Diver drowns in guided cenote dive

[MXGratefulDiver]

Training won't necessarily prevent death. Just ask Wes Skyles ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[The Chairman]

Training won't necessarily prevent death. Just ask Wes Skyles ...

As far as I know, he was not trained on that unit, Bob. Also, there were other factors that I won't go into here. As you pointed out, there are several tenets to Safe Cave Diving. Without training, you're not even going to know the others.

I've had a rebreather sitting in my van for the better part of a month. It's remained completely dry because I won't dive it without the proper training. I really don't see what's so hard about following that protocol.

 

[Johnoly]

... Also, there were other factors that I won't go into here..

I'll back you up on that Pete...I've read the entire M.E. report complete with all testing and download results. 'Nuff said.

Any accident is never caused by a single solitary item. It is always a chain of events that if it could be broken along the way would not lead to the same outcome. Never try to put your finger on and point to a single item for any accident analysis. It's always a chain of events.

 

[Dhboner]

I have done a lot of guided cenote dives and I always use the same guide (Erik Rosenstein of Beyond Diving). I have always trusted him with not only my life but that of my sons. We stay close as a team and Erik stays close and keeps a close eye on all of us. Having said that if I were to do a cenote trip with anyone else I would prefer (if not insist) on 2 guides..one in front and one "sweeper" in the rear. In the event of an issue, the guide in the front may not be aware for precious seconds/minutes and the worst could happen. If you have a "sweeper" at the back he/she could respond instantly to incidents as well as preventing anyone from going off the line. I am very lucky to have found a guide who cares about me and my sons as if we were his family but not every tourist has that advantage.

 

[John C. Ratliff]

As far as I know, he was not trained on that unit, Bob. Also, there were other factors that I won't go into here. As you pointed out, there are several tenets to Safe Cave Diving. Without training, you're not even going to know the others.

I've had a rebreather sitting in my van for the better part of a month. It's remained completely dry because I won't dive it without the proper training. I really don't see what's so hard about following that protocol.

I don't believe Wes Skyles was lost in an overhead environment.

SeaRat

 

[John C. Ratliff]

I find it really interesting to see the behavior of many of you here. I spent a number of years studying safety, 30+ years practicing it as both a safety professional and industrial hygienist, several years taking coursework to acquire my Master of Science in Public Health Degree, emphasis on Industrial Hygiene, in addition to my work in the field of both combat and non-combat search and rescue as a pararescueman, and get the response I have gotten from you. I have not "tried to prove my superiority," but have tried to give you a taste for new concepts from different fields that I have studied in depth. Oh, and I've done a bit of diving since 1959 too.

I have included a Figure 4.1 from a book from one of my courses* so that you can see that I'm not making this stuff up. If you feel threatened by new ideas, then look to yourselves for the problem, not me.

This diagram combines what health professionals know as the Theory of Reasoned Action and the Theory of Planned Behavior to explain various behaviors. This can and should be used to explain these resort dives and see whether we can figure out ways to keep people from dying. That is my goal here; simply to introduce new ideas to you, even if they are as unwelcome as they currently seem to be.

By the way, no one has really given a good response to how to get someone alive but unconscious out of that cenote. (Let's theorize that the diver jumped in, landed on the tanks of another diver, and was knocked out on the surface; that makes it easier.) Until there is a good way, I would not dive it.

SeaRat
John C. Ratliff, CSP, CIH, MSPH

*Glanz, Karen, Barbara K. Rimer, K. Viswanath, Health Behavior and Health Education, Theory, Research, and Practice, Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint, www.josseybass.com, 2008, pg. 70.

 

[Nirvana]

I don't think this accident can be dismissed as simply as "he died because he was diving beyond his training".

Those guided cenote dives are widely believed to be safe, judging by their frequency and publicity. And the reason I think they are believed to be safe relates to the conventionally made distinction between "cavern dives" and "cave dives".

A cavern dive does not include navigational decisions. The exit (or at least the direction of exit) should be visible at all times. The divers must remain close to open water. There must be no restrictions. In the context of the accident, the common thought is that those factors should ensure that even if a diver loses track of his guide or of the line, he should have no trouble locating the exit and terminating his dive alone.

I do not believe that this fatality proves that thinking like that is foolish, because we don't know if he died while adhering to the limits of a cavern dive, or at least trying to. To say that he died because of lack of training is to imply that something that was expected of a cavern dive happened and led to his death. I would agree it was the case if it was shown that he became lost due to a silt out, or that he got entangled and ended drowning before freeing himself. If he simply decided to explore a tunnel on his own, it says much less about the intrinsic safety of that kind of dive.

 

[The Chairman]

If you feel threatened by new ideas,

I'm not threatened in the least. As you stated, our goals are divergent. You're looking for an esoteric discussion on an accident. I am interested in simply preventing as many of these accidents as possible. You focus on all sorts of what ifs, while I focus on a solution.

I would suggest that my cave training causes me to look at cave accidents differently than a person who has not been formally trained. I'm not inclined to get all fancy and possibly obscure the fact that this individual had no business being in the cave environment. That's not my style. Everything I read about this accident screams that they violated several tenets of Safe Cave Diving. However, without the training, there's simply no way, and I mean absolutely no way that they could anticipate the others. Did he have three lights is moot if he never knew that he needed three lights. Did he follow the line is moot if he didn't know to follow the line or how to re-locate it if he lost it. Every single violation of Safe Cave Diving in this instance can be attributed to his woeful ignorance. This pervasive and lethal ignorance is the very thing that training should have been able to rectify. That you have training in accident analysis does not make you safe in a cave. That you're an instructor in accident analysis can not make you safe in a cave. There is nothing to prepare you for safe cave diving other than taking the proper cave diving classes. Nothing.

I would also suggest that if you chose to take cave diving courses, and learn the craft as a few of us have done, that your perspective might change drastically.

To say that he died because of lack of training is to imply that something that was expected of a cavern dive happened and led to his death

I have to ask... are you certified as a cave diver? The first iteration of cave training deals with safely negotiating the Cavern Zone. Are you suggesting that this training is superfluous? I would disagree.

 

[JohnnyC]

A cavern dive does not include navigational decisions. The exit (or at least the direction of exit) should be visible at all times. The divers must remain close to open water. There must be no restrictions. In the context of the accident, the common thought is that those factors should ensure that even if a diver loses track of his guide or of the line, he should have no trouble locating the exit and terminating his dive alone.

Except there are lots of cavern dives in Mexico that don't adhere to these. Dos Ojos is a great example.

I do not believe that this fatality proves that thinking like that is foolish, because we don't know if he died while adhering to the limits of a cavern dive, or at least trying to. To say that he died because of lack of training is to imply that something that was expected of a cavern dive happened and led to his death. I would agree it was the case if it was shown that he became lost due to a silt out, or that he got entangled and ended drowning before freeing himself. If he simply decided to explore a tunnel on his own, it says much less about the intrinsic safety of that kind of dive.

To the bold part, we DO know this, because we know he died in the cave zone, not the cavern zone, so he was clearly not adhering to the limits of a cavern dive. We also know that in order to do that in this particular cave, a conscious choice had to be made to leave the cavern line and enter the cave. Now who or why that happened isn't relevant, because we already know that either way rules were broken in order for that to happen.

Again, he didn't die on a cavern dive. At some point that cavern dive became a cave dive, and he died on said cave dive because he didn't have the proper training or equipment.

 

[The Chairman]

a conscious choice had to be made to leave the cavern line

This is not accurate. It's a tiny line in a huge cavern and incredibly easy to lose. It's easy enough for a non-trained individual to get spooked, confused, turn the wrong way fleeing for their life and subsequently take the wrong way out. All they need is for a light to go out, get distracted by a light deeper in the system, bump their head and the list can go on and on. It is only limited by your imagination and many of these possibilities don't include any conscious decisions. This is why training is the foundation of safety in a cavern and even more so in a cave. The life you save will be your own. But you know that since you've already done the training.