Bodies Recovered in School Sink aka Wayne's World, Hudson, FL

[jridg]

I have been diving for 20 years - I have been a Divemaster for 15 - I have been in aviation for 17 years - what's the point of all this information?

1. As a diver, it has been drilled into me from day 1 wayyyy back in 1988 to NEVER enter an overhead environment unless/until I have been properly trained to do so.

2. As a DM I have ALWAYS stressed the importance of my first point. I have even told an instructor I worked with not to take a newly certified diver on an advanced dive as I felt it was a bad idea.

3. Having safety reinforced into my daily life as an aviator has most assuredly helped me keep my head on straight and allowed me to make mostly good decisions in my life from diving to flying to everyday life.

This doesn't mean I haven't 'bent' the rules in the past. I have to say that I would never enter a cave system as cave diving scares the crap out of me. I have entered wrecks that have been 'diverized' where I constantly had a very simple way out and never lost sight of the entrance.

As a PADI and NAUI DM - it has been my experience that new divers are taught to never do as these two did - it's a damn shame what happened to them, and their families are bearing the brunt of their decisions.

I strongly disagree with what one member said about certification agencies - there is a great deal of reinforcement of rules and limits - as well as a huge push for continuing education and training from every agency I have worked with. I have experienced the techniques of more than 10 instructors over the years. I have enjoyed working with every one of them - save one - and that one I called into standards due to what I felt were 'sub-standard' practices.

Bottom line - we need to police ourselves - it sounds like the cave community is doing a fantastic job with that already.

We cannot stop people from being people - they are going to do things they shouldn't at times - we all are - we just have to hope that they live to learn from those experiences - as we have seen and will continue to see, they will not always survive their decisions.

Again - this has been a mostly good thread - IMHO - sure, there are going to be hot running emotions - and we are all going to 'arm-chair quarterback' the thing, but really, the best thing we can all do is learn from these mistakes and pass that knowledge on to others in the hopes that they will not repeat this tragedy.

 

[NudeDiver]

Blaming the cave community for their death is foolish.

Oh come ON man!! Not a single post I have read here has said this.

Pointing the finger at the cave community for not putting an active grate over these sites is about as dumb an idea as I've heard.

Again, I didn't point a finger or blame the cave community or anyone else for that matter. What I DID do was offer a suggestion for how they can help and protect themselves and their hobby from the actions of others.

Let's seal the only EXIT from a cave with a locked grate. Brilliant.

Once again, not what I said. At all.

These guys shouldn't have been there. Period. Based on what their certs say, they shouldn't have even had on the gear they were wearing.

Agreed. But, you know what? they were there. Such people will be there in the future most likely. So what are you going to DO about it - if anything? Spouting off "they should never have been there in the first place" can be as true as true can be, but it does nothing to help avoid this same situation in the future. It also does nothing to help protect the future of your hobby.

While you may not be able to save the interlopers from themselves, you might be able to save yourself, and your hobby, from the interlopers. This is what I have been advocating.

 

[PerroneFord]

Agreed. But, you know what? they were there. Such people will be there in the future most likely. So what are you going to DO about it - if anything? Spouting off "they should never have been there in the first place" can be as true as true can be, but it does nothing to help avoid this same situation in the future. It also does nothing to help protect the future of your hobby.

While you may not be able to save the interlopers from themselves, you might be able to save yourself, and your hobby, from the interlopers. This is what I have been advocating.

Do you have ANY clue how hard we, as cave divers, work to ensure the safety of our sites? The outreach programs, the education, the talks with OW divers, the foundations, the public service videos, etc., etc. to try and prevent these senseless deaths?

I have personally given or witnessed dozens of attempts to educate the OW community about the dangers of the caves. I am an officer of a dive club that PRIDES itself on educating local divers about the danger of diving these caves. And in fact, my club is the ONLY one I am aware of in the world that offers FREE cavern courses to suitable OW divers to help them understand and mitigate the dangers of diving in these areas.

I am doing everything I possibly can. But let me turn that around. You are clearly aware of the dangers. So what have you done in the past 12 months to further this cause? Because I can easily point to the efforts of the cave community, certifying organizations, and individual cave divers, and their efforts.

 

[NudeDiver]

Do you have ANY clue how hard we, as cave divers, work to ensure the safety of our sites? The outreach programs, the education, the talks with OW divers, the foundations, the public service videos, etc., etc. to try and prevent these senseless deaths?

I never suggested otherwise. All I did was suggest another tool that might be helpful. What I do know is that some people can have all the education and/or knowledge in the world and they will STILL act inappropriately. What can do you to prevent this? Nothing. What can you to do prevent it from affecting you in some unfortunate way? I offered a suggestion for one possibility - that's all.

But let me turn that around. You are clearly aware of the dangers. So what have you done in the past 12 months to further this cause?

I am not aware of any diving caves anywhere even remotely close to me. What would you like me to do?

 

[ScubaSteve]

This thread is officially dead. At one point in the beginning I hoped to learn something from this but most of what has been shared in this thread is just insight into certain people's good and bad personalities.

Thanks to everybody, a cowboy now has to walk.

 

[PerroneFord]

I am not aware of any diving caves anywhere even remotely close to me. What would you like me to do?

Join the NSSCDS and/or the NACD. Help our efforts. Offer your suggestions (but leave out the grate one) and volunteer to do what you can. There is concerted effort by these and other organizations to make cave diving safer here in the US, Mexico, and other places as well. You don't have to be near the caves to help. Members come from Australia, Japan, Europe, Canada, etc.

 

[DeepSea]

Why do you hate it? It is true. that is the problem...No one wants to say anything fear someone will get upset.

The report will be submitted to IUCRR this weekend and should take a couple of weeks for redaction and processing.

I do hate it for the two gentlemen, but I really suspect they were diving way beyond their training limits.

I'll be especially interested in seeing the IUCRR report on this accident as I imagine that it will answer most if not all of my questions. Also- I haven't heard anyone mention if any bottom timers or computers were recovered. Do we know anything about that?

 

[DeepSea]

Seriously...Are you a caver or a cave diver? Honestly, your posts reek of neither.

Grating caves...Governments...UFOs...Aluminum Foil Hats...

WOW...

Yeah, at the bottom, where it leads into the underground, it is. When I was there, I was told that they put that grate in after some guy disappeared and was found a few hundred miles away.

Even for caves with very large openings, you could block them off with grates - it just gets more expensive. My theory is that if people (land owners / cave clubs) do not solve this problem, government nannies will solve the problem and leave the divers quite unsatisfied with the results.

 

[netmage]

I am not aware of any diving caves anywhere even remotely close to me. What would you like me to do?

This is almost nothing to do with caves.... It fundamentally comes down to attitude.... Diving is often labeled as an exotic and extreme sport full of adrenalin junkies, and frankly, I find it neither. Instill a healthy respect for limitations and continual growth through experience in everyone and every buddy you get paired up with. Stress caution and judgment over rushing and rushed enthusiasm, and most importantly lead by example...

 

[netmage]

This thread is officially dead. At one point in the beginning I hoped to learn something from this but most of what has been shared in this thread is just insight into certain people's good and bad personalities.

Thanks to everybody, a cowboy now has to walk.

Perhaps you didn't get the message... the lesson to be learned from this tragedy was already learned many years ago through the blood of other divers....

Its senseless and most certainly didn't need to happen...