Manatee Springs SP cave fatality

[Marie13]

Deleted

 

[Lorenzoid]

Thanks for coming forward, @JustCavin' .

 

[JustCavin']

So why did you decide to exceed your training?

training or cert level? There is a big difference. If you can tell me what the cert level had to do with his death then we can have a discussion. It says a lot about the general community when they really don't want to know what actually caused the accident but would rather minimize it to a cert level issue. Are you also a cave diver?

 

[Marie13]

training or cert level? There is a big difference. If you can tell me what the cert level had to do with his death then we can have a discussion. It says a lot about the general community when they really don't want to know what actually caused the accident but would rather minimize it to a cert level issue. Are you also a cave diver?

Yes, I’m a cave diver. Full. And I’ve never exceeded my training.

If you had such experience, why weren’t you full cave?

 

[oya]

Thanks for coming forward, @JustCavin' .

I second the thanks to @JustCavin' for willingness to come forward with their experiences. (edited to add: Especially in the face of what must have been a horribly core-shaking experience at the very least, if not a great personal tragedy. For both of which you have my sympathies.)

It's the willingness to speak openly about incidents and accidents without fear of being attacked for "making stupid mistakes" that could strengthen the community as a whole.

I would suggest that anyone who wants to simply critique what they think of as mistakes that they would never, ever have made:
1 - Don't worry, you'll make different ones. Hopefully you'll be around to discuss them constructively after the fact as @JustCavin' has shown a willingness to do.
2 - You might consider reading literally every single thing Gareth Lock has written about a Just Culture; you might learn why you are, in fact, the reason that most people DON'T speak up.

 

[grantctobin]

Yes, I’m a cave diver. Full. And I’ve never exceeded my training.

If you had such experience, why weren’t you full cave?

You certified to solo dive on that CCR you love so much?

 

[Manatee Diver]

A cert card is great and is certainly the best way to measure ones ability in most cases, but as you are well aware, so many before us, and so many NOW, have not always adhered to a cert level, but rather a training level. Mike Young was almost denied entry to Ginnie when he and Tom Mount went to Demo a rebreather, because he was not CCR certified.

I am not really interested in the Sue sink thing that you bring up beyond saying that I know or know of 4 of the 5 members of the team (Larry is the only one I don't know, though chances are I know him in passing). If they say that it was the proper thing to do, it probably is. But I never really cared about it and didn't even mention it in my summary because as @oya says that is a fairly normal mistake with nothing to learn from. It was something beaten into my head during training, and something I harp on during debriefs.

I understand that a card is just a demonstration of skill level at the time it was issued. And there are those that have experience that exceed their certification level. But I feel that certification limits are put in place for the safety of the divers involved, to prevent a diver from getting in a situation beyond their current demonstrated skill and knowledge level. Particularly as skills aren't quite a refined as they could be. And that we are our worst enemies when it comes to self-evaluation.

I am curious, how long were the divers involved at the intro level? The report says 100 dives, if one is going 2 dives a week that can be a year, but few are diving every week.

You say that the videos had no factor in the decision making, how did they come to decide on doing this dive in particular this dive plan?

Understand my interest in this subject is as a video creator. In this is a question that comes up how do you balance showing the cool part without enticing people to do things beyond their certification levels. And how do you show dives that require more complex dive planning to be done safely?

 

[Trouts]

Also chiming in to thank JustCavin for providing his perspective on the accident. For those of you who are attacking the survivor for his actions, please stop! This type of behavior only serves to prevent divers from sharing their experiences. JustCavin does not need our criticism to let him know that the team made mistakes. That point was undoubtedly hammered home by the loss of a friend. What is useful is to try and understand what caused the team to believe that their actions were reasonable. The accident report and JustCavin's comments provide some clues. The team had approximately 100 dives at the Intro level. That's a fair bit of experience, even though they lacked Full Cave certification. They believed that there was a line in place leading to the exit at Catfish (like the ones they saw at Freidmans and Sue sinks). Therefore, they didn't believe that they would need to make any navigational decisions, and the dive wouldn't be all that different from the many dives they've already done. I can understand the mindset. It also appears that the video was not as much of an influence as the NSS-CDS accident analysis suggested. But, I hope more video content creators will be thinking about the sorts of questions Manatee Diver is asking. Thank you for sharing JustCavin and condolences for your loss.

Gayle Orner

 

[inquis]

[edited to remove an unintended judgemental tone and focus on facts]

It was stated that the divers were all "Intro to Cave" certified, but no agency was given. Do all the mainstream agencies teach a complex traverse procedure at the Intro level (even though they're not supposed to do them)? (I'm only familiar with NSS-CDS, who does at their Apprentice level, which I'm regarding as equivalent to Intro.) In other words, was established safe procedure simply unknown or was it disregarded by the divers?

I think a content creator could do this traverse justice if they were to discuss doing it "by the book". Even a 30 second intro mentioning a setup/familiarization dive might guide a future someone away from similar disaster.

 

[inquis]

I have one comment about the Statement of Understanding I signed after NSS-CDS Apprentice certification. I am no stranger to gradually expanding my experience beyond some of the limits reached during various certification classes in the past. On a recent cave trip, I considered doing a complex circuit at a site I had dived before, and I had no doubt that I could execute the procedure (even if that meant aborting the circuit).

The ONLY reason I did not is because of the Statement of Understanding that I signed. (On it, I stated that I would not do complex navigation apart from limited jumps.) If that was the result NSS-CDS intended by requiring that, I will say that it worked. I can wait.

I'm curious if there is something similar with other mainstream cave agencies?