after that, but that diver was later found floating unconscious and died. In an ensuing lawsuit, an expert witness for the plaintiff said that the "golden rule" of diving obligated ALL members of the dive group to abort the dive and return all the way to the surface with that diver. That expert witness statement was circulated widely in the cave diving community. In very heated discussions about the case, many people agreed with that assessment. For some reason, those same people don't seem to have an issue with it here.

 

[cerich]

This is technically off topic since the diver who went to the surface alone was not the casualty, but I still find it interesting that there has been no other comment on this aspect of the case, either in this thread or in the Cave Divers Forum.

In another case a few years ago, a single diver who had individual problems returned to the surface from very near the entrance of the cave and was reportedly observed getting nearly to the surface before the other divers returned to their dive. No one knows what happened after that, but that diver was later found floating unconscious and died. In an ensuing lawsuit, an expert witness for the plaintiff said that the "golden rule" of diving obligated ALL members of the dive group to abort the dive and return all the way to the surface with that diver. That expert witness statement was circulated widely in the cave diving community. In very heated discussions about the case, many people agreed with that assessment. For some reason, those same people don't seem to have an issue with it here.

oh..I do and actually started to address it in a post but backed off because it was tangential to the fatality. It does in my mind at least reflect upon the "culture" of the team involved.

 

[Jax]

Posted by Brandon Johnson on the Facebook:

"
To relevant medical parties and accident analysis:

Eagles Nest Fatality:

4 Hypoxic/Normoxic trained CCR Divers, some cave, some cavern, entered the water as a buddy team around 12:30 EST to execute a planned dive of approx 200', circle the cavern zone on ascent, deco, and return to exit.
At approximately 12:35, Diver #1 suffered an ADV failure and aborted the dive, returning to surface.

The 3 remaining divers chose to continue the dive.
The 3 divers reached planned depth, signaled "OK" and ended the dive, continuing upwards to 1st deco stop.

En route to 1st deco stop, casualty signaled something was wrong, started making a choking sound in his loop, and bailed out to open circuit.
Diver team continued with casualty on open circuit to 1st deco stop at 60-70'.

Upon reaching deco stop, casualty became unconscious. Remaining two divers provided assistance by physical contact and keeping regulator in mouth.
Casualty stopped moving entirely and divers believed no further help could be provided, maintained regulator in mouth and began ascent with casualty.

Around 40' stop and 1:20 PM, casualty buoyancy (drysuit, wing, backmounted counterlungs) became difficult to handle and divers made the decision to send casualty to surface via buoyant ascent.

1:25 PM diver who aborted dive noticed casualty floating on surface, called 911, and swam out to recover casualty.
Casualty was dragged to waterway exit (staircase) while EMS was inbound.

Casualty was frothing at the mouth, cold, cyanotic, not breathing with no pulse.
EMS arrived within 20 minutes, provided medical assistance and called casualty deceased roughly around 2:00 PM.

Divers in deco finished their decompression stops and surfaced to aid in recovery.
Shortly after 2:50 PM, I arrived on scene, followed by Detective and Medical Examiner.
Statements were taken, ME provided examination, and diver team was released.
No further details. HCSO Investigation pending."

Requoting this here because people are asking questions that are covered here.

 

[KevinNM]

When is it better to have someone on the surface taking a hit than underwater probably getting no air? More than 5 minutes and you're looking at body recovery...

If they are still breathing from a valid gas source my training is that you keep them with you. A casualty blowing off a lot of deco at eagles nest seems like a bad idea. However handing an unconscious diver from very deep is complex and, as happened here, buoyancy control is a challenge. Even if you get them shallow under control and still breathing they are going to have not completed decompression because they won't have made the gas switch.

If they stop breathing or they run out of gas there are multiple bad options. Bouncing to the surface with them, yelling for help and (in theory) diving back down before you get hit with DCS is one, sending them on a buoyant ascent is another, using a reg to ventilate them under water is another. I have no idea which is more likely to be successful, though I would suspect the first without any evidence.

 

[bada3003]

oh..I do and actually started to address it in a post but backed off because it was tangential to the fatality. It does in my mind at least reflect upon the "culture" of the team involved.

Not only that. Perhaps tangential to the direct cause of death, starting a cave dive as a team of 4 goes against textbook practice (teams of 2-3).

There was an earlier comment on being cheap by not going to Blue Grotto or similar. I suspect it's more a case of striking off an item in one's bucket list. The descriptions of Eagle's Nest conveyed by some cave divers to the media ("Mount Everest of cave diving") does not help curtail the attitude "gotta do it before I die" held by some. Cave trained or otherwise.