Four dead in Italian cave

[Soakedlontra]

just an update from the italian newspapers: the owner of the diving center Pesciolino sub, Roberto Navarra, is now officially investigated about the tragedy in Palinuro. I have also read in more than one article that the DM who was leading the dive and also died in the accident, was in Palinuro for the first time. Not sure about how this can be true but it was reported in more than one online article...
I live in Rome, got my certification here and have only been diving in Italy so far. I have 40 logged dives and an AOW cert, have to admit unfortunately that several times I have noticed a superficial attitude in the instructors and guides of diving centers around Italy. My husband is a DM with lots of experience and he was asked several times to lead dives that he did not know just because of the number of divers on the boat and just not enough guides to look over all of them, often OWD!! (for the record he refused...). Recently he just shows his AOW certificate so not to be asked... at the same times not every diving center in Italy is like that!! our very good friend had dove that cave last year and she remembers the sign at the entrance of the muddy cunicle... too bad it wasn't there anymore. It is just sad that filling up diving boat and cashing in money from divers sometimes comes prior to safety and appropriate preparation.

That's one part of the problem, the other is the widespread irresponsible habit of breaking the rules learned in class without a proper assessment of its implication. Another tragedy happened in Italy a while back where a father and a son died and the dive master survived. He was charged and taken to court.

 

[acteg]

Thats sums up the situation in Italy.
When the Costa Concordia sank, after day 2 it became apparent that there were 2 groups of people alive in the engine room and galley.

We were put on standby, and our company had 2 chambers mobilised and surface supply gear on small barges and land based moved into position.
We could have cut our way in and out of there in very short order. We had the chambers on standby to move people who might be in air saturation.
Everything was in place.
We sat and twiddled our thumbs and watched in frustration as the carabinieri divers went in open circuit scuba, no lines, posing for photos that painted them in the Italian press as 'heroes'.
They never reached any of these people.
We packed up and left after 5 days, when it became apparent that it was now too late to do anything anyway.

Very sad. That is just mind boggling...

 

[Soakedlontra]

The military believes this also. This is why in most training for the SOG groups, you only get two bites at the apple for an evoloution. It is the mental stress that must be overcome, over coming the stress before it turns into panic, by problem solving under great duress.

"Fear cannot be banished, but it can be calm and without panic; it can be mitigated by reason and evaluation."

The bottom line is that the OW/AOW training in not enough to give you the necessary confidence to manage panic during emergencies. You build this confidence step by step by diving a lot, practice skills on a regular basis and get more training with GOOD instructors. How many recreational divers bother to do all of that? I am struggling to take more classes because of lack of money, I don't have a regular buddy anymore with whom I could practice skills (any instant buddies whom I dived with looked at me as if I were a kind of alien when I suggested to practice skills) and I don't dive as much as I would like because I have less time available. it's very frustrating. Another element that it is not stressed enough in the OW/AOW training is making the student aware that he /she has the responsibility to be honest with himself/herself and his/her buddy about his/her limitations and comfort level. Something that Alex Brylske points out pretty well in his article " Is the buddy system unsafe?" Dive Training Magazine issue June 2012.

 

[cascas]

Although the cave is not difficult (lines, for instance, are useless since the pavement is rocky and visibility is always good),

No (well) cave trained diver will agree here... You don't dive a cave without a continuous guideline to the exit. You don't. Period. Not debatable. Never...

I am not talking about manufacuring brands. But about a teacher under the flag of a teachers organisation that does harm to students following or not following the rules and standards set by the teachers organisation. They better damn well respond!

No they don't need to... Agencies ( PADI is the one I am associated with) Will defend you as long as you abide by their standards, and rightfully so. However if you violate standards, (and in this case, if it had been PADI professionals guiding the dive, they most crtainly violated standards here) PADI will drop you like a stone and you'd better be well insured ( if that helps at all) and hope for a badass lawyer to pull you out of the ****pile you created.

Agencies tell you what you can and may do in their name. Anything else is really not their concern.... They should however revoke this guys license for life... that they should... nothing more...

 

[dadediver]

The bottom line is that the OW/AOW training in not enough to give you the necessary confidence to manage panic during emergencies. You build this confidence step by step by diving a lot, practice skills on a regular basis and get more training with GOOD instructors. How many recreational divers bother to do all of that? I am struggling to take more classes because of lack of money, I don't have a regular buddy anymore with whom I could practice skills (any instant buddies whom I dived with looked at me as if I were a kind of alien when I suggested to practice skills) and I don't dive as much as I would like because I have less time available. it's very frustrating. Another element that it is not stressed enough in the OW/AOW training is making the student aware that he /she has the responsibility to be honest with himself/herself and his/her buddy about his/her limitations and comfort level. Something that Alex Brylske points out pretty well in his article " Is the buddy system unsafe?" Dive Training Magazine issue June 2012.

I agree, however three things. Training, muscle memory and the "flight or fight" instinct. The flight or flight instinct is more of a personal trait. I had seen people that do really well in skydiving drills yet they are full blown panic on a simple drill on SCUBA. This is why the military has models that tests these instincts for the specific training and if you demonstate the instinct to flight, you are dropped from the specific program. It takes quite a bit of time to overcome the flight instinct if you demonstate those reactions when things go badly on those specific evolutions. Some people will never get over the acute stress responses of the drills no matter how much you train.
Once panic has set in, all logic and reason is gone.

 

[Soakedlontra]

I agree, however three things. Training, muscle memory and the "flight or fight" instinct. The flight or flight instinct is more of a personal trait. I had seen people that do really well in skydiving drills yet they are full blown panic on a simple drill on SCUBA. This is why the military has models that tests these instincts for the specific training and if you demonstate the instinct to flight, you are dropped from the specific program. It takes quite a bit of time to overcome the flight instinct if you demonstate those reactions when things go badly on those specific evolutions. Some people will never get over the acute stress responses of the drills no matter how much you train.
Once panic has set in, all logic and reason is gone.

I understand but unless the OW training gets tougher and really selective I don't see how it's possible to generate a more responsible recreational diving community... Can you see that happening any time soon?

---------- Post Merged at 03:11 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 03:01 PM ----------

No (well) cave trained diver will agree here... You don't dive a cave without a continuous guideline to the exit. You don't. Period. Not debatable. Never...

No they don't need to... Agencies ( PADI is the one I am associated with) Will defend you as long as you abide by their standards, and rightfully so. However if you violate standards, (and in this case, if it had been PADI professionals guiding the dive, they most crtainly violated standards here) PADI will drop you like a stone and you'd better be well insured ( if that helps at all) and hope for a badass lawyer to pull you out of the ****pile you created.

Agencies tell you what you can and may do in their name. Anything else is really not their concern.... They should however revoke this guys license for life... that they should... nothing more...

Ultimately is not the agency but the individual instructor/dive master who makes all the difference in the world between good/bad training and responsible/irresponsible dive leading. Last year I met a guy who switched from one agency to PADI because he thought it was easier to become a dive master/instructor. Until there are people in the diving industry with that kind of mindset tragic events like the one in Palinuro will never stop to happen.

 

[tstormdiver]

Ultimately is not the agency but the individual instructor/dive master who makes all the difference in the world between good/bad training and responsible/irresponsible dive leading. Last year I met a guy who switched from one agency to PADI because he thought it was easier to become a dive master/instructor. Until there are people in the diving industry with that kind of mindset tragic events like the one in Palinuro will never stop to happen.

Personal experience has helped me with this. When I teach an Open Water course, I tell my students of my mistake a few years ago, of entering a cave untrained & how it almost cost me my life. I also go on to tell them how it lead me to get the proper training, & that if it is something they want to pursue or are interested in, to first get lots of experience & then to get the training. In the meantime, the caves have been there for a long time & will wait for them. I tell them, not so much to scare them, but to hopefully instill some respect for the overhead environment; that it is doable, but needs to be done correctly.

 

[cascas]

This cave may not be for dive masters... Maybe just cave divers...

Divemasters (or any diver for that matter) with no proper cave training have no business diving caves. Let alone guiding non cave certified divers into one..

Apart from the ability to demonstrate proper (OW) skills and some theory, Divemasters (and up) are not trained for caves. They are not even necessarily better divers than rescue divers. Apologies for bursting that bubble...

 

[papsje]

No they don't need to... Agencies ( PADI is the one I am associated with) Will defend you as long as you abide by their standards, and rightfully so. However if you violate standards, (and in this case, if it had been PADI professionals guiding the dive, they most crtainly violated standards here) PADI will drop you like a stone and you'd better be well insured ( if that helps at all) and hope for a badass lawyer to pull you out of the ****pile you created.

Agencies tell you what you can and may do in their name. Anything else is really not their concern.... They should however revoke this guys license for life... that they should... nothing more...

A professional organisation would:
- issue a statement that they take this very serious and will investigate
- investigate
- issue a press-release with the findings of the investigation
- act up on the findings of the investigation
- possibly also issue a report and advice how to improve procedures to ensure this does not happen again.

This is what any professional sector of industry organisation would do and does.

I expect nothing less and if they do not then they and everyone associated with them should be deeply ashamed of themselves. The organisation members should be asking questions about this.

 

[Fish-R-Man]

Divemasters (or any diver for that matter) with no proper cave training have no business diving caves. Let alone guiding non cave certified divers into one..

Apart from the ability to demonstrate proper (OW) skills and some theory, Divemasters (and up) are not trained for caves. They are not even necessarily better divers than rescue divers. Apologies for bursting that bubble...

It seems to me that there are a significant number of fatalities in various cave systems throughout the world that have a high number of advanced trained divers (DM's, Instructors, ETC) as leaders or part of the group when a fatality happens. These are the people that new or less experienced divers are supposed to look to for advice when they are diving in an area or on any type of dive that they may have not experienced before. In this instance you had 30% of the group that will have known not to enter cave system without proper training, much less enter it with inexperienced divers. We all read about the trust me dive situation. I have read it over and over to never do a trust me dive. For the sake of the inexperienced divers in this situation, they had two guides, a local shop owner and an instructor leading the group. That would have been a pretty persuasive leadership group in most any diving situations.

The whole concept of trust me dives starts out from the first day a new diver enters the water, even poolside. The first thing that an instructor will say to the new nervous trainee is "Trust me, I won't let you drowned, were just in a pool!" This will be the reasoning throughout anyone's diving experience. Even divers like Devon or any number of members of this forum with loads of experience will find themselves in a "trust me" situation if they continue to dive. I am in the process of getting my full cave cert. The whole experience is a "trust me" situation. I have to have full confidence in my instructor that he will not put me into a situation that I could not handle. The reverse is also true. If he where to have an issue, he has to have the confidence in me to be able to assist and to be able to help solve the issue and not add to the problem. There has to be that level of trust.

When you have this mix of new and experienced divers in group, there is always that potential for the "trust me" factor to influence the less experienced. You see this in all aspects of life where there is a possibility of higher than normal risk. If done correctly it can be a good learning experience for the less experienced individual. If done incorrectly you have an outcome which is being discussed in this thread.....