Edd Sorenson saves another one

[lv2dive]

If someone *knew* where a bottle was and *intentionally* retrieved it, is that the same thing as "luckily found it"?

 

[victorzamora]

They said Edd was expecting make a recovery, not a rescue.

Edd's big rule is: "There are no rescues, only recoveries." It doesn't matter what the situation you're being told is, the mindset is always "recovery" over a more optimistic outcome.

---------- Post added November 17th, 2014 at 01:11 PM ----------

If someone *knew* where a bottle was and *intentionally* retrieved it, is that the same thing as "luckily found it"?

I think the implication was that he was fortunate enough to find it, because silt-outs can be very disorienting and the buddy might have decided to take it. I don't think it was encountered by accident, but it was fortunate he was able to retrieve it.

 

[nakatomi]

The safety tank belonged to another team and had been set up for exploration dives in the system.
The victim knew about the existence and location of this tank and was able to retrieve and use it on the way out.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

The safety tank belonged to another team and had been set up for exploration dives in the system.
The victim knew about the existence and location of this tank and was able to retrieve and use it on the way out.

This is the second such story I've heard recently with this exact same fact pattern: were there really two separate divers who recently only survived because of a safety bottle staged by an unrelated team/group, one of whom scootered out to safety after his buddy left him, and another who was rescued by Edd?

 

[nakatomi]

[...]found the safety bottle and was draining the last of that tank (which was the last of all of his air) when Edd saved him.

The safety tank had 1200psi left after it was returned to us. That was after the victim completed his 30' decompression. He also had an O2 bottle that he used.
So counting in this tank, he did have enough gas to safely end his dive.

---------- Post added November 18th, 2014 at 09:55 PM ----------

This is the second such story I've heard recently with this exact same fact pattern: were there really two separate divers who recently only survived because of a safety bottle staged by an unrelated team/group, one of whom scootered out to safety after his buddy left him, and another who was rescued by Edd?

There was only one such incident I am aware of.

The following information is from the NACD Facebook group and to my knowledge a highly accurate description of the events.

"Recently there was an incident in Jackson Blue that could have easily resulted in a fatality. The diver involved kept a level head and was able to work through the situation and get himself out of the cave without harm. While the incident ended with no injury or fatality it’s still important to discuss what happened in hopes of preventing any similar future incidents. The purpose here is not to demean the divers involved in the incident. We weren’t there with them. We don’t know what they were thinking or feeling while this was occurring. It’s easy to sit back after the incident and say they should have done this or they should have done that. But no one knows how they will respond to a specific situation until they are faced with it. The incident has occurred, it’s in the past, and everyone survived. So let’s try to learn from this by analyzing what we know about it.
The information I know about the dive may not be completely accurate. Even the divers involved may not know exactly what happened. After a stressful event memory is not always the best and the event will likely not be recalled perfectly. So anyone who thinks any information presented here to be inaccurate, that’s okay. The point of this is not to present an accurate account of the incident but to try to take away something positive from this event.
The dive – Two divers planned to do a DPV dive in Jackson Blue back to the Middle Grounds area. One of the divers had been there previously but it had been some weeks and he was not completely familiar with it. The other diver in the team may not have scootered in this cave before.
Let’s look at this plan. First, lots of divers have done and will likely continue to do dives like this. This is a common occurrence. So we, as a community, can’t really blame these divers for this plan. The community condones it by accepting that it’s done and by a large enough percentage of the community doing similar types of dives. This is done in spite of the general rule that is often referred to that a cave diver should not scooter where he/she hasn’t been swimming. This doesn’t mean a cave diver needs to swim from the Ear to the Heinkle Restriction or from the Jackson Blue cavern to the Middle Grounds. What it means is that each section should be visited by swimming before it is scootered. It’s difficult to become familiar with a passage if you’re moving 150 feet per minute through it. Use progressive penetration to learn a cave. Swim the first 1000 feet several times and learn the main passage and the side passages. Once you have become familiar with that area scooter to the 1000 foot marker and park the scooter, then swim the next 1000 feet and learn it. Continue to do this as you progress farther into the cave. This is how you learn a system.
The team had done their dive and reached their turn pressure. They turned the dive and began their exit. So far everything was as planned and uneventful. On the way out they missed a turn in the main passage and continued straight into a side passage. They noticed they were in a side passage when they noticed the line they were on was white and not gold. This is the main reason we have gold line in caves. A death occurred back in the early 1980s in which a team did the same thing. Only there wasn’t gold line in the caves back then. All the line was white and there was no definitive way to determine which passage was the main passage without being familiar with it. The team disagreed on the exit. They separated and one survived but the other died. Soon after the agencies decided to do something about it and gold line became the line in the main passages of caves.
The passage the team in this recent incident accidently went into became small fairly quickly. The adjacent main passage also gets small so it wasn’t realized right away. A major difference between these two passages is that the side passage has a lot more silt on the floor than the main passage does. This led to a decrease in visibility. The second diver was able to back out and find the gold line. The lead diver remained in the passage. At some point the second diver decided to exit the system and call for help.
This next part is my recommendation for future divers and in no way intended to be a criticism of the divers involved in this incident. As I stated previously, we weren’t on the dive and we don’t know how we would have responded in a similar situation. But let’s examine this part of the incident. We have one diver back on the gold line and another off the gold line in a side passage. My first reaction is that a safety reel should have been deployed from the gold line toward the direction of the lead diver. As cave instructors we teach certain scenarios to our students. One of the scenarios is the lost buddy situation. The way it is most often taught is that you notice your buddy is no longer behind you and begin a search. During some of the classes I teach I will also swim off of the gold line quickly into a side passage and expect my students to perform a lost buddy exercise even though they know where I went. This helps them think outside of the box of the typical “noticing your buddy is no longer with you” scenario. This incident is also one of those out of the box scenarios. The second diver knew where his buddy was so he wasn’t really lost, right? Not exactly. The lead diver was lost off the gold line. He was in decreased visibility. The best thing to do at this point is to place a safety reel from the gold line to as close to the area as possible in hopes that the lost diver will come across it and be able to make it back to the gold line. This, of course, only applies if the second diver has sufficient gas reserves to do this and still make it out of the cave. As difficult as it may seem, one fatality is better than two, and sometimes that decision has to be made.
Another thing that could have been done, as long as gas reserves were sufficient, was to leave a stage cylinder, or both behind. Both divers were carrying two stage cylinders with them. The lead diver ended up leaving a stage cylinder in the cave because it had to be removed to pass through a restriction in decreased visibility. The stage cylinder couldn’t be located after passing through the restriction. This stage cylinder happened to be full with 3000 psi of gas. The second diver could have left at least one stage cylinder behind, and possibly both as long as there was sufficient gas in his sidemount cylinders. As it turns out it wasn’t needed but we all have heard the old saying, “You can never have too much gas.”
The lead diver obviously ended up getting out of the side passage and finding the gold line. By that time he was low on gas and had left a full stage cylinder behind because he had to in order to get through a restriction. Fortunately, he knew there was a safety cylinder nearby. The person who had placed it there a few days previously had mentioned the safety cylinder and its location. The diver, being back in a familiar part of the cave, went to where they cylinder was supposed to be and found it behind a limestone feature. He was able to clip the cylinder on, even with rigging he was not completely familiar with, and use the safety cylinder to exit safely from 2100 feet back in the cave. By the time he reached the cavern of the system his buddy and another diver had entered the cavern and he was provided assistance. He completed his decompression obligation and made it out of the cave unscathed, a little tired (who wouldn’t be after such an experience), but unharmed. He was even checked out at the local emergency department and medically cleared.
So, fortunately, this turned out to be an incident we can discuss and learn without having to mourn over the loss of another friend or acquaintance. We’ve had far too many of those over recent years.
To recap, the parting lessons are the following –
Make sure you are familiar with the area of the cave you are going to scooter. It’s easy enough to swim off the main passage into a side passage. It’s happened before and will likely happen again. Most will know within a few seconds that they are no longer in the main passage. That few seconds will get you much farther off the main passage if you’re on a DPV though.
Leave a safety in for your buddy, even if you know where he is. Lost buddy doesn’t mean lost from you. It means lost from the line. The same procedure should be used for any diver who is lost off the line.
Evaluate gas reserves if you have stage cylinders and leave whatever you can behind. The more gas the lost diver has available the better the chances of survival.
And the biggest lesson – stay focused, stay determined, and don’t give up. That’s what saved this diver. He didn’t give up. He kept pushing on until he found the main line and then he remembered the safety cylinder that was located not too far from where he was. He was then able to get the unfamiliar rigging to work and scooter out. This focus and determination is what saved his life. I applaud him for this. And I hope that everyone reading this can take something positive away from it, learn from it, and become a better diver because of it.
Rob Neto
International Training Director
National Association for Cave Diving
TD@nationalassociationforcavediving.org"

 

[Dr. Lecter]

By the time he reached the cavern of the system his buddy and another diver had entered the cavern and he was provided assistance.

Thanks - I had not made the connection between Edd's rescue and the above line, because the NACD statement read to me like the diver effected a completely successful self-rescue. Apparently that only got him so far and he was not actually safe when Edd found him?

 

[nakatomi]

Thanks - I had not made the connection between Edd's rescue and the above line, because the NACD statement read to me like the diver effected a completely successful self-rescue. Apparently that only got him so far and he was not actually safe when Edd found him?

I talked to him a couple of hours after it happened. The diver performed a safe exit to the top of the chimney at Jackson Blue Spring, which is 40' (12m) deep and about 250' in. He had plenty of gas to safely exit. He said he felt he would have been fine on his own, but was very grateful for the help he received.

 

[Dr. Lecter]

That is an interesting contrast to

Then just a few hundred feet ahead of me I saw a light flashing." This was a signal of distress and a ray of hope that things would turn out ok.
"He was conscious, had functioning skills, and he could tell me that he was ok. However, he could not finish the job and get out of the cave."
Sorenson tried to communicate with the diver, "When I told him the way we had to go out, he acknowledged but wasn't moving."
Sorenson pulled the victim safely to the caves entrance and then to the surface.

 

[Seya]

What a wonderful story

Sent from my SGH-I337M using Tapatalk

 

[nakatomi]

Please folks, the lead diver involved in the incident happens to be a friend of mine.
I posted in this thread to clear up some of the open questions regarding the incident, mainly the safety tank that I had placed in the system two days prior.

Now as to the rescue, I told you about his account of what happened and I tend to believe him.
Having said that, I can understand how his rescuer(s) might perceive the situation to be different.
And last but not least, I can absolutely see how the media would turn this into something completely different.

As to me, it does not matter, my friend and his buddy are alive and well. We can learn from the incident that happened back in the cave, there is little to learn from the media hype and misunderstandings concerning the rescue.