General Vortex Incident Discussion

[vshearer]

. In addition to exceeding overhead training requirements, he also exceed the depth that he was trained for. 100ft might not seem like a big deal to some people, but Ben was headed to 165-170ft on air, not the place you want to be while task loading. On top of all of this, his gear was not configured in a safe manner. Changing regs underwater is not a safe practice. He was smart enough to know all of this, but continued pushing his luck.

.

That to me really sums it up. Being on air at 165' in clear warm OW is not a really big deal, in a 68 degree cave in a wetsuit it is tempting fate, no place for clouded thinking.

 

[vshearer]

... and we woulda found the tank he left behind! Brilliant!

Actually I addressed that in post #1651 He was using Nik's invention.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

Yep!
And lets not address the FACTS:
A. Ben was a risk taker and adrenaline junkie
B. Ben wanted to MAP THE CAVE past current maps
C. Ben believed he was capable of doing so
D. Ben went diving Vortex that day and has not been seen since
No one has gone as far into the cave as 1 other human has and the search teams would not attempt going that far because they wanted to come out ALIVE
Repeat....all of the above.

Save the beer gal, you will not have to spend your money....

E. Travel through restrictive cave, leaves signs. There was none.
F. The search divers pushing that far have to drop a tank and continue on with just one tank at the far reaches of the line in no-mount, due to the size of the passage.
G. If Ben made it back that far, he would have had to drop a tank, and there were no tanks found in the back of the cave.


Ya know... since we're looking at the facts.

 

[Cleavitt]

And I guess all the holes in the cave are made of concrete and metal and remain constant at all times.

Limestone for the most part. Once a limestone passage is made larger it doesn't get smaller again. Limestone is also fairly soft and it's very obvious when someone has been navigating through tight passages because it leaves bright white scrapes.

Why are you so argumentative? Why are you so focused on two bits of info that nobody else seems to care much about? Why are you pretending to be an expert on something (cave diving) you clearly know nothing about?

How Ben bypassed the gate is pretty much irrelavent. Even if someone helped him in, he still knew he was diving well beyond his training and that is entirely his responsibility.

I have been following this accident pretty closely from the start and I haven't heard anything about Ben 'stealing air' except in the 20+ posts that you have made. Stop acting like this whole thing is a big conspiracy to attack Ben's character or cover up something.

 

[PfcAJ]

And I guess all the holes in the cave are made of concrete and metal and remain constant at all times.

No, they're made of rock. Broken rocks are different color than naturally eroded, however. You can tell when a tank has been smashed into it.

 

[ucfdiver]

So, I guess Ben is the only one accountable here. No one else did anything wrong. All persons involved with Vortex, as diver or employee are on the up and up at all times. Okay...I get it now.
And any rumors about air, locks, keys, missing keys, non-missing keys, escorts through gates, lack of timely forthcoming of the truth...that can all be dismissed as non essential to the conversation.

I think you're lost. This is the cave diving forum. Clearly you stumbled across it looking for one where you could post and actually know wtf you're talking about.

 

[Hetland]

So, I guess Ben is the only one accountable here. No one else did anything wrong. All persons involved with Vortex, as diver or employee are on the up and up at all times. Okay...I get it now.
And any rumors about air, locks, keys, missing keys, non-missing keys, escorts through gates, lack of timely forthcoming of the truth...that can all be dismissed as non essential to the conversation.

He went into that cave under his own power. If someone else did something stupid, then that's on them. Ben was an adult, not a teenager. Unless someone locked him in, then it's all on Ben.

And I guess all the holes in the cave are made of concrete and metal and remain constant at all times.

Why can't you take the eye-witness word of expert cave divers, many of whom you know personally? None of them are saying he's not in the cave somewhere, they are saying he's not past the last restriction. His helmet couldn't fit, his tanks couldn't fit, his head couldn't fit, his pelvis couldn't fit. If he took this gear off to try the hole, they would have found at least some it down stream.

Do you think they would all get together and conspire to lie to law enforcement personnel to protect an employee of Vortex?

Yep!
And lets not address the FACTS:
A. Ben was a risk taker and adrenaline junkie
B. Ben wanted to MAP THE CAVE past current maps
C. Ben believed he was capable of doing so
D. Ben went diving Vortex that day and has not been seen since
No one has gone as far into the cave as 1 other human has and the search teams would not attempt going that far because they wanted to come out ALIVE
Repeat....all of the above.

Save the beer gal, you will not have to spend your money....

So how do you get an 8" tank, an 8" skull and a 15" pelvis through a 4" hole without so much as a scratch mark?

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

He wouldn't have gotten to the hole without shedding gear and leaving quite a bit of trace.

FACT​

 

[PfcAJ]

Haven't you seen Honey I Shrunk the Kids? Duh...

 

[vshearer]

You know she may just be enjoying seeing how riled up she can get you guys.