Diver Drowns at Ginnie Springs

[LIVES4SHARKS]

From past faux pas, I would suggest holding off assumptions 'till the final report, which will be issued to the cave community. He did have a purpose being where he was, doing what he was doing. It is unclear what failure occurred. All will be revealed as soon as possible.

Dont be hatin'!
Be safe out there!
Carolyn:sharks:

 

[Gombessa]

Emotions understandably run high when we're struck with this kind of tragedy. We probably can't help turning to speculation, but we can at least try to keep it civil.

Even when the report comes out, there will probably be more questions than answers.

 

[Web Monkey]

Moderator Post

Please try to stay within the guidelines of this forum.

I deleted several posts and edited one.

Thanks,

Terry Carmen, Moderator.



​

 

[JahJahwarrior]

Please let me say that I am usually one of the first to jump on the "stupidity kills" and "cleaning out the gene pool" bandwagon.

But even if it was some error of his own that killed him, there is no way I would ever make any degrading comments about him.

Why? Because everyone makes mistakes. Let's focus on the fact that the world is missing one more person, one more diver, one more accomplished, cave diver. Lets focus on the fact that lots of people on TDS and CDF knew this man and infact, a member at TDS was hosting him at his home as he was on this trip. Lets' focus on the fact that a tragedy has occurred--lets all get together and cry on each other's shoulders and not worry over what happened or why, but only about the fact that his fiance has lost the love of her life, and that's all that is important rightnow.

My condolences go out to his fiance, to his family, and to all who knew him. My sincere thanks go out to everyone who helped in the recovery.

Words cannot express the deep sorrow I feel for his family and fiance....they really cannot.

 

[TennInstr]

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.

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.

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.

I apologize for my previous post. The angry tone was triggered by the death of a fellow cave diver and what I perceived as very innapropriate comments from someone with no real concept of the incident. (not to mention the foreign thing) A lot of people seemed to be affected by that post (which is no longer in this thread) but I agree I let my emotions get the best of me. Thanks for calling me on it.

 

[Dive-aholic]

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.

According to someone on TDS, Mark was certified full cave Nov 2005, IANTD cave instructor Nov 2007, and Meg RB diver April 2007.

Not a whole lot of time, but they didn't state how many dives or how much time under water. He could have several hundred dives and hours in that time.

It appears he was pushing a lead and exploring new passage and things just went wrong. I've heard details about the incident, but I'm going to refrain from posting them until the IUCRR report comes out.

 

[thmoose51]

I strongly suspect that we will never know the exact sequence of events that caused this divers death. There are several possibilities that include human error, equipment failure, or some type of medical event. Based on the reporting of previous incidents it seems we will never know the whole story. Most of what we hear is "don't speculate" until we get all the info...which rarely comes, so all we can do is speculate. I do hope that eventually we will have enough information that we can apply the principles of "accident analysis" so we can all learn from this obviously special person who lost his life doing what we love to do. Meanwhile, we should all remember that we are a small community and we should love and support each other. One thing I have learned is that life is about relationships. This man was well known and loved. Honor him and those that live on and continue to dive.

 

[timle]

An organization does exist for Cave Rescue and Recovery. They have a history of publishing their reports on their website. While many times these reports contain very little facts about what went wrong (as no one alive knows them), they are made available. People are simply asking for time for this information to be made available. I suspect after that people who were present might also relate some of their information, if they show choose. Until then I suggest we be patient and respectful as the cave diving community and the local law enforcement and government follow proper protocol.

 

[Mike Edmonston]

Let's focus on the fact that the world is missing one more person, one more diver, one more accomplished cave diver. Lets focus on the fact that lots of people on TDS and CDF knew this man and infact, a member at TDS was hosting him at his home as he was on this trip. Lets' focus on the fact that a tragedy has occurred--lets all get together and cry on each other's shoulders and not worry over what happened or why, but only about the fact that his fiance has lost the love of her life, and that's all that is important rightnow.

My condolences go out to his fiance, to his family, and to all who knew him. My sincere thanks go out to everyone who helped in the recovery.

Words cannot express the deep sorrow I feel for his family and fiance....they really cannot.

Well said Michael.

I believe that until the report comes out, this about sums it up.

 

[Johnoly]

I apologize for my previous post.

My amends also, I jumped on the foreigner comment too before mine was deleted{rightfully}. Not the time nor the place.