Diver Drowns at Ginnie Springs

[mkutyna]

News - - Gainesville.com

No, I don't know any additional information right now. I'm sure DecoStop and other forums have more info though. I'll see if I can find links later tonight.

 

[LIVES4SHARKS]

From the DECO STOP:

Cave Diving Fatality - Past the Hinkel
This is an IUCRR notification to the cave diving community that yesterday. At about 1230 noon, a diver entered the water in Devils System, Ginnie Springs. Later that day Ginnie staffers learned the dive was for the purpose of exploration beyond the Hinkel restriction. The IUCRR learned that the diver was configured in a rebreather with sufficient scrubber to last 10 hours and also a side mount/no mount rig for the effort needed to make a passage through a suspected new lead.

The staff of Ginnie Springs reported the event to the IUCRR at 2130 hours yesterday. They also reported a degradation of visibility within the system making recreational diving unsafe. A preliminary inspection dive revealed that the visibility issue was caused by the attempted exploration and at that time the diver discovered a fatality at about 3300 or more feet in the system.

AT 0900 today an IUCRR recovery team extricated the body and later teams removed the individuals gear and paraphernalia used. Reports of the divers identity are being withheld at this time. The IUCRR extends condolences to the family. I would like to thanks Rose and Mark Meadows for their assistance, Lamar Hires the IUCRR Training Director and Jerry Murphy for their assistance in returning the body to the surface. The effort was enhanced by many others who gave surface support and diving assistance in this recovery.

As per IUCRR policy, a full report is being prepared for the Gilchrist County authorities for their evaluation and review. Once their review is concluded it will be released it to the cave diving community.


God bless his family, and friends left behind. He was friends of many divers in the cave community. This is the link to his site. It is a very sad loss of a good diver. Welcome to fyvie.net

Carolyn:sharks:

 

[almitywife]

can i assume they mean a rebreather? "Fyvie had been using a diving system that would have allowed a diver to remain underwater for a longer period of time than usual, according to the Sheriff's Office"

how horrible for the diver involved..... i hope he didnt suffer too much

 

[LiteHedded]

he was diving a meg I believe

 

[timle]

Yes he was using a rebreather.

People involved with Mark and his recovery have asked to kept speculation to a minimum especially at least until the IUCRR report comes out.

 

[havnmonkey]

from his site he seemed like a very accomplished diver... Hopefully the diving community can learn from this incident, and we can benefit in the form of safety from it.

 

[fisherdvm]

My condolences to him and his family. He appeared to have been a very experienced and accomplished diver, based on his website.

My very simple question is, don't you need a cave or cavern certification to enter such an environment? I did not read that qualification... But perhaps that was the reason why he was in Florida.

 

[jsquaredFL]

I don't want to turn this into a huge fight but after the aggressive nature of your post I feel a need to say something.

He was a cave and rebreather diver with no doubt a ton of training and experience or he wouldn't have been doing the dive he was doing.

As an instructor, how many times have you seen that stop someone from doing something stupid under the water? Simply judging his experience from the dive he was doing is a mistake in and of itself. I fully understand you probably read his page a bit before posting it.

You don't have enough experience to even pretend to have something useful to say about this.

Perhaps that is the very reason he decided to post something, because he doesn't have the experience to know any better or what difference it makes. I sincerely hope you don't have this short a temper with your students when they make a mistake. As an instructor you should also understand that outside of tech diving, divers are usually taught that you don't even think about going in the water without a buddy.


Again, I'm not trying to start a fight or something while we are discussing this sad event, I'm just saying............take a step back and see it from someone else's point of view.

 

[timle]

Well so much for the minimum speculation.

What leads you to believe he was not experienced at Ginnie? He was well known and respected by a number of divers in and around High Springs.

He had at least the following certifications:

* IANTD Closed Circuit Rebreather (CCR) - Megalodon
* IANTD CCR Cave Diver
* IANTD CCR Trimix Diver
* NACD Cave DPV (scooter)

I hate to even be responding at this point with no information about the actual accident. However if I can prevent just one person believing a rumor, it will be well worth it.

 

[NancyLynn]

What leads you to believe he was not experienced at Ginnie?

In fact, his website indicates he was experienced at Ginnie ( Welcome to fyvie.net ). If you follow the second link on the highlights page, there is a photo album from a visit in 2005.