Four dead in Italian cave

[bowlofpetunias]

Nowhere in the manual you will find a statement to turn off your common sense... Somehow people still do.
Passing for your drivers test doesn't qualify you for driving formula 1 cars, and that does make sense while cavediving with only OW training does not ? I just don't get it.
The phrase additional training for anything that is not covered in OW IS mentioned often enough, every chapter at least tries selling more courses, that should ring a bell. Also it is stressed that you are trained to dive similar or better conditions than during the course.

They could have known and should have known... That is what you are given common sense for ... To use it.

BOLD and RED added. This may be part of the problem. When people sign up for a course they may be turned off by too many attempts to sell them more courses. It may be they think the advice is more money driven than need driven.

Also it is stressed that you are trained to dive similar or better conditions than during the course.

If we stuck to the letter of this.. we would never improve as divers. I just can't buy this! I have become a better diver by diving progressively more and more difficult dives as my skill and confidence improved.

 

[cascas]

BOLD and RED added. This may be part of the problem. When people sign up for a course they may be turned off by too many attempts to sell them more courses. It may be they think the advice is more money driven than need driven.

If we stuck to the letter of this.. we would never improve as divers. I just can't buy this! I have become a better diver by diving progressively more and more difficult dives as my skill and confidence improved.

I agree with you that the way they (not just PADI etc, but all US-originated course materials) keep repeating stuff over and over is more than annoying.

Off course you should improve your skills by progressively challenging you skills. Bit by bit that is... not by going caverndiving within 10 logged dives....

As I keep saying... doing a course does NOT mean it is OK to turn off common sense....
Following a guide/diveprofessional does NOT mean it is OK to turn off common sense....
Because someone else does it, does NOT mean it is OK to turn off common sense....
etc etc....

It is never OK to turn off common sense....

 

[Soakedlontra]

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.

Once your students are out there diving on their own you don't have control of what kind of decisions they are going to make and, as many divers have mentioned in several occasions, there is not a 'scuba-police' to keep them in check, an impossible thing to do anyway even if there were one. So it seems to me that the best thing conscientious instructors like you can do is to hope that your former students will have built a foundation for critical thinking and self-discipline. I don't think there is anything else like scubadiving. It is SO BLOODY EASY to have your best judgment being eroded by the poor decision making of a sketchy professional or your dive buddies and it can happen really fast if you don't bother to take the time to think it through.

In this particular accident, as Lynne mentioned earlier, all the parties here have some degree of responsibility. The diver who suffered from asthma, for instance....I keep wondering why on earth he decided to that dive in the first place and why the dive master/diving school decided to let him do it?

---------- Post Merged on August 3rd, 2012 at 06:23 PM ---------- Previous Post was on August 2nd, 2012 at 08:00 AM ----------

Well just to stress the seriousness of Italian irresponsible-dodgy diving another fatality happened in Italian waters recently. This time the victim is somebody whom I met in person and dived with last year. She was a funny and full of life 23 old girl. This is not the place to go into details of this tragedy and I am not even capable to do it right now. The point that I want to make is broader. The mentality of a large number of Italian divers and diving operations has to change. I don't know how this can be achieved successfully. To make things worse, the idea that it is OK to break rules and laws is a 'malady' that is deeply rooted in Italian culture and has 'contaminated' all aspects of people's lives.

 

[Lemna]

Sub morti a Palinuro altri due indagati - Cronaca - la Città di Salerno
Rough summary:
The two instructors who accompanied the victims have been indicted as suspects in addition to the owner of the operation and the divemaster (who did not survive the incident). The investigation has established that the victims were not authorized to dive in caves since they were only open water certified. The fire brigade is conducting a complete survey of all sea caves in the vicinity, including the cave were the accident happened. In addition the tanks, regulators, BCDs, inflators, depth gauges, SPGs, computers and dive watches of the victims have been tested.

The investigators now focus on three issues:
1. the incident happened in a narrow and dangerous branch of the cave, which probably contributed to the victims' deaths
2. why didn't they use a line? The line present during the recovery was left there during the rescue operation.
3. the DM only started working recently in this cave and wasn't well acquainted with all possible traps

It has become clear that the victims stirred the sediment on the bottom which made it impossible for them to find the exit. A mural has been erected to honor one of the victims.

 

[tempoffroad]

Thank you for the update. To often we never here much after the accident to try and learn from.

 

[gianaameri]

Here is the latest information beginning at 01:23 : http://www.rai.tv/dl/replaytv/repla...y=2012-10-24&ch=3&v=153685&vd=2012-10-24&vc=3

It is an investigative program aired last night on Italian National TV Channel RAI 3 called "Chi l'ha Visto" ("Who has seen him?")

The program focuses on lost persons, but here they chose to do an investigative piece on this incident.

The absolutely maddening crazy thing is that the investigative journalists are being taken into the cave by an "expert guide" - again with no guideline whatsoever.

They go where it silts up, and lift the silt for all to see, to show that the cave silts up - using no cave line whatsoever.

Configuration is standard Open Water - no redundancy and no independent/self-sufficient divers.

This after 4 people died this summer, including a. the paid for "cave guide" and b. present during that fatal dive 2 instructors who with the cave guide were escorting and looking after the novice divers who died in the cave (novice as in just certified Open Water, one asthmatic).

Hope the link is visible from the U.S. and elsewhere (it is accessible from the UK).

 

[Lemna]

Thanks for posting! the link was not working for me, but this one is: Rai Replay.

The guide in the show is the owner of one of the shops offering this cave dive, and according to his web site has been diving these caves since 1983. He published a guidebook on them and produced the maps mentioned earlier in this thread. It makes me think that the program shows the common way of cave diving in this region...

In other news, the investigators determined that the youngest victim still had air in his tank. There is still confusion about what happened to his dive computer: it might have been found back, after it disappeared from his body in the morgue. (source: Palinuro, tragedia dei sub: il greco forse poteva salvarsi and Tragedia di Palinuro, inviati profondimetri dei sub alle aziende produttrici: accertamenti in corso)

 

[SeahorseDeb]

But again these four were divers being led by a guide into an overhead environment. Four divers not trained for any type of overhead. Please think about that before allowing yourself to be led by someone you really do not know into somewhere you have never been.

Jim, I'm just getting around to reading this thread. I just did my first "penetration" dive into a boat 60 feet long, 10 feet wide, 100 feet down. Before I did it, I studied the video available, and was accompanied by two tek divers who regularly dive it. I had 140 dives before I did it (in my 2nd cert after being dry for over a decade), and although there was plenty of ways to exit the little boat, I never let my ego get in the way of reason. Even the safe environment, as it was, some unknown factor could have caused it to go wrong. It was pitch black, although it was daytime. I know these divers and they are over certified for that dive, and they had their lights on me at all times. I trust them implicitly.

Two words I would never listen to from a diver I had never met are "Trust me."

I learn alot from many of SB's forums, and I consider the information as a lesson in learning, yet I do offer condolences to the families of any diver who passes.

Thankyou for straining the truth and sifting the information for true clarity, that we may learn from this sad and tragic situation.

 

[thoga00]

Thanks for posting the link to the Video Gianaameri. Though the program leaves many queations, it does provide a better visual of the grotta and hypothesis of what likely happened. Of course the program "Chi l'ha visto" is only presenting what they can reconstruct from the infromation that they have on hand since three of the survivors (that are connected with the dive shop in Rome where the deceased novice divers trained) are no longer speaking publicly though the owner of the dive shop Marco Sebastiani said much immediatly after the event Tragedia a Palinuro, il racconto: «Era buio totale, l'inferno»/Foto - Il Messaggero

The program does bring up several good points. 1) Though this Grotta is basically a big swim through (through an opening in the ceiling in the main cavern that leads to an exit through two large eye-like holes), it does have a well known side passage with no exit, that is very silty that used to have a chain and warning sign barring its enterance. This sign was placed there by the local community of divers but had been washed away by the tide. 2) The lack of this sign probably was a major contributor of this tragedy 3) In addition to the lack of a qualified knowledgeable guide was a decisive factor {douglas rizzi had dove this site on two other occasions}. 4) No local, regional, or national goverment or private organization takes responsibility for the safety of these sites (the mayor of Palinura to this day doesn't know who "owns" the grotta). 5) The dive breifing was apparently very brief and did not mention any silty side passages or any danger whatsoever in the dive {possibly because Rizzi wasn't even aware of the side passage himslef} 6) The Guide Rizzi lead the group into the side passages as per the statements of one of survivors Maria Laura and Marco Sebastiani.

Regrettably this was all too avoidable. If only Italy had organizations like the NSS-CDS and NACD to take responsibility for maintaining signs and signals at Caves and Caverns and to push for all divers to follow the appropriate rules regarding caverns and caves. even now there is no clear "owner" of the dive site, while the various governmental entities sit around, navel gaze and point fingers. Italians have a tendency to sit back and expect the government to provide solutions instead of providing the solutions themselves (though many times this is due to governmental medling that leads people to take a passive approach and then just do what is convenient for them just to get by.) One interviewee states that there is a 500 page rule book that is being passed from one commitee to another for years, without anything getting passed. 500 hundred pages? No wonders. And Italians talk about the Euro-Beurocrats that make laws about the size of a banana... There in lies part of the problem.

Chris

P.S. I say this all as a nearly adopted Italian that only just moved back to the US after nearly 14 years of living there.

 

[gianaameri]

It is actually very easy.

If you go in any overhead environment, it is your responsibility to place properly a guideline.

If there is a guideline, it is your responsibility to ensure it has been placed properly and safely, or you place your own.

If you do not know how to do it properly, or you have never done it, do a course and learn how to do it.

It is the same as going off-piste on a mountain or ski resort.

You take the risk, do it smart and get training.

Regulations don't work if people are not educated to take responsibility for themselves and do things sensibly, including as a commercial dive operator.

Lesson to be learnt: get cave training before you enter the overhead environment and be independent and self-sufficient.