Is cave diving safer than Open Water

[Tanks A Lot]

However, of all the cave deaths I've heard about, it's from people who absolutely should not dive there, diving there.

This is not quite correct. The attached paper is a bit out of date, but may shed a bit of light on this, looking at cave diving fatalities in the US between 1969 and 2007. Page 10 and 11 have a great overview.

The ratio between trained and untrained deaths is roughly 1:3. When a death occurs, a trained cave diver has been even more likely to flunk the thirds rule than a untrained diver for example. If something happened, a trained cave diver has been more or less equally likely to ignore line rules.

Training is all well and good, but it means very little to the individual if he chooses to ignore the rules. That does not mean that training is irrelevant, quite the opposite as the paper shows.
A trained cave diver may be more likely to go "Ah, I know this cave in and out, I have been diving here 100s of times - No need for that line or extra reserve of gas!".
It is up to the individual to follow and adhere to the learned standards.

 

[KevinNM]

That was true in the past.

Nowadays, people are more aware of the risks, and untrained divers seldom go into caves. Most recent deaths I heard of are trained divers bending the rules.; A few relatively recent deaths involved students (because the instructors were bending the rules). But maybe others know different stories involving untrained divers.

PS nobody is going to tell you how many untrained divers entered caves and come back alive. I bet they were the majority... But let's say that only 5% or even 1% of untrained divers died in the past - this is fu**ing too much


Exactly. But the risk is still there, even with all the training of the world, and is still much more than in OW. Easy environment, but very small margin for errors. Never underestimate it.

For example, the two rebreather divers who apparently screwed up exiting revelation space in Eagles Nest. They apparently had appropriate training and the minimal experience and were properly equipped to go where they went. But things went totally sideways and everything spiraled into the accident pit because of how deep and how far back they were.

 

[jordaof]

I could never do cave diving, neither I want to, even with training I would go berserk, cause I'm a claustrophobic guy, I don't like tight spaces where I can't move freely, and in my mind the variables for cave diving accidents are quite high, even for trained people, with all your training what can you do if there's a earthquake? I don't know if you guys know about that case in the States that I've listen in dive talk "from which I'm a fan", from a poor soul that got trapped from a landslide from the roof of the cave that was originated by.. imagine.. bubbles or air that created an air space on the top of the cave, the roof lost consistency and strength because of that, and the guy got completely entombed on that landslide. I respect those that like, and, respect the difficulty and the severity of the situation going to a cave.. without training, you talked about Mount Gambier 1973, yeah that was a sad episode of people not knowing their limits and being narked to hell, "those kids were OWD instructors, at least the brother and sister", no OWD AOWD "only" even instructor should enter, people should know their limitations.

- No line
- No reserve air supply
- Inefficient buoyancy -> provoking the damned silt to be loose

Compound this and,

- Anxiety by lack of experience -> More air consumption -> more anxiety -> panic -> accident

 

[KevinNM]

You could have a jet crash into your house while you sleep. This to has actually happened. How are you going to handle that? Same way you deal with the possibility of crazy unlikely stuff happening under water.

There are some things that are so vanishingly unlikely and so impossible to effectively deal with that you simply have to ignore them.

 

[RShockley]

You could have a jet crash into your house while you sleep. This to has actually happened. How are you going to handle that? Same way you deal with the possibility of crazy unlikely stuff happening under water.

There are some things that are so vanishingly unlikely and so impossible to effectively deal with that you simply have to ignore them.

I love when people overthink the extremely unlikely possibilities while doing things that are way more likely to kill you like driving on a daily basis without concern.

 

[Marie13]

I could never do cave diving, neither I want to, even with training I would go berserk, cause I'm a claustrophobic guy, I don't like tight spaces where I can't move freely, and in my mind the variables for cave diving accidents are quite high, even for trained people, with all your training what can you do if there's a earthquake? I don't know if you guys know about that case in the States that I've listen in dive talk "from which I'm a fan", from a poor soul that got trapped from a landslide from the roof of the cave that was originated by.. imagine.. bubbles or air that created an air space on the top of the cave, the roof lost consistency and strength because of that, and the guy got completely entombed on that landslide. I respect those that like, and, respect the difficulty and the severity of the situation going to a cave.. without training, you talked about Mount Gambier 1973, yeah that was a sad episode of people not knowing their limits and being narked to hell, "those kids were OWD instructors, at least the brother and sister", no OWD AOWD "only" even instructor should enter, people should know their limitations.

- No line
- No reserve air supply
- Inefficient buoyancy -> provoking the damned silt to be loose

Compound this and,

- Anxiety by lack of experience -> More air consumption -> more anxiety -> panic -> accident

Social media and the internet in general promote the mindset that all cave diving is what I refer to as “squeezy sh*t.” Far from it. I cave dive and I don’t like squeezy sh*t at all.

I was taught during my cavern/intro to cave class that only ONE diver is known to have died due to a cave-in.

And on the topic of Dive Talk, take everything you hear there with a massive grain of salt and only consider it entertainment.

 

[NW Dive Dawg]

And on the topic of Dive Talk, take everything you hear there with a massive grain of salt and only consider it entertainment.

I think that the same thing can be generally said for Scubaboard.

 

[Marie13]

I think that the same thing can be generally said for Scubaboard.

There can actually be decent information here. DT, on the other hand,

 

[kaylee_ann]

There can actually be decent information ere. DT, on the other hand,

dang, I love that channel! haha

 

[kaylee_ann]

I think that the same thing can be generally said for Scubaboard.

I don't know if I've seen a more accurate post on this forum yet