General Vortex Incident Discussion

[Can't swim]

So here is a question for the masses...

This incident has opened the eyes of a lot of readers to the dangers and unforgiving nature of cave diving without proper training. Many of you are seeing for the first time some example of how badly things can quickly go wrong.

If this turns out to be a hoax, misunderstanding, whatever and it turns out for a fact that he is not in the cave after all, will that soften your perception?

Nah, I've been thinking it was a hoax after the first week.
This incident has made me realize, even more so, to the dangers of cave diving. I don't even peer into an overhang when river diving much less go inside a hole in the rocks. I'm in no hurry to end my diving fun by doing something so stupid.

Thanks to everyone who has posted pics, vids and educational information.....

 

[Rick Murchison]

... I read about people utilizing transpacs all the time to transform the modular BC's into a side-mount rig...

Dive-Rite's original (and second generation) sidemount rig was a Transpac with sidemount kit. I still use the original (though I do lust after the Nomad, or an Armadillo).
Rick

 

[Tortuga68]

It's still an interesting point... Anyone who has read Sheck Exley's Caverns Measureless To Man, would know that he was very lucky not to have died several times during his early diving career; if he had died earlier than he did, he would most likely have been written off on SB as a reckless idiot rather than a cave diving legend

/shrug

 

[LiteHedded]

where are all these guys coming from in this thread? this used to be in accidents and incidents or something? sorry it's been a long couple of weeks. maybe I missed something.

 

[Tortuga68]

It got split off. And moved to Cave Diving. Because you know... it was in a cave and all

 

[Rick Murchison]

It's still an interesting point... Anyone who has read Sheck Exley's Caverns Measureless To Man, would know that he was very lucky not to have died several times during his early diving career; if he had died earlier than he did, he would most likely have been written off on SB as a reckless idiot rather than a cave diving legend

/shrug

No one knew that better than Sheck himself. His epiphany led to his tireless efforts to get the word out on what *not* to do as well as things that worked. I'm pretty sure we would have had many more casualties (I could easily have been one) and a much more painful road to safe cave diving without him.
Rick

 

[LiteHedded]

It got split off. And moved to Cave Diving. Because you know... it was in a cave and all

ooooh
well that explains it

 

[Tortuga68]

No one knew that better than Sheck himself. His epiphany led to his tireless efforts to get the word out on what *not* to do as well as things that worked. I'm pretty sure we would have had many more casualties (I could easily have been one) and a much more painful road to safe cave diving without him.
Rick

True; but still - he was lucky to live long enough to have that epiphany. Some of the stuff he did before that was just plain stupid, even by the standards of the time

 

[Rick Murchison]

... even by the standards of the time

I really don't think so - there really were no standards, and that was the principle problem. I'll give you one example... it became apparent early on that some kind of guideline back out of the cave was a good idea. Divers had been using guidelines for search & recovery diving for quite a while, so there was already a protocol for guideline use. My cousin Earl was one of the earliest cavers and one of the first to try a guideline, in Morrison back before it was blown closed. They used search & recovery protocol - that is, the man with the reel sat in the anchored boat and "one tug - let out line; two tugs - take up slack; three or more tugs - haul me up."
When Earl turned the dive he gave two tugs but got no response. Following the slack line back out, he came to the end of the line before he came to the end of the cave! The guy in the boat had let the line get away from him.
Looking back on it the guys involved can't believe how "stupid" they were, how blind they were to the simple concept of anchoring the line in open water and taking the reel underwater. But they already knew how to use a reel & guideline, eh? It's just that what they already knew wasn't a good idea for caves.
Oh, yeah, and they were diving single 72's with a "half +2" gas management plan, too. At least they were using SPG's... few divers had that luxury back then.

Rick

 

[Divedoggie]

So here is a question for the masses...

This incident has opened the eyes of a lot of readers to the dangers and unforgiving nature of cave diving without proper training. Many of you are seeing for the first time some example of how badly things can quickly go wrong.

If this turns out to be a hoax, misunderstanding, whatever and it turns out for a fact that he is not in the cave after all, will that soften your perception?

No, to the contrary. If this turns out to be "something else" it has been believable because of the lack of training, poor skills, etc. The deepswim videos featuring polaris style ascent rates and lecherous peeps at the young girls on the dock just add icing to the cake.

I'm teaching 5 University diving classes a week this semester, and everyday the students want me to begin class with an update on the "missing diver." This has spurred long discussions of the importance of diving within scope of training, and as a result around 100 new divers have had this impressed apon them in a very memorable way.

This has often been a very serious thread, and then its strayed, but it seems to come back around add an educational point, link to a valuable video, or update the specific situation.