Diving incident at Eagles Nest Sink

[cerich]

Bottom line, whatever choice is to be made needs to be made and you are committed to playing it out...

 

[doctormike]

...but we also weren't there and their decision, even with the outcome I don't feel deserves to be judged.

I don't understand. Isn't that the whole point of this thread? And of the A&I forum, data collection by the recovery team and accident analysis in general?

 

[CptTightPants21]

Not at all.

Hindsight is 20/20 and I am not familiar with eagles nest or the restriction.

But the fact that it was lost in a restriction has too help limit the search area, right?

The RB was so important in this situation, either waiting 5/10 min for silt to clear or doing a search sweep with a spool to locate it. They would have added a sh*t ton of deco, but would have had the RB to pull it off.

Perhaps we should shift the discussion slightly, they both died close to a safety bottle, at which point do you leave your buddy to die and save yourself?

 

[mdb]

Great post but good undergarments do slow heat loss even when wet. It is far from optimal, also far from having no insulation at all.

I probably shouldn't say this as I only sell shell suits, but I have always recommended that when doing long exposure deco dives in cold water that a neoprene drysuit offers a better safety hedge.

Good honest call Chris-as usual.

Having sold neoprene dry suits for 20+ years we learned that the inherent warmth of a well fitting micro cell neoprene suit provides significant insulation even when flooded.

The neoprene suits require undergarments that are not as thick and have less drag than shell suits.

The downside is that they take longer to dry, they are heavier for travel and packing.

Each type of suits has its merits.

 

[oya]

I don't understand. Isn't that the whole point of this thread? And of the A&I forum, data collection by the recovery team and accident analysis in general?

Excuse me while I climb up on this high horse.

OK. There.

The point of accident analysis is to try to work back to the root cause of an event so that later divers can be armed with this information and avoid the root cause.

A lot of this thread has been second-guessing the actions of a couple of people who were, by accounts, trained and experienced for this type of diving. Any "mistakes" they made in the middle of an incident despite the immediate challenges and their elevated stress levels don't deserve judgment. What it seems, to me, is that they made the very best possible decisions AT THE TIME and that they worked like absolute troopers to try to ensure both their survival.

To speculate on "what if" or "what I would do" especially when talking from a point of ignorance (as most of us are for this level of diving) is utterly pointless even as an academic exercise. What we can be doing, when all the facts are in, if they ever are, is try to work backwards to that first bad decision.

So far we can get as far back as, "Don't take your rebreather off." Why did the rebreather come off? There are a couple of ideas bouncing around, probably the diver having gotten stuck. But is there a logical path any further back than that? Probably not.

OK, getting down now. This horse smells like hell.

 

[cerich]

I don't understand. Isn't that the whole point of this thread? And of the A&I forum, data collection by the recovery team and accident analysis in general?

My thoughts are that in this case there was ZERO "good' decisions that could be made once the one diver had the ccr off. Is it possible that there are some that may have changed the outcome for one or both divers? Yes...possibly

The ONLY decision that I am confident would have saved one diver is if the diver in his ccr had left the other behind. That is actually the first rule in rescue, don't add an additional victim. That said it was the divers call to make and in my books he is a hero.

I do believe it's good to discuss various thoughts regarding possible actions that "could" have changed the outcome. I feel that discussion is a good thing, thought provoking and that we can learn from it and potentially save lives by doing so.

I really don't feel that anybody that is expecting a magic bullet solution to this incident from the point after the diver removed his ccr is not at all really cognizant of the reality of dives of this magnitude.

Lesson? Heck yes, finding fault in their decisions of how they dealt with things from that point forward. Nope, there wasn't a good one in sight because I really don't feel a "Good" one existed then.

 

[oya]

The neoprene suits require undergarments that are not as thick and have less drag than shell suits.The downside is that they take longer to dry, they are heavier for travel and packing.

And, in point of fact for this irrelevant discussion, would have been even MORE inherently buoyant even IF completely flooded.

 

[C Dub]

Open circuit assuming bailed out at 290: Increasing time from 30 to 35 minutes at 290 = 23 more minutes deco. Per Baltic using 4 GUE standard deco gases and standard back gas.

Going from 30 to 60 minutes bottom time = 184 more minutes of deco.

Gas used for one diver on OC (rounded and for the whole dive, not just bailout):
382 cubes 12/65
60 cubes 21/35
75 cubes 35/25
129 cubes 50%
119 cubes 100%
Total 765 cubes

I don't know what I don't know.....but dam that's a lot of gas. Ugh.

 

[mdb]

And, in point of fact for this irrelevant discussion, would have been even MORE inherently buoyant even IF completely flooded.

True indeed.

 

[PfcAJ]

Open circuit assuming bailed out at 290: Increasing time from 30 to 35 minutes at 290 = 23 more minutes deco. Per Baltic using 4 GUE standard deco gases and standard back gas.

Going from 30 to 60 minutes bottom time = 184 more minutes of deco.

Gas used for one diver on OC (rounded):
382 cubes 12/65
60 cubes 21/35
75 cubes 35/25
129 cubes 50%
119 cubes 100%

I don't know what I don't know.....but dam that's a lot of bailout. Ugh.

Yup.

Tick. Tock. The clock runs fast at 290'.