Diver missing at Ginnie?

[Gone for diving]

• The diver was preparing to dive at Ginnie Springs, and had a stage clearly marked "oxygen." When others asked him about it, he said he had filled the bottle himself, and it contained air. People insisted he check it. He refused angrily and dived. It contained oxygen.
• The diver was preparing for a dive but broke his foot. He had a long layoff while it healed. When he recovered, he did a dive to the wreck Hydro Atlantic in Boca Raton, with a deck at about 150 feet and the sand at 170. He remembered that his doubles had air in them when he had planned the dive before the injury. He didn't check. They had EANx 36.

Wow that scary, in more ways than one.

I would love to see this kind of stuff in one spot so I could learn from others mistakes...

Its alot cheaper to learn from others who have already made that mistake...

Its always good to talk to older people...

 

[kensuf]

True, but the people involved probably have a greater liability in their professional roles (as many are involved in the industry). Compared to that liability a groundless lawsuit seems pretty minor.

Yeah, I personally think the risk of being sued if all they did was report what they saw, is minimal.

I am going off of my years reading reports. I know of no formal study. Here are two such cases I know of.

• The diver was preparing to dive at Ginnie Springs, and had a stage clearly marked "oxygen." When others asked him about it, he said he had filled the bottle himself, and it contained air. People insisted he check it. He refused angrily and dived. It contained oxygen.
• The diver was preparing for a dive but broke his foot. He had a long layoff while it healed. When he recovered, he did a dive to the wreck Hydro Atlantic in Boca Raton, with a deck at about 150 feet and the sand at 170. He remembered that his doubles had air in them when he had planned the dive before the injury. He didn't check. They had EANx 36.

I had a friend that died from breathing pure helium when he thought the bottle was 100% oxygen.

 

[Johnoly]

I see no reason that we can't publish diving accident reports. ....

Sky Diving / Parachuting: Incident Reports
Mountaineering: AAC Publications
Flying: https://www.faa.gov/data_research/accident_incident/

Never once after an above accident have you heard calls for:
Skydiving = Close the field where they fell
Mountaineering = Close the mountain
Flying = Close the airport

Yet in cave accidents it's always said by un-informed posters " CLOSE THE CAVE !!" .

 

[wgw04024]

Wow that scary, in more ways than one.

I would love to see this kind of stuff in one spot so I could learn from others mistakes...

Its alot cheaper to learn from others who have already made that mistake...

Its always good to talk to older people...

A good start is just reading this forum from the beginning. So much to learn from here!

 

[Gone for diving]

A good start is just reading this forum from the beginning. So much to learn from here!

Yeah but it can be hard to sieve information...

I have a pdf with rebreather deaths,
And basic outline what happened over the years, its very sobering... bit like walking though a graveyard...
You will die, question is how will you die.

 

[boulderjohn]

Here is another lawsuit of interest. Although he was not cave diving at the time, noted cave diver Wes Skiles died on a dive using a Dive Rite rebreather. His wife sued Dive Rite for 25 million dollars. She lost, but it was quite an ordeal for Dive Rite. The case finally ended in 2016, just after IUCRR stopped publishing cave fatality reports. I have no idea if this lawsuit had any impact on the thinking of IUCRR, but it might have, since the owner of Dive Rite is one of the leaders of IUCRR.

 

[beldridg]

Never once after an above accident have you heard calls for:
Skydiving = Close the field where they fell
Mountaineering = Close the mountain
Flying = Close the airport

Yet in cave accidents it's always said by un-informed posters " CLOSE THE CAVE !!" .

My belief is that they would say that regardless of whether a formal report was published or not. IMO, they are somewhat orthogonal.

- brett

 

[kensuf]

The NSSCDS lawsuit was also settled around the same time. It cost the section $70k in legal fees.

 

[tursiops]

The biggest fear of accident reports and open discussion I've heard expressed -- personally as well as on-line -- is NOT of lawsuits, but rather of closing a cave, especially by a private landowner, who IS afraid of lawsuits. Much harder to quantify the risk of this happening, whether it has happened in the past or not. It also sets cave diving apart from those other examples of skydiving, mountaineering, and flying.

The problem, therefore, is the landowners' fear of lawsuits .

Perhaps some sort of signed waiver to absolve the landowner of being sued?

 

[Manatee Diver]

The diver was preparing to dive at Ginnie Springs, and had a stage clearly marked "oxygen." When others asked him about it, he said he had filled the bottle himself, and it contained air. People insisted he check it. He refused angrily and dived. It contained oxygen.

Report of which was published by the IUCRR here.

A clever lawyer might be able to come up with more causes of action to plead than just defamation. And different states have different laws.

I can problem pay a crooked lawyer to sue you for disagreeing me. Should we live our lives because of completely unlikely lawsuits?

In a cave diving death a few years ago, NSS-CDS was sued for not being vigilant enough to keep unqualified divers out of an advanced site they owned. That lawsuit dragged on and on, with the NCC-CDS lawyers charging their monthly fees. It almost ended the NSS-CDS existence.

True, but IUCRR doesn't have the duty to care. Unless maybe you can argue that they didn't prepare enough to have someone ready to rescue the diver before they die. But even then that has nothing to do with the argument for not releasing the IUCRR reports.