Ginnie Springs diver missing - Florida

[formernuke]

The group of about ~10-12 IUCRR divers who end up doing the recoveries in FL. Let's face it this is almost a uniquely FL issue. The Mexican cave diving fatality rate is a fraction of the FL rate. The cave diving fatality rate for rest of the world is even lower still. Instead of blaming the recovery divers for not publishing "reports", perhaps the energy would be better directed at asking why FL has so many cave diving fatalities in the first place.

Just a shot in the dark, how many divers total between the two sites?

I also like to know the what happened in dive incidents to learn how not to become one.

 

[Manatee Diver]

On CDF @kensuf admitted that he leaked the information in an attempt to stop the rampant speculation that normally accompanies these accidents. And it worked IMO.

 

[rjack321]

Just a shot in the dark, how many divers total between the two sites?

I also like to know the what happened in dive incidents to learn how not to become one.

People think 50 people cave diving at Ginnie is a huge crowd (and its is)
Yet on the same day there are busloads of people diving Dos Ojos. On any given day there are 10x as many cavern and cave dives done in the Riviera Maya, and a fraction of the fatality rate. Almost none of them on CCR, almost none of them racing to the "back" of the cave, scooters are rare

 

[formernuke]

People think 50 people cave diving at Ginnie is a huge crowd (and its is)
Yet on the same day there are busloads of people diving Dos Ojos. On any given day there are 10x as many cavern and cave dives done in the Riviera Maya, and a fraction of the fatality rate. Almost none of them on CCR, almost none of them racing to the "back" of the cave, scooters are rare

So you've indicted a couple things. Lack of rebreathers, lack of scooters and racing to back of cave.

A reason to get basic incident reports. No names just a dive in X conditions had Y happen the result was Z.

 

[rjack321]

So you've indicted a couple things. Lack of rebreathers, lack of scooters and racing to back of cave.

Which are just some obvious FL vs MX differences. MX is much more touristy and the vast majority of vacationing divers down there treat it like a vacation and take pictures or video (which has been a fatal distraction in the past but thankfully rare). But the eagerness to rack up huge dives with 10,000ft of penetration or hours of deco (on CCR) just doesnt seem to happen. The recent Ginnie fatality was CCR related and those have been historically rare in MX as well. That's changing probably for the worse over the coming years.

 

[Caveeagle]

People think 50 people cave diving at Ginnie is a huge crowd (and its is)
Yet on the same day there are busloads of people diving Dos Ojos. On any given day there are 10x as many cavern and cave dives done in the Riviera , and a fraction of the fatality rate. Almost none of them on CCR, almost none of them racing to the "back" of the cave, scooters are rare

I saw plenty of scooters when I was in mexico.

I have a serious objection with the assertion that somehow, "Mexico has a Fraction of the fatalities as FL".. that is a magor 'apples vs oranges' argument.

I can think of 4 fatalities in Mexico in the last 5 years.. Florida might be a couple more.. but that hardly make Mexico a "fraction" of the recent issues.

The 'Nest' is its own thing.. and its hard to draw much of a comparison between that and Mexican diving..

Mexico: Shallow, A very high% of quided dives, ongoing exploration (arguably) less dangerous..

 

[tmassey]

It seems to me that we need some basic data collection, and ideally some historical information.

It would be great if we knew how many divers showed up at, say, Peacock and Ginnie per year (and Madison and Manitee and Little River and...) per year. It would be better if we knew that for past years, too. It would help to quantify the level of deaths.

It would be great if we knew how many cave cards are issued each year and historically, to know how interest in the sport is changing.

These can be sensitive numbers that organizations might not simply volunteer. But it would be nice if there were an organization that could earn their trust enough to be able to collect and provide at least accurate anonymized combined overall annual numbers.

The problem is, the organizations most obvious to me currently around that might do that have obvious conflicts of interests, and sometimes a demonstrated interest in *not* quantifying the sport as a whole. Of course, I’m just a baby cave diver: maybe there’s something out there that could do such a job.

But boy, how nice would it be to be able to say that there were roughly X cave divers active per day between these top cave diving locations, compared to Y per day last year, or Z a decade ago... And yet fatalities have (only?) risen by this percentage during that time...

That’s way more than we have now.

Sure, you’d love to know how many are OC vs CCR, how many are solo vs. them, etc. But baby steps: how about we start with the most *general* numbers and grow from there?

 

[EFX]

In this thread and other accident threads there is a frustration that accident reports, whether they contain all the facts or some of the pertinent facts, are not more forthcoming. I agree with others that through factual reporting we can learn from the mistakes of others (assuming mistakes were made) and hopefully, not make those same mistakes. Reasons have been given, like legal, preventing embarrassment, protecting ego's, etc. I'm wondering if the main reason is the complexity of the factors that can lead to an accident that make a factual report difficult or impossible.

Alex Brylske, Ph.D. in his book "The Complete Diver" compares the difficulty of accident analysis for scuba diving and golf. He says if someone drops dead on the golf course they never call it a golfing accident. It's always deemed a medical problem with perhaps the exception of the exceedingly rare possibility of getting hit in just the right spot by a golf ball. In scuba however, it's not clear at first whether the death was caused by a medical event like a heart attack or a scuba accident. If I'm not mistaken a fatal heart attack can lead to drowning and a drowning from a scuba accident (ex. equipment failure) can lead to a fatal heart attack. It appears to be a "chicken and egg" problem, that is, which came first?

In regards to cave diving (I'm not a cave diver so please forgive me for any ignorance) I can identify four contributing factors to an in-water accident:

1. Medical problems (heart attack, stroke, etc.).
2. Equipment problems.
3. Human error (not following procedures, lack of good judgment, complacency).
4. Environment (cave collapse).

One of these factors or all of them can contribute to an accident. Given the complexity of a "scuba accident" could this be the primary reason why accident reports are delayed or not published?

 

[tursiops]

One of these factors or all of them can contribute to an accident. Given the complexity of a "scuba accident" could this be the primary reason why accident reports are delayed or not published?

No. People (egos and money and fear of litigation or criticism) are the primary reason. Just like all the previous posts said.

 

[EFX]

I get the ego connection and fear of litigation. Explain how money and criticism affects a supposedly objective accident investigation and analysis.