Death of cave diver at Mt Gambier, South Australia

[b1llyb0y]

I would tend to agree with your guess, I can only come up with either medical (I was unaware of any medical issues), entanglement and OOA situation or malfunction of equipment.

I am unsure if diving equipment can malfunction when properly maintained as I am not a diver, but again by knowing him, I would bet my bottom dollar it was all maintained to the highest degree.

Indeed, it is very unfortunate and we cannot believe it ourselves.

 

[gcbryan]

I would tend to agree with your guess, I can only come up with either medical (I was unaware of any medical issues), entanglement and OOA situation or malfunction of equipment.

I am unsure if diving equipment can malfunction when properly maintained as I am not a diver, but again by knowing him, I would bet my bottom dollar it was all maintained to the highest degree.

Indeed, it is very unfortunate and we cannot believe it ourselves.

Hi billybOy. You have my condolences of course.

Sure, anything can malfunction, well maintained or not, but in scuba accidents as in airplane accidents it's rarely equipment malfunction. In flying it usually gets written up as "pilot error" but that's a broad category. It just means that it wasn't an equipment problem and that humans aren't perfect.

Diving doubles (two tanks that can be isolated from each other) also usually would mean (in cave diving gear anyway) that some malfunction wouldn't usually cause a diver to lose all of their air.

Since the other diver left, it seems that he must have been low on air or he wouldn't have left his buddy. He would have just stayed out of reach if necessary. Medical issues are always a possibility but if there was indeed an entanglement issue it's not likely that a medical issue occurred at that exact moment.

All this is just guessing of course but some accidents are more puzzling than others and educated guessing is all we have unless the other diver speaks out and of course more should be known after an investigation if that is done.

 

[Fanojaques]

Although I am a pretty experienced diver, I am not a Cave diver.
Therefore I have a question for the Cave Divers.

Do cave divers not use octopus regs? I doubt I have seen an open water diver without an one for a very long time. My thought so far would be that maybe cave diving does not use them as they add to possible entanglement.

Please enlighten me.

 

[stiebs]

Although I am a pretty experienced diver, I am not a Cave diver.
Therefore I have a question for the Cave Divers.

Do cave divers not use octopus regs? I doubt I have seen an open water diver without an one for a very long time. My thought so far would be that maybe cave diving does not use them as they add to possible entanglement.

Please enlighten me.

Hi Fanojaques,

Cave divers will not generally use an octopus per se, but will usually use a twin cylinder rig. And that's certainly the case with the CDAA, and a requirement for diving this site. The equipment setup, along with proper training, allows for a configuration that reduces risk of entanglement, and increases redundancy in case of emergency.

Obviously something went wrong on this dive, and as Alien said, often trying to analysis an accident without proper facts can lead to inconsistencies and untruths, especially when there is doubt over the accuracy of the known "facts".

The director of the CDAA has notified the member base of this incident, and indicated that a full coroners inquiry will be performed, along with an accident analysis by the CDAA. I respect his request to not speculate any further, and encourage others to do the same. When the coroners inquiry and analysis has been complete, we will be able to hopefully learn from this unfortunate accident.

 

[rongoodman]

Cave divers are more likely to be breathing from a regulator on a long (7') hose and will donate that, rather than an octopus. They then go to their secondary regulator, which is hanging on a necklace made of bungee cord right below their chin. The long hose is long enough so that the two can proceed single file through a restriction while sharing air. Until it is donated, the long hose is routed in such a way that it lies closer to the body than the standard regulator hose used by most recreational divers. My picture here isn't very good, but you can see that neither of the hoses is protruding much past my shoulders.

 

[TSandM]

If the story is correct, it sounds to me as though something happened to the diver to make him feel he couldn't breathe. I would surprised if it were an equipment problem, because as cave divers, we generally have practiced being out of gas or having to shut a post down until it's really second nature.

I'd wonder much more about a medical problem, either cardiac, or something like immersion pulmonary edema or a pneumothorax, that made the diver feel he couldn't breathe no matter what self-rescue he did, until he reached the point of sheer panic. No matter how experienced someone is, if you're suffocating, there's going to come a point where you lose rational thought. It's no reflection on the diver or his training.

 

[gcbryan]

If the story is correct, it sounds to me as though something happened to the diver to make him feel he couldn't breathe. I would surprised if it were an equipment problem, because as cave divers, we generally have practiced being out of gas or having to shut a post down until it's really second nature.

I'd wonder much more about a medical problem, either cardiac, or something like immersion pulmonary edema or a pneumothorax, that made the diver feel he couldn't breathe no matter what self-rescue he did, until he reached the point of sheer panic. No matter how experienced someone is, if you're suffocating, there's going to come a point where you lose rational thought. It's no reflection on the diver or his training.

He also could have experienced the problem that Bob experienced a while back with larynx spasms caused by inhaling a bit of water or whatever that condition is called.

It just seemed to me that if he was tangled in line (if that's true) that he probably didn't have a medical program at that exact moment...unless on contributed to the other.

 

[roughwater]

Cave divers are more likely to be breathing from a regulator on a long (7') hose and will donate that, rather than an octopus. They then go to their secondary regulator, which is hanging on a necklace made of bungee cord right below their chin. The long hose is long enough so that the two can proceed single file through a restriction while sharing air. Until it is donated, the long hose is routed in such a way that it lies closer to the body than the standard regulator hose used by most recreational divers. My picture here isn't very good, but you can see that neither of the hoses is protruding much past my shoulders.

... only if diving in a manifold configuration. Other configurations include sidemounts, and rebreathers which have a different configuration type.

However, in all situations cave divers should be able to donate gas to another diver.

From my understanding of past incidents, there is rarely a single cause to incidents, but normally a number of factors that are involved. These can include narcosis, diving beyond ones training/capability, equipment malfunction, and inadequate dive planning to name a few.

I'm not saying this is the case in the current scenario, but I think that there's really no point speculating as to the cause of the death, as we don't even know the basics (such as equipment used, depth dived, etc), let alone what the buddy or other divers observed.

(I wouldn't take media reports as being reliable information either, especially this early).

As others have said, best really to wait until the investigation has been completed, and we have the facts.

 

[b1llyb0y]

Please find the tribute page for our lost friend here;

For those that live in Australia (Melbourne) you will find it in today's Herald Sun on page #72
Or for those online at the following addresses;

w.w.w.legacy.com/gb2/default.aspx?bookid=10363896852075&cid=full
w.w.w.onlinetributes.com.au/McAlisterRobert/
tributes.heraldsun.com.au/obituaries/heraldsun-au/obituary.aspx?n=robert-michael-mcalister-rob&pid=140766827

Please remove the "."'s between www when visiting the links as I was not allowed to post URL's due to being a new member.

 

[DandyDon]

Please find the tribute page for our lost friend here;

For those that live in Australia (Melbourne) you will find it in today's Herald Sun on page #72
Or for those online at the following addresses;

w.w.w.legacy.com/gb2/default.aspx?bookid=10363896852075&cid=full
w.w.w.onlinetributes.com.au/McAlisterRobert/
tributes.heraldsun.com.au/obituaries/heraldsun-au/obituary.aspx?n=robert-michael-mcalister-rob&pid=140766827

Please remove the "."'s between www when visiting the links as I was not allowed to post URL's due to being a new member.

That's a spam control feature built into the board. Here are your links...

Guest Book for Dr. Robert Michael McAlister (Rob) Online Guest Book by Herald Sun and Legacy.com.

Australian Tribute Website | OnlineTributes.com.au If link fails, then try Robert McAlister Australian Tribute Website | OnlineTributes.com.au

And you are welcome to open such a tread on our Condolences Forum Passings - ScubaBoard​