Four dead in Italian cave

[DandyDon]

The guide didn't survive, from what I've read. (Yes, I can read Italian fairly fluently.)
The guide was a British national living in Italy. His name was Douglas Rizzo. He worked for a shop called Pesciolino Sub. There is reportedly some evidence of a cave in, though whether this blocked a passage or simply silted out the whole area isn't reported. The harbormaster, Andrea Agostinelli has stated that there were 8 divers in total, including dive staff, and that all eight had dive lights. When the silt-out took place, the four at the back of the line were able to find their way out of the cave while those at the front presumably became disoriented and went the wrong way. (BTW, Agostinelli used the word "line" in Italian, but I don't believe he meant an actual cave line--I think he meant simply that the divers were in single file. For those of you who read Italian: "I sub della coda della cordata sono riusciti a risalire prima che fosse troppo tardi...")

I have understood that there were 8 total, including the guide who perished and the Op owner who survived: "Roberto Navarra, the diving school owner who provided the group's equipment..." if he was on the dive. I'm not clear on that?

This version says there were 5 survivors, which would total 9 divers, if correct...

Italy: Four scuba divers drown in 'Blood Grotto' panic - CNN.com

Excerpting from that version...

Marco Sebastiani, one of the dive's five survivors, said by the time he realized the party was heading the wrong way, it was too late.

"All of a sudden the guide started to panic ... I knew something was wrong but at that point we had already entered the cave and we were going in even further. I tried to take control but it was too late," Sebastiani told Italy's Il Messaggero newspaper.

Sebastiani, who owns a diving school in Rome, said: "We suddenly found ourselves in a blind tunnel. We couldn't see anything. At that point it was panic. The agitation of the least experienced took hold. Mud and sand came up from the bottom of the cave and visibility was gone."

 

[Giovacanti]

I'm learning diving, just 40 dives in total, but I have the fortune of learning it with very experienced GUE cave divers. It is already clear to me that cave diving is the most dangerous type of diving and you DO NOT take untrained people in a cave. No proper cave diver would do it. Having the proper training is the most important rule in cave diving. I really love diving, I want to learn cave diving when i'll be ready, but to do it right you need to be patient and build up the right experience gradually.

I'm italian, so I can tell you they had no line (or at least so they say in the news).The word "cordata" comes from "corda," which means rope, and it was originally used in the context of mountain climbing, where climbers are tied together by a rope. However, in the common language, "cordata" means a generic group of people going for a common objective.

 

[Quero]

Don, you know as well as anyone that there are always mistakes in news reports. I can't explain why a few early sources said 10 divers total, this one on CNN says 9, and all the rest say 8. But it hardly matters. The important fact is that there are four dead.

The CNN report was based on the statements of one person, and what I wrote was gleaned from an Italian-language interview of the harbor master, IIRC. Again, it hardly matters. Four are dead.

 

[DandyDon]

Oh, that's correct, Quero. Just muddling thru a few versions and comparing. One of the survivors "Sebastiani, who owns a diving school in Rome" may be an Instructor, but not clear there. Also not clear if "Navarra, the diving school owner who provided the group's equipment..." was on the dive. The important part is clear: 4 died on a Trust-Me dive by exceeding their training and equipment.

This was one of my fear in the sea when I start to dive. How this thing happened to them? Are they beginners? or is it because of the current?

No current in the cave; actually that would have helped. Briefly, a guide who thought he knew the cave well by memory dived without commonly accepted cave diving standards, and took several who were not cave dive trained in. The guide took a wrong tunnel, some divers stirred the silt on the bottom, the viz vanished, and panic ruled.

For you and me: Dive without our experience and training, don't follow guide on dives we are not qualified for, and even after reducing the possible problems - never panic.

 

[Quero]

According to other Italian-language reports, the DM who died may not have been hugely familiar with the cave. In fact he had only been working in the area for two weeks. Another source states again that Navarra was the one who brought up the first body, and that he continued to search until he no longer had air. He is apparently hospitalized due to some injury he suffered during the ordeal. Whether he was present for the whole dive or if he went to the scene when the alarm was raised is unclear. The other guy, Sebastiani, was apparently interviewed by phone. Who knows what was really said or done?

The whole point of this A&I forum is not to lay blame but rather to see at what point an error in judgment was made and how that could have led to the outcome. We need to do this in order to avoid committing the same or a similar error in judgment ourselves. In this case it seems pretty clear that the divers should not have conducted the dive. I would hope that the town of Salerno will discuss measures to help prevent future deaths. One article stated that an official reportedly said that he thought all divers going into the caves should be followed by members of the fire brigade (who seem to be the PSD divers locally) on each tour. Seems like a fairly unworkable recommendation, but it does show that there is discussion about measures to take in the future.

---------- Post Merged at 06:03 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 05:20 PM ----------

In the Italian press, the names of the four survivors have been given. Two are instructors. The fifth name is apparently the owner of the dive op. One report quotes the owner as saying, "I don't know why they went into that passage. They knew it was prohibited. A different article states that the cylinders were charged with enough gas for a 45 minute dive (it's a shallow dive site), and that the dive was planned as a 20 minute excursion.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

The whole point of this A&I forum is not to lay blame but rather to see at what point an error in judgment was made and how that could have led to the outcome. We need to do this in order to avoid committing the same or a similar error in judgment ourselves. In this case it seems pretty clear that the divers should not have conducted the dive. I would hope that the town of Salerno will discuss measures to help prevent future deaths. One article stated that an official reportedly said that he thought all divers going into the caves should be followed by members of the fire brigade (who seem to be the PSD divers locally) on each tour. Seems like a fairly unworkable recommendation, but it does show that there is discussion about measures to take in the future.

What went wrong seems pretty obvious ... they violated at least three of the five basic rules of cave diving ...

- They brought untrained and unskilled divers into a cave.
- They compounded it by not using a guideline, which would have likely saved their lives in this circumstance if they had one.
- Given the report of a 45 minute gas supply and a planned 20 minute dive, they did not have a reasonable gas plan for diving in an overhead environment.

It's nice that local officials are discussing how to prevent future deaths. Somehow, I'm skeptical that it will occur to them that the best plan would be to prohibit untrained dive guides from bringing unskilled divers in there ... that would cost the town some tourist money ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[ttew]

Peace to their souls.

It is not easy to understand what happened, and the investigation is still running, but a survey and a comparison of the news points out that of 8 ppl including an instructor and two guides was heading to the cave of blood. (e.g. Tragedia nella ‘Grotta del Sangue’ a Palinuro: quattro sub perdono la vita. | MNews.IT)

Deceased
Douglas Rizzo, 41 yo (Group guide)
Andrea Petroni, 41 yo
Susy Cavaccini, 36 yo
Panaghiotis Telios, 23 yo

Survivors
Marco Sebastiani (Instructor)
Maria Laura Mosquera,21yo
Roberto Navarra (Owner of the local dive center), not sure if he was with the group or went in lately to search the missing.
?
??


The standard dive to the cave of blood is not particularly difficult and the most challenging part is the entrance with a cave of a few meters width, moreover there are air bubbles in the interior and at low tide small boats can make it to the first chamber.

For some reason they missed the usual path to the cave and got lost.
It is not clear if Roberto Navarra, the owner of the local dive center was part of the original group or if he went in afterwards.
It is also not clear if they moved into the cave all together or they split in two groups of four people.

There are a couple of possibilities one can speculate on. The cave of the blood is next to and communicating with the cave of the eyes, so eventually they missed the entrance and went into the left eye or the group missed the main entrance to the cave of blood and went into a semi blind and silty tunnel below the main entrance to the cave of the blood. Other option is that they tried an alternative path to get to the a small lake in the belly of the cave, this path is also winding and requires both experience and proper equipment. It is not possible to understand the dynamic of the accident from the poor information in the news so I am speculating without any expectation of being right.

To what it is reported in the news at least one of the divers had only a few months of experience.
It is not clear whether the divers had proper cave training.
It is probable that they were not using any guide line to show the way back.
It is also unclear if they had enough air for a cave dive (news report expected dive time 20 minutes air reserve 45 minutes - the cave is 15 mt deep, which sounds odd).

Most probably this accident is the result of a sum of numerous and negative events.

 

[sempliciotto]

Hello everybody, I'm italian and I'm not a scuba diver. But I was shaked by this news, I looked for more information and I want to share it with you.
I found many details on an italian forum for divers, where a member was one of the scuba pros who were working in the area and who participated to the rescue operations. He was right in place in that very moment.
I think these information is very reliable, although I can't take responsibility on it.
The situation seems this: the group was formed by a guide and 8 divers.
The cave ("Grotta degli occhi" or "Cave of the eyes", and not "Grotta del sange", which is next, as read in the news) is considered very easy. Here you can read a description and see a map
Eyes and Blood cave, description

What happened?
Although the cave is not difficult (lines, for instance, are useless since the pavement is rocky and visibility is always good), at the end of the bottom floor there is a small tunnel which shall be avoided: it is a dead-end mud covered dangerous tunnel, which cannot be entered by a 9 people group of not so experienced cave divers. Unfortunately the guide was not very experienced of the cave (they said this was just the 5th time in that cave) and tragically entered the deadly tunnel, followed by the other 8.
Then the silt obscured completely visibility, panic rose and you can imagine what.

According to the thread I read the main mistakes were:
- A group of 8 with just one guide
- Divers with no specialistic cave training (although this remains to be seen in details)
- But above all, the unbelievable mistake of a guide who was maybe not aware of the local danger.

By the way, on the link I posted you can clearly read "Let's avoid a dangerous muddy branch."
Too bad.

 

[papsje]

Does anybody know what the name of the dive center was/is? Which organisations are working with this dive center? And are these organisations launching investigations to give the dive center sanctions. Was this for instance a Padi center? I would very much like to know what the dive industry is going to do!

I find it strange no dive industry organisations have put out statements or press releases?

 

[Bdsora]

The cave ("Grotta degli occhi" or "Cave of the eyes", and not "Grotta del sange", which is next, as read in the news) is considered very easy. Here you can read a description and see a map
Eyes and Blood cave, description

Thanks for the Link

Always sad to read about these accidents.