Diver Drowns at Ginnie Springs

[contender]

Isn't the flow reduced right now due to the high water levels?

Not in Ginnie as of last night.

 

[Meng_Tze]

In addition to flow rate, you also most consider the time necessary to stage, to tie off lines, and the possibilities of restrictions that make it necessary to remove and replace gear. I've never been that far back in Ginnie, so I can't speak for the number of tight restrictions necessary to reach that particular point, but my experience is that it is difficult to apply "average" swim times to advanced cave penetrations.

3000ft in Ginnie is about the Henkle restriction, just before the Berman room. You can swim back mounted in Ginnie on the mainline to about 3800ft going through some minor restrictions. After that it gets tighter and turns to sidemount stuff. Swimming in against flow to 3000ft takes between 50-70 minutes (if you don't give up before that), a scooter gets you there around 18mins.

 

[2Tours N Iraq`]

Original post removed by myself due to being off topic.

I'm also assuming the rescue team was certainly using scooters to recover the victim?

 

[Meng_Tze]

Given the distance and work needed to be done, that would be a fair assumption

 

[Dan Watkins]

I'm not a cave diver, but reading these posts I see a few references to a hinkle or henkle restriction. What does that mean?

 

[Meng_Tze]

It is a place in Ginnie you get to when you follow the main line. I think we can discuss places and such in a different forum (Cave diving). This specific thread is for the actual accident.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

I'm not a cave diver, but reading these posts I see a few references to a hinkle or henkle restriction. What does that mean?

It's not "a" restriction, it's "the" restriction--only Ginnie has the Hinkel because it's a restriction just in Ginnie. Basically, it's just the name of that one restriction. It's not a type of restriction. And you can find it spelled a million ways, hinkel, henkle, hienkle, hienkel.... My understanding is that the hinkel is at 3000 feet, so he was past that.

I know that Rich Courtney helped with the recovery, and I know that Rich is an accomplished scooter diver--the recovery team most likely made use of them.

 

[TSandM]

A lot of places in caves get named -- There's the Gallery, and the Keyhole, and the Hill 400 jump . . . Drives you crazy if you aren't familiar with the cave in question, but it's a way of making people's trips through the cave easily understood by others. Just like the traffic reports in Seattle, that will tell you the traffic slows at the S-curves. You can't find S-curves on any map; you just have to know where they are to understand the report.

 

[Dive-aholic]

if it is true that he was 3000+ft into the system - wow and thankyou to those that recovered him

as this forum exists to "This forum is for the discussion of diving Accidents and Incidents", and as im someone that doesnt dive caves

would a diver usually run a line and would that explain why the recovery team found him quite quickly?? (well what i would call quickly as i can only imagine the logistics to start a search like this at short notice)

As has already been stated, there is a permanent mainline in the cave that's usually a braided gold color. There are also several off shoots that are lined with white cave line in the caves. That's not why the recovery team found him so quickly though. There are thousands of feet of line in Devil's. Mark told someone his dive plan. When he didn't return on schedule, the recovery began. All they had to do is scooter back to where he said he was going to be and that's where they found him.

 

[2Tours N Iraq`]

I think it is important to note that a sometimes overlooked skill of many inexperienced open water divers is the importance of making sure someone else knows the dive plan in case of an emergency. Briefing a friend or family member not joining you on that dive about where you are diving, the conditions you are diving in, your actual dive plan, and your return time allows them to give rescue personnel a head-start, so to speak, that sometimes leads to a rescue with a happy ending while in less fortunate circumstances a quick recovery operation that provides closure to the friends and family of the victim. His recovery would not have taken place so quickly had he not put this skill into practice by briefing someone else his dive plan in its entirety. May we at least learn to practice this skill more often from this unfortunate incident.