Ccr Diver From Ohio Died In Ginnie Springs Today...

[Hawkwood]

Pat,
For those reasons, it's usually recommended that friends and family NOT read accident analysis threads. It may be wise to pick one member from your Uncle's friends or family (preferably someone with dive experience) and have them read this thread. They can then report back to the rest of the family/friends with a more considerate tone.

There's also a memorial thread specifically for remembering divers that have passed away. If there is comfort to be found, it's more likely to be found there, among his friends in the diving community.

Once again, I'm sorry for your loss. You and your family have all of my best wishes and kindest thoughts.

-h

Thanks...The very first bullet in the Special Rules relates just to what you brought up. The Special Rules also brings attention to where condolences are to be placed...in the "Passings" Forum.

 

[Jax]

One thing I have learned - if someone on a rebreather is swimming in circles, tilting, et cetera as described here, I (an OC diver) would get him or her on my long hose and get him/her to safety if at all possible. I would assume my gas is safe as I have analyzed it, and whatever the issue of the rebreather diver, I would not even try to solve it with the rebreather diver's resources. Assuming, of course, no one else around.

 

[The Chairman]

@LoganPat We don't post names of the deceased until there has been a public announcement. People keep asking me to reveal who it is and frankly I don't know. Even if I did, I want to be sure the family knows first before the interwebs. If someone does find out, remember you can only reveal the name by citing the public source. I do know what rebreather he was on, but I'll wait for that to be made public first as well.

This is a huge topic of discussion and speculation here in Cave Country. I got stopped in the Springs Diner today and asked. The gentleman at the Goodyear on main street asked me about it and he's not even a cave diver. This is newsworthy for us mainly because we want to prevent as many deaths as possible. If you find a particular post that seems to go over the line in any respect, just hit "Report Post" and tell us why you think it's inappropriate. We'll look at it with kind, albeit unjaundiced eyes and take action if it seems warranted. There's nothing we can do for your uncle, but we want to learn from what happened to him so we can possibly prevent a repeat.

 

[Hetland]

One thing I have learned - if someone on a rebreather is swimming in circles, tilting, et cetera as described here, I (an OC diver) would get him or her on my long hose and get him/her to safety if at all possible. I would assume my gas is safe as I have analyzed it, and whatever the issue of the rebreather diver, I would not even try to solve it with the rebreather diver's resources. Assuming, of course, no one else around.

Not just swimming in circles either. Anything that seems uncharacteristic (easier with long-time buddy) could indicate a problem.

 

[VMI08]

As a family member of the aforementioned diver,

Please refrain from the use of inappropriate comments about the matter of his death. Our family is grieving heavily and are trying to make accommodations and more importantly find out what happened. This is the only article we can find on the incident and it is being read by many of my family members.

I will not mention my Uncle's name but he was a very liked individual who had a very great passion for diving. I don't believe I could think of a bad thing to say about the man and we are deeply saddened.

My uncle has performed hundreds possibly thousands of dives. Whether it was human-error or equipment malfunction please keep inappropriate comments away from this blog; once again, many many family members are reading this trying to understand how this happened.

If anyone has any news on what exactly happened please contact me privately.

Thank you for your consideration,
Pat

Sorry for your loss... Hopefully the dive community can learn something from this unfortunate accident.

 

[JohnnyC]

One thing I have learned - if someone on a rebreather is swimming in circles, tilting, et cetera as described here, I (an OC diver) would get him or her on my long hose and get him/her to safety if at all possible. I would assume my gas is safe as I have analyzed it, and whatever the issue of the rebreather diver, I would not even try to solve it with the rebreather diver's resources. Assuming, of course, no one else around.

Maybe yes, maybe no. It depends on your ability to read the situation and act accordingly. If you have a buddy on CCR, they should tell you the procedure. If it's someone you come across in a cave and they're not necessarily acting what you would think normally, you can do just the opposite if you don't know what you're doing and just start pulling things and twisting things and shoving things where they don't belong.

Without getting too in depth, there are some rebreathers that to de-water the loop you have to do some acrobatic looking things. If you see this and assume they're in trouble and yank the loop out of their mouth and try and shove a regulator in their face you've just flooded their rebreather, made them severely negative, and placed them in a pretty precarious situation. You have to understand the failure modes of rebreathers and how to counteract them, and all this is done with experience diving with rebreather divers. With luck they'll have a BOV that should be as simple as flipping a lever or turning a switch. However if this isn't the case are you prepared to understand how their DSV works, are you prepared to judge whether or not they can overcome the CO2-induced urge to inhale long enough to get a reg in their mouth? What if they can't?

There's a whole myriad of things that need to be processed and understood before you can make a conscious decision about the best way to help a CCR diver. If you don't have the experience to make those sound judgements, it's potentially even more dangerous to act, even with the best of intentions. The real answer is to dive with CCR divers enough so that you can learn how various systems work, and how to best deal with problems within that framework. Simply throwing a long hose at someone without thinking is a bad idea.

When you're back in AZ let me know, we can meet up for coffee or something and I'll bring along a DSV and bailout valve or two and a couple counterlungs to show you the difference and why you need to understand what's going on so you can formulate the correct plan of action.

 

[Garth]

Agree with JohnnyC. You start flipping levers you'll end up messing things up worse.

Get the diver to the line.

I don't carry a long hose. If you are in grave danger you can have one of my tanks depending on where we are.

It would be nice to know if the buddy was a close buddy or if they didn't dive regularly together.

 

[Garth]

Here is my wish list for accident analysis:
Rebreather or OC?
Type of rebreather?
Sidemount or backmount?
Deep or shallow?
Large or tight passage?
Solo or buddy?
Experience in hours on unit?
Number of dives at system?
Time since last dive?
Physical fitness?
Mental state of mind, calm, anxious
Any failures that preceded the dive maybe during build of unit?
Self packed scrubber vs EAC?
Hours on current scrubber?
Cell life, age, type?
BOV present or DSV?
Etc, etc...


There are a ton of questions that us divers want to know that we likely never will unless someone releases the information. This list isn't comprehensive at all but is a starting point.

I'll never forget the intensive analysis of the wkpp accident a few years ago. They spelled it all out and there was no need for speculation.

Just a thought,
Garth

 

[EFX]

I'll never forget the intensive analysis of the wkpp accident a few years ago. They spelled it all out and there was no need for speculation.

and just when did they spell it all out?

The rules say the main objective of this forum is to learn from accidents and near misses so (hopefully) we can prevent them in the future. But when you open a thread BEFORE all the facts are known you invite speculation. We can only learn so much from speculation. If anything it becomes a mind-numbing regurgitation of the rules we already know. I hope when all or most of the facts come in they'll be posted here and then maybe we can learn something of real value.

 

[Garth]

and just when did they spell it all out?

The rules say the main objective of this forum is to learn from accidents and near misses so (hopefully) we can prevent them in the future. But when you open a thread BEFORE all the facts are known you invite speculation. We can only learn so much from speculation. If anything it becomes a mind-numbing regurgitation of the rules we already know. I hope when all or most of the facts come in they'll be posted here and then maybe we can learn something of real value.

I can find it tonight. It probably was on another board but there was a case involving a wkpp death involving a breather and the wrong gas was dropped which caused the wrong gas to be used to feed their breather.
It was detailed and the first post of its kind as far as I can tell. There were still questions afterword but the questions were answered.
Very different than this situation in which we don't even know what breather, what happened to other buddy or really anything as far as I can tell.