Cave Diver mishap Ginnie Springs 04SEP09

[BabyDuck]

he was sidemount. i don't think july is exitable even no-mount.

 

[contender]

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.

I understood what you were trying to say. I agree also with checking to make sure the reels are ran properly by team mates. I can say this for my regular cave partners though - I absolutely trust them with my life(essentially that's what you do everytime you enter a cave with them), not one of them has less than 250 post full cave dives and I know they are going to follow the rules and make sure I do as well. I hold my dive buddies in high regards, there is nothing like a solid dive partner.

 

[TSandM]

Which passage on the map is the Wormhole? The one more or less paralleling the Hill 400 tunnel?

One thought that came up on another forum was the advisability of entering a small, silty, one-way passage at the end of a dive . . . I don't want to sound judgmental, but this sounds like a circuit that was done without a setup dive -- maybe in the expectation that the passage in question was so short that the gas requirements wouldn't be significant? If you were going to do that, it seems as though you would want to do it with the maximum amount of gas with you, just in case you have trouble getting through or are delayed for any other reason.

Maybe he knew these passages well, but if that was the case, why the reconnoitering earlier in the dive? Some things just don't make a lot of sense here.

 

[netmage]

Which passage on the map is the Wormhole? The one more or less paralleling the Hill 400 tunnel?

Yes, all the areas marked restrictions to the right of the Hill 400 line....

 

[ucfdiver]

Which passage on the map is the Wormhole? The one more or less paralleling the Hill 400 tunnel?

One thought that came up on another forum was the advisability of entering a small, silty, one-way passage at the end of a dive . . . I don't want to sound judgmental, but this sounds like a circuit that was done without a setup dive -- maybe in the expectation that the passage in question was so short that the gas requirements wouldn't be significant? If you were going to do that, it seems as though you would want to do it with the maximum amount of gas with you, just in case you have trouble getting through or are delayed for any other reason.

Maybe he knew these passages well, but if that was the case, why the reconnoitering earlier in the dive? Some things just don't make a lot of sense here.

There's wormhole. "Accidentally" stumbling across that jump is just next to statistically impossible IMO. It's obvious once you see it, but I don't think it's marked, so it's cut back a tad. Plus, there 3 T's in there (one very close to the entrance), so you'd quickly realize you messed up since there's only 14 or 15 T's (they get removed and added in a few areas due to line disagreements) in the first 2000(ish)ft of Ginnie, I think that would throw a flag for someone so familiar with the system.

 

[diverbob]

One other scenario that I read on another board, was that he could have been mistaken about which side of the crack he came out of. When he came out in the silt out, and found the line at Hill400, he thought he was in the expressway, heading to the Goldline. If this was the case, then he would expect to see the arrows pointing in the opposite direction. I am not familiar with the Expressway, or how the arrows are aligned there, but just looking at the map, that could make sense.

The one thing that keeps jumping out to me is, no matter how much training or experience we have, you never know how you are going to react when the poop hits the fan. Even if you handle it like you have ice water in your veins 99 out of 100 times, all it takes is that 1 time to get the better of you, and it could lead to trouble.

 

[Rick Murchison]

One other scenario that I read on another board, was that he could have been mistaken about which side of the crack he came out of. When he came out in the silt out, and found the line at Hill400, he thought he was in the expressway, heading to the Goldline. If this was the case, then he would expect to see the arrows pointing in the opposite direction.

That makes some sense too... it would sure help explain following a non-gold line, upstream.
And since he only made it about 380' up the Hill400 line he must have been scary low on gas already when he found it, so he must've spent more "stuck time" than I'd initially thought - and maybe the line-trap discussion isn't so much of a hijack after all.
If there's a *main* lesson for me on this one, it's reinforcing my anal insistance on "no visual jumps" and my aversion to small silty low flow passages.
Rick

 

[DA Aquamaster]

"Accidentally" stumbling across that jump (to the Wormhole) is just next to statistically impossible IMO.

Absolutely, which implies if he went through there, it was most likely intentional.

One other scenario that I read on another board, was that he could have been mistaken about which side of the crack he came out of. When he came out in the silt out, and found the line at Hill 400, he thought he was in the expressway, heading to the Goldline. If this was the case, then he would expect to see the arrows pointing in the opposite direction. I am not familiar with the Expressway, or how the arrows are aligned there, but just looking at the map, that could make sense.

I think it's a bit of a reach. I'm not a local zip code diver, but the tunnels are very different and the Hill 400 tunnel is very distinct and you'd have to again be pretty panicked to miss it and absent signs of panic, I don't think there is any real reason to make the conclusion he could confuse the two.

I know on a day with average - high flow, when putting in the primary and jump, I am close to hitting thirds not much past the top of the Hill 400 line. But if the SAC were a little higher and a diver took a lot longer moving slower through the Wormhole, then add getting stuck and the adddional gas consumption under stress, I could easily see someone being very low/out of gas where he was found.

 

[Kevin Carlisle]

I don't think there is any real reason to make the conclusion he could confuse the two.


Are we assuming he can see. I could be mistaken but what I heard on another board from a recovery team member was zero viz.. Looks to me like that if you did a blind jump and then zero viz you could easily get directions wrong.

 

[diverbob]

Absolutely, which implies if he went through there, it was most likely intentional.


I think it's a bit of a reach. I'm not a local zip code diver, but the tunnels are very different and the Hill 400 tunnel is very distinct and you'd have to again be pretty panicked to miss it and absent signs of panic, I don't think there is any real reason to make the conclusion he could confuse the two.

I know on a day with average - high flow, when putting in the primary and jump, I am close to hitting thirds not much past the top of the Hill 400 line. But if the SAC were a little higher and a diver took a lot longer moving slower through the Wormhole, then add getting stuck and the adddional gas consumption under stress, I could easily see someone being very low/out of gas where he was found.

I'm not arguing with you, you most likely have a lot more experience there than I do. I was just pointing out another possible scenario I read elsewhere. Bottom line is we have no idea what level of panic, if any, he was in and in what state of mind he was in to make any rational decisions.