Cave diver drowns - Jackson Blue Springs, Florida

[PfcAJ]

Pardon my ignorance and straying off-topic but are you saying that GUE can pull / cancel a regular (non instructor) GUE divers cert? Given I imagine they cant physically confiscate the card (certainly not mine if I had one of theirs), do they alert every dive shop in the world that said card / cert is no longer valid? No, seriously, pardon my facetiousness but how do GUE enforce a "pulled card"?

Idk if it actually happens but I guess they could not renew your cert.

The real deal is that people just don’t dive with you.

Into exhile, you must go.

 

[Kay Dee]

Idk if it actually happens but I guess they could not renew your cert.

The real deal is that people just don’t dive with you.

Into exhile, you must go.

Argh, so GUE certs are something that must be renewed as opposed to being 'lifelong'? OK, then if so then yes I guess it could just not be renewed. And exile, whoa, a fate worse than death I suppose for the GUE brethren.

As for 'people just wont dive with you" I have no problem with that, I don't dive with people as much as possible. CCR solo to the core, so nothing new there.

 

[Beau Holden]

Bottom line: it looks like the death was due to zero-to-hero training, coupled with a fast transition to the cool-kid's sw ccr, that resulted into lacking experience for the dive he was doing to the point that when **** hit the fan and the person panicked, he drowned with 1 tank with 2400psi of gas in it - which could even have been enough to sustain him until help arrived.

The only one known truth in this statement is "1 tank with 2400psi of gas in it" Throughout this whole thread there has been so much speculation and back and forth over this and that and frankly most of it is BS. It has nothing to do with an instructor, agency, the cave or a line left in a cave. It all has to do with decisions

I'm going to approach this like it was my death and the cause of it was decisions I made and not one that was made for me. First I made the decision to dive and get training, then it progresses from there. I made the decision to progress through additional training and certifications through full cave and then on to CCR. Was I pushed..encouraged to get to this point? Maybe yes, maybe no, the only person that knows is (was) me. It was my decision regardless of any outside forces. No one held a gun to my head, threatened my wife or family with death if I did not do it. I made the decision to dive JB that day and run the route to the restriction. You might say well my buddy was leading and he made the decisions. NO..I made the decision to follow and not to call or turn the dive. I made the decision to push the restriction, I made the decision on where to clip and run my bailout or stage, I made the decision not to push them ahead of me so I could get to them. I made all the decisions that got me dead.

To date what I know for certain; I was in JB, I was diving a CCR, I got stuck in a hole and I am dead and I had 1 tank with 2400psi left in it. I don't even know if the cause of my death was drowning, unless there is report out there that I don't about. I am dead and that is it. If someone or group of someones want to play arm chair diver, then go for it. But I sitting up there laughing at the back and forth BS and saying, "you don't know sh$t". Now when all the reports come out, then you can bash me, the instructors I trained with and the agencies that gave me the card that I chose to pay for. I would only hope, that fellow divers (at least cave divers) would bow their head and pray for my family and the ones that loved me, for God to help them through this time of grief and there would be some peace in the hearts, minds and spirits of them. Then go dive a cave and enjoy that moment doing what I loved to do.

 

[Ayisha]

Idk if it actually happens but I guess they could not renew your cert.

The real deal is that people just don’t dive with you.

Into exhile, you must go.

I know only one former GUE diver that had their card pulled due to a complaint about not following standards. He still teaches for another agency, still owns a dive shop, and still has divers to dive with, including GUE divers.

It seems extremely rare though...

 

[Ayisha]

...when **** hit the fan and the person panicked, he drowned with 1 tank with 2400psi of gas in it - which could even have been enough to sustain him until help arrived.

We don't know what caused him to bailout, so we don't know what the trigger was for this incident.

We also don't know if he was stuck in such a way that he could not access the remaining tank.

Without knowing more pertinent information, it's probably premature to draw conclusions.

 

[Underwater Tourist]

The only one known truth in this statement is "1 tank with 2400psi of gas in it"

Not only, we also know he went quickly from OC to CC.

To date what I know for certain; I was in JB, I was diving a CCR, I got stuck in a hole and I am dead and I had 1 tank with 2400psi left in it. I don't even know if the cause of my death was drowning,

Yep, which is why I explicitly put "ifs" and "could haves" etc. Maybe the guy just had a heart attack or a billion other things could have happened. But with the little info we have, that's how I would have summarized the thread.

 

[chillyinCanada]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

This is not directed at any post in particular but is merely providing a reminder of the previous moderator notice:

Mods are going to tighten up enforcement on this thread. The discussion has been interesting, if frequently a bit too accusatory.
To remind you all, this is a discussion of a specific incident, intended to help us all imagine improvements that might improve dive safety. This is not the Cave Forum, nor the Instructor's Forum. To the extent that line placement or experience or Instructor action may have been contributory, continued speculation is reasonable.
Too much of the rest is now Off Topic for this thread, and will be deleted.

Do not be surprised if you find a post of yours deleted and noted as "Inappropriate" or "Off topic".

---

 

[John the Pom]

[...]

Most people who insist on being brutally honest are more intent on just being brutal. There's no need to assign nefarious motives to people making a mistake, especially when that results in their demise. Let's ratchet down the blame casting in favor of understanding the issue and problem solving.

Yes - if people think they're gonna get slammed, then they tend to keep quiet, or not tell the whole story. We've all done stupid stuff - that's what it means to be human. It's better if people feel they can be open about it and admit that they f***ed up. It's not going to stop people making mistakes and dying; but it may stop one or two people.

 

[kensuf]

Yes - if people think they're gonna get slammed, then they tend to keep quiet, or not tell the whole story. We've all done stupid stuff - that's what it means to be human. It's better if people feel they can be open about it and admit that they f***ed up. It's not going to stop people making mistakes and dying; but it may stop one or two people.

To have a just culture you need to have an environment that encourages people to talk about their mistakes by not beating them up when they tell the story. Sadly, that almost doesn't exist in online forums, for every person that tries to encourage honest and supportive dialogs you've got a half-dozen people that are seeking attention by being shock jocks.

 

[cerich]

Exactly and this is why things are not always as easy as it looks like.
Cave diving is for most of us a hobby, and don't do what you don't like. And do what you like as safe as possible.

And about teaching, from what I read about this restriction, it is not a thing that will ever be teached in a course. So maybe it was too early for the divers, but if you can move a little bit foreward, there is also a risk that moving backwards is impossible. So getting out of a serious restriction can be really hard then.

I try to get some narrower spots also in a course and sometimes I go to a really small cave that is not worth diving outside of a course. But it starts very wide and then gets smaller and smaller in just a few minutes swimming. There is no risk of getting stucked, turning is always possible as it is only narrow in heigth, not in width. I tell them, you can swim in as far as you feel well. There is no right or wrong, but go till you think this is enough. You see some divers turn really early. Not wrong, they just learned what their limits were.

But about responsible instructing, when I was looking for a ccr cave crossover, I contacted an instructor who said that to pass that crossover I had to dive my backmount rebreather in the Truffe cave. I said, I have tried it, but where a twin12 fits, the Inspiration for sure does not fit. He said that I had to take my unit in front of me and then squeeze in and then put the unit back on my back. I haven't done that crossover with this instructor. I have never teached a ccr cave class in this cave, in my eyes this is equipment removal for sure. I am not afraid of diving in caves, but I will never squeeze myself into a restriction when I have to remove my ccr from my back. Then I have sidemount equipment if needed.

no mount CCR is a whole new world of exploring physics, and work of breathing (and lack of ability to actually breath). It's way more risky than no mount OC, which is silly high risky already