General Vortex Incident Discussion

[lurk-n-learn]

I am thinking the same thing, and quite seriously.

As I said earlier, those guys clearly think they are great divers, and they are showing off what they think is their great skill. Someone pasted this, and that person probably has the same idea--showing the world what a great diver he was prior to his death. I think it will get a lot of hits from a lot of people who may be fooled into thinking the same thing. "Hey, those guys are supposed to be great cave divers, and I can dive that well, too. I think I will give it a try."

I don't know if there is anyway of getting the truth out about a Youtube video, but that one should come with a warning.

AGAIN....the victim had nothing to do with the video EXCEPT that he happened upon the idiots filming it that were acting like idiots! They are probably still alive and hopefully the entire incident has opened their eyes to the fact that they should not be doing what they are doing or they have a very good chance of ending up like the victim. Potentially, They so far have beat the odds and may still live to do other things that they should not do.

 

[bigken462]

And as far as the other posters request for posting a link to the victims Facebook....WHY??? FB is for Friends and family to share. Why would anyone want to or allow anyone to dissect this poor guys FB page?

It's always amazing how incidents like these brings out new posters and sock-puppets.

It's been mentioned multiple times what a great person this guy was. I don't think anyone has contested against that (nor will I) in addition to his starting a donor organization after the loss of his brother. So, setting his ignorance to safe diving practices aside, I wanted to see what kinda feller this person was outside of his diving.

 

[Divedoggie]

Still missed my point.,,,
I agree that fins off and walking on the ceiling etc etc is NOT ACCEPTABLE!!
You and I and alot of others are incredulous that someone would do that.
My point is that it IS NOT THE VICTIM OF THE VORTEX ACCIDENT IN THE VIDEO DOING THAT.
Clarify who the "he" "him" or "they" are before you post please.
Not just you by the way...there are MANY others that have done the exact same thing

And as far as the other posters request for posting a link to the victims Facebook....WHY??? FB is for Friends and family to share. Why would anyone want to or allow anyone to dissect this poor guys FB page? You may find other things on there deemed not quite right, dangerous, stupid or whatever you or all would want to. There are probably things on there that could be used to teach others but that is going too far into the victims personal space.
Bottom line to this entire very sad incident is that no person should ever dive alone EVER, or dive beyond your skills and level of training.

1. Facebook is for anybody. I'm sure many people that I don't know visit my page. I choose to "friend" the people I know.

2. While some criticism has concerned the "other" divers, most have addressed the diver identified as Ben. His basic buoyancy and finning skills are suspect, his sidemount system is out of balance and obviously awkward for him, his floaty AL80 tanks with tank boots and yoke valves are out of place in an overhead environment, his primary lights are (taped?) to his helmet and are turned off half the time.... And he joins the antics of the people shooting the video.

3. The Facebook post says, Ben McDaniel: "I think I had interrupted a video shoot in the Piano Room @ Vortex Springs Saturday night :/ It had been a fun cave dive, solo n side mount of coarse , so a good ending caught on tape was a plus."

He is emphasizing that he was diving solo and and sidemount. "Of coarse<sic>." This shows that he thinks he's really good at it.
Its important to point out that that thinking is flawed on his part. People who might view their own abilities as similar might make similarly poor decisions. Hopefully this thread will prevent even one person from going there!

 

[bamamedic]

Still missed my point.,,,
I agree that fins off and walking on the ceiling etc etc is NOT ACCEPTABLE!!
You and I and alot of others are incredulous that someone would do that.
My point is that it IS NOT THE VICTIM OF THE VORTEX ACCIDENT IN THE VIDEO DOING THAT.
Clarify who the "he" "him" or "they" are before you post please.
Not just you by the way...there are MANY others that have done the exact same thing

And as far as the other posters request for posting a link to the victims Facebook....WHY??? FB is for Friends and family to share. Why would anyone want to or allow anyone to dissect this poor guys FB page? You may find other things on there deemed not quite right, dangerous, stupid or whatever you or all would want to. There are probably things on there that could be used to teach others but that is going too far into the victims personal space.
Bottom line to this entire very sad incident is that no person should ever dive alone EVER, or dive beyond your skills and level of training.

Clarifying: The white helmeted diver appears to have been identified as the deceased diver in question....several people have pointed out issues with his buoyancy control. It doesn't appear to be adequate buoyancy control for a diver who brags about diving advanced level cave dives on Facebook.

The dude walking on the ceiling has problems of his own. It's just not OK to do that...it appears that he's an OW diver with no concept of just how dangerous it is for him to be back there.

As far as diving alone...I sincerely believe that solo diving was the least of his problems. There would just be two deaths instead of one
Maybe having a conservative diving friend who cared enough to intercede and tell him that he was being ridiculous...well, that might've helped, but that's assuming he would have been receptive to such criticism.

 

[lurk-n-learn]

It's always amazing how incidents like these brings out new posters and sock-puppets.
Good one. Wow. Unnecessary but humerous....

It's been mentioned multiple times what a great person this guy was. I don't think anyone has contested against that (nor will I) in addition to his starting a donor organization after the loss of his brother. So, setting his ignorance to safe diving practices aside, I just wanted to see what kinda feller this person was outside of his diving.

Purpose of that??? Serves no purpose...
knowing what kind of person he was outside of diving is irrelevant to the purpose of learning from this incident.
A fun loving risk taker and/or an adrenaline junkie that took yet another risk and it cost him his life.

If someone wants to really make a mark on history then I suggest that legislation be passed that regulates the availability of being able to fill the tanks with gas of any kind without showing the PROPER training and certification to handle what they are about to do.
Cant dive at all unless you have something to breath....gotta be someone out there who is capable of getting this done.
I this at all possible to do??
But I am willing to bet there are too many that would not want this to happen because it would limit their ability to get that "fix" by pushing the limits of their ability/training.

 

[bamamedic]

More regulation isn't the key....

You can buy your own compressor for a few thousand dollars and and play away...or get an Air Gas account and mix up helium to your heart's delight.

And how would you do it? It is believed that the deceased diver was diving air...not anything exotic. Would you require that dive shops collect a dive plan before every tank fill? It's easy enough to lie and say you're going somewhere else.

There is no way to legislate people from being foolish...there's a law requiring seat belt usage in Alabama, but I can count multiple instances of death or serious injury from people refusing to wear their seat belts. Regulation doesn't fix stupid, unfortunately.

 

[ScubaNurse758]

The sad truth, which has been stated on here several times, is that you cant fix stupid. No matter how many rules, regulations and barriers you put in someones way, if they want to circumvent these and hurt themselves, they are going to do it. The only thing we as a diving community (OW to technical diving) can do is educate each other and offer info, which is what the majority of people on these threads have been attempting to do. I personally have gained loads of respect for the cave divers on here from there input into this tragic incident. So I ask the ones who have been posting to stop talking about this person, or stop saying that about this person, what good are you accomplishing?? Trying to stop the flow of information is not going to bring back the dead, but it may hamper a diver who is still on the fence about whether they would try risky behaviors underwater from being persuaded. So please think before you jump in and try to derail an affective thread like this.

 

[Crush]

A fun loving risk taker and/or an adrenaline junkie that took yet another risk and it cost him his life.

I believe that most SB regulars are OK with "fun loving risk takers" in many situations, but not with risk-taking in diving. "Fun loving risk takers" are great beer buddies. They can even be great dive buddies if they know that there is an appropriate time and place for risk-taking, and caves are not appropriate places.

@lurk-n-learn - do you believe that the scuba skills demonstrated in the video are representative of Ben's skills at the time of his alleged final dive? If yes, I very am surprised at how far he apparently made it into the system.

 

[lurk-n-learn]

More regulation isn't the key....

You can buy your own compressor for a few thousand dollars and and play away...or get an Air Gas account and mix up helium to your heart's delight.

And how would you do it? It is believed that the deceased diver was diving air...not anything exotic. Would you require that dive shops collect a dive plan before every tank fill? It's easy enough to lie and say you're going somewhere else.

There is no way to legislate people from being foolish...there's a law requiring seat belt usage in Alabama, but I can count multiple instances of death or serious injury from people refusing to wear their seat belts. Regulation doesn't fix stupid, unfortunately.

I have no idea what or how to regulate it. Too bad it can't be done to save people from making mistakes.
At the end of the day hopefully this whole incident will save someone from making the same mistake and losing their life. A wake up call.

 

[bamamedic]

I have no idea what or how to regulate it. Too bad it can't be done to save people from making mistakes.
At the end of the day hopefully this whole incident will save someone from making the same mistake and losing their life. A wake up call.

"Save people from making mistakes?" Uh, where were you when I racked up thousands of dollars in credit card debt at age 18? I sure could have used someone to save me from my mistakes back then

People are free to make their own choices...all we can do is present the facts and allow them to decide. Some people will make horrible mistakes despite every single shred of evidence telling them they are in over their heads. Aside from educating OW divers, there isn't all that much that can be done to prevent a mistake such as this. People have been, are making, and will continue to make moronic choices as long as they are still allowed the freedom to choose.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled thread...