Cave Diver mishap Ginnie Springs 04SEP09

[contender]

From threads in several places, here is what I believe to be a likely scenario (but may not even be close, so don't put a lot of stock in it):
The dive team entered Devil's Ear and headed up the main line to the Hill 400 jump point, which is pretty much the Harry's Crack jump point too, with Hill 400 to the left and Harry's Crack to the right.
The mishap diver made a visual jump and entered Harry's Crack (red line on the map). The buddy started to follow but decided against it when the passage silted out; the buddy went around to the other end of Harry's crack (whether he waited a while before doing this or not I can't guess), expecting to meet the mishap diver on the way. When the mishap diver didn't appear the buddy then went back around the circuit (green line on the map) to the entrance to Harry's Crack... at this point the buddy probably figured the mishap diver had either gotten stuck in the crack or (especially if there was silt in the main passage) had already come back out; either way it was time to exit the cave to either find his buddy waiting for him on the surface or to get help finding him.
In the meantime, the mishap diver turned around somewhere in Harry's crack and came back out, silting out the main tunnel in the process. Since he'd made a visual jump, he had no line to follow back to the main line, and in his search for it he missed it, finding instead the Hill 400 line on the other side of the main line from the Harry's Crack entrance. I'm speculating that he'd had a rough time getting out of Harry's Crack, had gotten stuck at least once, was excited in the extreme - that is, he had the dragon all the way up his back - and probably a little low on gas. Whatever the reason, he swam nearly 400' up the Hill 400 line and passed at least three arrows pointing in the other direction before running out of gas.

(Note: this map was originally posted in the Cave Diver's Forum by James Garrett)
Rick

Not sure that he could turn around in that tunnel. However, this seems to be the most logical explanation. He may have backed out and in doing so totally missed the Gold line as he went by it due to siltout.

 

[Rick Murchison]

... Your profile isn't concrete with a sidemount setup, you can always put a tank or two out in front of you or clip off behind to make your profile work. If you can make it through in backmount, you can do it in sidemount.

Mebbe you can, young fella. If I have to start takin' gear off in a tight place then (1) I've really really screwed up, and (2) I hope I have a buddy there to help; I ain't as limber as I once was
Rick

 

[Rick Murchison]

Not sure that he could turn around in that tunnel. However, this seems to be the most logical explanation. He may have backed out and in doing so totally missed the Gold line as he went by it due to siltout.

I'm assured that there are several adequate turnarounds in the swiss cheese of the crack after the initial restriction (can't say from personal experience; ain't likely to find out, either). He was "covered with mud" so backing out is certainly a possibility, too.
Either way, I think he spent some time stuck... and, at least for me, nothing sends the dragon up the back faster than getting stuck.
Rick

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Mebbe you can, young fella. If I have to start takin' gear off in a tight place then (1) I've really really screwed up, and (2) I hope I have a buddy there to help; I ain't as limber as I once was
Rick

I'm with ya on no2, I don't dive solo, or without lines for that matter.

 

[Keith & Sharon]

I found the video very helpful.
Keith

Quote from Ainslie on CDF:

FWIW here's a video. I made this years ago, and my exit sucks (thereby demonstrating the silt problem - look at 4:00 minutes). I was going the opposite way from the way that Bruce was going. I did it on my own, the divers at the beginning were people I overtook. The section pertaining to Harry's is the first 4 minutes.

www.asainslie.com/videos/harrys.wmv

The entrance to Harry's is at 1:51 into the video. There was definitely a line in back then.

 

[TSandM]

It is an incredibly sobering -- maybe more than that -- idea, that someone with the experience in diving, caves, and this cave in particular, could be panicked enough to swim past four contrary arrows and against the flow, while getting low on gas.

I've never been stuck, and don't particularly want to be, but it seems as though people who like tunnels as tiny as this one (Andrew's video impressed me) would get enough experience with it to gain some composure? Or not . . .

Another thing that struck me from watching Andrew's video was that I actually recognized some of the cave prior to the entrance to the crack -- Even with my small number of dives through there, things "clicked" mentally. With the time the deceased had spent in this cave, one would think a lot of it would have that familiar quality, which again goes to show how badly stress affects our ability to absorb information and process it.

Lots of stuff to think about on this one, for all of us who dive caves.

 

[contender]

I'm assured that there are several adequate turnarounds in the swiss cheese of the crack after the initial restriction (can't say from personal experience; ain't likely to find out, either). He was "covered with mud" so backing out is certainly a possibility, too.
Either way, I think he spent some time stuck... and, at least for me, nothing sends the dragon up the back faster than getting stuck.
Rick

I got stuck once myself, and that ended the small cave for me. I only dive larger cave now, when I go. I burned myself out on cave diving for awhile, guess that happens when you live close.

 

[Meng_Tze]

I'm assured that there are several adequate turnarounds in the swiss cheese of the crack after the initial restriction (can't say from personal experience; ain't likely to find out, either). He was "covered with mud" so backing out is certainly a possibility, too.
Either way, I think he spent some time stuck... and, at least for me, nothing sends the dragon up the back faster than getting stuck.
Rick

Bruce was not a small fellow. If he managed to turn around in there in those 'adequate places' in backmount, I am impressed. My thinking is he either went all the way through and turned around, or backed out (reversed) after a while.

Either way, the crack would have been completely blown.

The crack is a 'do it once' type of section. Once you go through, it will take a while for the silt to settle.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

DA,
I agree with most of your statements. However, I was not the reason for the siltout, it was students from a full cave class that caused it. I have also witnessed instructors silting out this part of the cave to see how their students will handle it. I have been down this tunnel more than a few times to say the least, but I always run the spools in there. I learned about 3 years ago that it's not my skills in the cave that I don't trust, but it's those skills of people who are already in the cave ahead of me that I don't trust.

NOTE: That's one of the reasons it's nice to dive with Jeano Beano, cause in a siltout you can hear her singing loudly(at least I think that's called singing), helps to calm the nerves.

I had hoped I was clear that I was not implying any of the posters were the offending silters. And I agree 100% the potential for either end to get silted from student traffic is high - which is a very solid argument for not doing visual jumps.

As for actually putting in the jumps to and from the crossover line, if your team mate does it, you still have the obligation to check to see they are done properly, and if you still can't trust your team mate, you need a better one.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

From threads in several places, here is what I believe to be a likely scenario (but may not even be close, so don't put a lot of stock in it):
The dive team entered Devil's Ear and headed up the main line to the Hill 400 jump point, which is pretty much the Harry's Crack jump point too, with Hill 400 to the left and Harry's Crack to the right.
The mishap diver made a visual jump and entered Harry's Crack (red line on the map). The buddy started to follow but decided against it when the passage silted out; the buddy went around to the other end of Harry's crack (whether he waited a while before doing this or not I can't guess), expecting to meet the mishap diver on the way. When the mishap diver didn't appear the buddy then went back around the circuit (green line on the map) to the entrance to Harry's Crack... at this point the buddy probably figured the mishap diver had either gotten stuck in the crack or (especially if there was silt in the main passage) had already come back out; either way it was time to exit the cave to either find his buddy waiting for him on the surface or to get help finding him.
In the meantime, the mishap diver turned around somewhere in Harry's crack and came back out, silting out the main tunnel in the process. Since he'd made a visual jump, he had no line to follow back to the main line, and in his search for it he missed it, finding instead the Hill 400 line on the other side of the main line from the Harry's Crack entrance. I'm speculating that he'd had a rough time getting out of Harry's Crack, had gotten stuck at least once, was excited in the extreme - that is, he had the dragon all the way up his back - and probably a little low on gas. Whatever the reason, he swam nearly 400' up the Hill 400 line and passed at least three arrows pointing in the other direction before running out of gas.

(Note: this map was originally posted in the Cave Diver's Forum by James Garrett)
Rick

I am not sure I agree with that assessment. It requires Bruce to have been pretty much in a blind panic for several hundred feet in what should have been a very familiar portion of the cave - and in good viz with 3 or 4 obvious line arrows pointing the other way.

Given that the front portion of the cave was blown out, and given where Bruce was found, it is at least equally likely that Bruce was not in Harry's Crack but rather the Wormhole. That scenario would be more likely to create the degree of siltout in the front portion of the cave, and it provides a much less convoluted explanation of how he came to be where he was covered in mud and out of gas. In general, the simpler explanation is far more likely to be the correct one.

My information is second hand but my understanding is that his gear was undistrubed and there were no signs of panic, making it much less plausible that he was in a blind panic swimming 400 feet the wrong way up the Hill 400 tunnel.

The only thing required to make this scenario work is for his buddy to be mistaken with regard to Harry's Crack versus the Wormhole.

An alternative explanation is that they mutually agreed to separate and meet at the end of one of the two sidemount tunnels, with some miscommunication or misunderstanding occurring regarding what tunnel and/or what tunnel led where. I don't know enough about the team mate's experience level, knowledge of the cave, or stress level at the time of the accident or immediately after to assign any meaningful probability to that scenario. But such a scenario would explain how they came to be separated, and unable to re-connect as the far end of Harry's Crack in the expressway tunnel would be a good 700-800ft from the top of Hill 400 by the most direct route excluding Harry's Crack itself.

The point is there are 2 or 3 workable explanations of varying degrees of plasuibility and we just don't have enough information to have a high degree of confidence in any of them as none of them fully explain all the (limited and in some cases speculatory) bits of information.