ianr33
Contributor
Copy and Paste of Matts post. Mods feel free to remove this if it's not O.K.
<<Jeff Bauer went in on Saturday and located the victim, and ran a line to his wrist. Victim was on the other side of a restriction.
Edd Sorenson, Chris Wickman and myself went on Sunday.
Edd did the first dive to check things out. He described them to us and me and Chris went in to assess the situation.
Victim was on the upstream side of a bottle off restriction about 80' into the cave, just a dozen feet outside the cavern zone. From the outside of the restriction, all I could see was the victims mid-section. He was kneeling/straddling a large rock and his right ankle seemed wedged between a rock and the wall. His head was obscured on the other side of the restriction due the the way the restriction ducked under and the ceiling raised back up afterwards. The body was already in riggor and could not be manipulated. He didn't have a BC of any sort on, just fins, a camo(freediving style) wetsuit as far as I could tell at that point. I dropped a safety bottle in the cavern. Chris dropped my AL80 of 100% O2 next to the AL40 of O2 Edd dropped in OW around 25-30' in the beginning of the dive.
It was decided that we'd try to move a boulder in the restriction to make it less restrictive. We'd do this with a large (heavy)crowbar. All three of us were in the water on this(my 2nd) dive. We were successfull in moving the boulder, but unsuccessfull in in making it less restrictive. Infact, that restriction is now unpassable. We checked out a more difficult alternative entrance into the room the victim was in. Its typically a double bottle off restriction from a low horizontal bedding plane that makes a 90* turn straight down. Edd moved the line from the victims wrist to a rock outcropping on the ceiling when he was trying to move the boulder.
We decided to try to utilize the alternative entry, since there was no other choice at this point. Its a more difficult restriction by far. Edd went in with steel 50s and I went with AL40s. I still had to remove a single tank to get in but the two of us dropped into the upstream room. Chris stayed in the cavern to assist from the outside. Me and Edd unwedged the body and brought him nearer to the alternative exit. He was very negative. His recreational BC/Tank were on the ceiling and he was on the floor. He had a mask and I only saw a single light, one of those OMS headlamp things. I exitted the restriction and Edd passed the BC/Tank up through the restriction to Chris. Chris passed the BC/Tank combo to me and I brought it to the surface. It still had gas in in, 500+psi, which was enough to get out.
On the 4th dive, the three of us went back into the cave. Edd and I dove the same setups as the previous dive, with small tanks(although I used some of Edd's steel 50s this time). Edd was first in the restriction and passed up the victims fins to me, and I passed them to Chris. I passed Edd some sort of ratcheting strap thingy(not the classic style, it was a bit different) that the Leon County Police Dive Team let us use to strap the arms down(since they were stiff from rigor and we were about to have to pull him through a tight restriction with a 90* bend in it). I dropped into the restriction and assisted Edd in getting the body while he put a rope harness under his armpits and around the back of his neck. We brought him up to the ceiling, where the restriction is(and he's very negative), and I passed the end of the rope(attached to the rope harness) to Chris on the other side, then passed through the restriction. Chris and I pulled the rope from the outside while Edd pushed from the inside and eventually the body was extracated from that damned room. Edd pulled the reels we used to jump off to the alternative exits(Edd had actually used a slightly different approach to enter the room that seemed more difficult for me). He also pulled the reel that led to the original spot the victim was in. I wasn't using any bouyancy compensation(just a harness rig), so Chris and Edd brought up the victim(who was negative), making a safety stop along the way. Me and Chris dropped back down, I stayed at the entrance, and Chris dropped directly below me to get the reels we left on the bottom and the victims headlamp. Chris retreived Edds O2.
Leon County Police Dive Team grabbed my O2 when they retreived a rope they had tied off to a tree at the entrance.
Thats my recollection of the entire thing.
I spoke with the buddy of the victim back at the dock. They had explicitely planned on not going in the cave. The buddy didn't understand why the victim went in there. Buddy didn't have a light and didn't follow. This probably saved his life.
This is what I figure happened. An OW diver without the proper training or gear went into the cave, pulled his gear off and pushed it ahead of them through the bottle off restriction. He lost the gear(it wasn't tethered in any way) while going through as there's good flow in the restriction and the BC was positive. He probably kicked up a bit of silt squeezing through and couldn't find his gas; and didn't have time(and it wouldn't take much time) to let the silt flow out. Victim drowned. >>
