Diver missing at Ginnie?

[Trace Malinowski]

And that is exactly what I said. The IUCRR no longer publishes reports but instead sends them to the police, where the public can only access them through a Freedom of Information Act request.

And you are exactly correct.

 

[ginti]

This is nothing new. People have used different brand regulators for different stages, different colored regulators for different gas mixtures (e.g., green hosed and green covered second stages for oxygen), poodle jackets, etc. as a way to differentiate gasses. There have been examples where all of these practices have failed, because they put the regulator on the wrong bottle, etc.
I am afraid this would include your envisioned "solution."
A proper gas analysis, documentation, and gas switching protocol is simple and effective if employed correctly.

I agree with the protocol, which I strictly follow, always (even if I have only one deco bottle).

I have never claimed that my idea is a solution, and I will never - it was just an idea written down when spending a bit of free time on a forum

But, out of curiosity, how can you die from oxygen toxicity if you can't breathe at dangerous depths? (I am speaking about a practical scenario here: I am aware that breathing O2 100% at 6m for a very long time leads to toxicity, but here the problem is to actually miss the depths)

 

[rob.mwpropane]

thanks, this is what he said;
"Here's an idea. What if we start putting up "memorial" plaques al all the sites where people have died. It would have pictures of the deceased, and a brief description of how and why they died. At the bottom, we could end with "honor these people by learning from their deaths. please don't dive without sufficient training and preparation." It'll be sufficiently respectful to not piss off their families, but will tell a pretty chilling tale. Biut it's not really a memorial, it's more like those anti smoking ads with some guy with a tube out their throats.

Making it personal might get the message across better."

I am not cave or tech certified. I look up to you all. I try to learn. I try to put myself in the shoes of some of these situations and think about what I would do. I aspire to to be like some of you. I will get more advanced when the kids are older and money is more abundant.

With that said, I think the above posted is a great idea. I can see how many people, myself included, would be all fun and games going on a technical dive at a technical site... but a sign like that, at a place that I don't go to every day, would cause me to pause and think things through a little more. Those signs would be filled with a lot of the greats... way better divers than I'll ever be. And if it can happen to them, it could happen to me.. I would pause and double check things maybe one more time. It would be enough to possibly save someone like me.

 

[beldridg]

I agree with the protocol, which I strictly follow, always (even if I have only one deco bottle).

I have never claimed that my idea is a solution, and I will never - it was just an idea written down when spending a bit of free time on a forum

But, out of curiosity, how can you die from oxygen toxicity if you can't breathe at dangerous depths? (I am speaking about a practical scenario here: I am aware that breathing O2 100% at 6m for a very long time leads to toxicity, but here the problem is to actually miss the depths)

Put the "wrong" regulator on the "wrong" bottle.

- brett

 

[Trace Malinowski]

One of the things about cave diving is that when cave divers are solo, they are never running video except for the Bushman's Hole tragedy. Just the other day, I was thinking about adding a second Go Pro to my speargun and facing it toward me. That way, I can play it back and see if a shark I didn't see saw me. That's kind of a joke. But, in spearfishing, so many guys are running action cameras that videos exist of just about every incident and lots of close calls with the local wildlife.

Solo cave deaths have no witnesses living or electronic. Even if we could piece together what happened, the why would be unknown.

 

[boulderjohn]

I'm a volunteer RRSOM/Diver with the IUCRR, and there are no backroom discussions within the organization either of which I am aware. The reports are supposed to be "just the facts" in a way "Dragnet" would be proud.

There are problems with "just the facts" mantra, as I discovered in my history of writing reports on cave diving incidents (which includes near fatalities as well as fatalities). The most important is that in cases where the facts are in dispute, publishing only what you know for sure can paint an inaccurate picture. The Paul Newman/Sally Field movie Absence of Malice creates a prime example showing how a factual report on a small part of a complex situation can lead to an erroneous conclusion.

I ran into this more than a few times. When the facts are in dispute and you publish only what you know for sure, you can create a picture even you do not believe. In one example, only two people know what happened at a certain point in a dive. Each person told me what happened at length, and what they said was completely different. One said something I won't name happened, and the other said it did not happen. The person who said it happened was only a small part of the full story, which was essentially about what happened to the other guy. That other guy not only said it did not happen, he said we could not use anything he told me if we included that person's version, he would sue. I believe he was lying because the facts would be embarrassing. NSS decided not to include anything related to that part of the dive. So we omitted everything about what the other person said, and he is the one I believe was telling the truth. By omitting everything in dispute, we essentially corroborated what we believed to be a lie.

If we were a police agency, we could write all that out without fear of a lawsuit. Not being a police agency, we could not.

 

[boulderjohn]

Solo cave deaths have no witnesses living or electronic. Even if we could piece together what happened, the why would be unknown.

In a recent double fatality in Mexico, the divers were shooting video for most of the dive. What happened is still completely baffling. The people who recovered the bodies analyzed the video for about a year before deciding they could not figure out what happened and writing a report that said as much. I spoke with them at length and am at a loss as well.

 

[ginti]

Put the "wrong" regulator on the "wrong" bottle.

- brett

True, but that is true even if you put the "wrong" MOD on the "wrong" bottle... My perception is that it is easier to double-check everything out of the water than in the water (which is one of the reasons why we have "so many" deaths).

Anyway, we are going a bit OT, maybe we can discuss this in another thread if you guys want

 

[boulderjohn]

My perception is that it is easier to double-check everything out of the water than in the water (which is one of the reasons why we have "so many" deaths).

I tell my students that it is true that breathing the wrong gas at the wrong depth is one of the leading causes of death for technical divers, but in the overwhelming majority of those cases, the error actually took place on land. During the dive, the divers think they are doing the right thing, but the content of the bottle is not what they think it is.

Last weekend I did a pool skill session with a student, and I made him analyze all our tanks, even though at our depths nothing could go wrong.

 

[Manatee Diver]

If we were a police agency, we could write all that out without fear of a lawsuit. Not being a police agency, we could not.

I believe the fear of lawsuits is overblown. As mentioned you literally can't defame a dead person in the US. Heck even ongoing defamation lawsuits may not survive the death of the plaintiff.

When was the last cave diving related death lawsuit? Was there a lawsuit over Daisy's death in 2019? How about Tom's death last year? And even if there was one, nothing is going to stop the counsels from subpoenaing the people involved in the recovery, and having to be deposed or having to testify.

So I'm not sure what they are protecting by not publicly releasing the reports that involve a death. And the truth as you know it is a defense against defamation cases involving living people.