Manatee Springs SP cave fatality

[Trace Malinowski]

I decided to delete my post, but the 5 rules of accident analysis apply. A properly set up traverse would have maintained a continuous guideline to open water on both sides. Certification, training, and experience should always serve to encourage divers to do things as properly and safely as possible.

 

[Manatee Diver]

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.)

NSS-CDS Apprentice and TDI Intro Cave do not allow any sort of navigation decisions. Under the NSS-CDS program there is an expiring Apprentice Plus system that allows instructors with additional training beyond the minimum to make navigation decisions. IIRC I was told that Ts counted as navigation decisions, so if I made it to the T at Little River I would be required to turn around.

GUE Cave 1 and I believe NAUI Cave 1 allow one navigation decision of a permanent junction. But no jumps.

AFAIK no program allows any complex navigation at the level 1 cave diver program. Nor should it be taught, level 1 cave diver courses are already a fire hose of new information. Last thing you need to do is overwhelm with planning/setting up complex navigation.

 

[inquis]

While Apprentice isn't allowed to execute a complex traverse, the concept was part of the pre-class written material when I took it (so lots of time to digest) and briefly mentioned in-person. That cursory understanding tells the student it's a level beyond a simple traverse, and requires preparation to do safely. If that's not taught universally, I think it should be.

 

[Manatee Diver]

While Apprentice isn't allowed to execute a complex traverse, the concept was part of the pre-class written material when I took it and briefly mentioned in-person. That cursory understanding tells the student it's a level beyond a simple traverse, and requires preparation to do safely. If that's not taught universally, I think it should be.

It was in the book, but actual in class discussion on how to plan and execute them didn't come up until we were moving forward to apprentice plus. Before that it was "If you get to a T you signal your team to turn around."

But at least in Florida there are no Ts that one can easily get to within the Apprentice limits. Little River you are likely to hit gas limits first. The Peanut T is like 1,900ft, well beyond the 1,000ft limit. There are no Ts on the Ginnie line in the first thousand feet of mainline. At Manatee you have the Sue Sink T, but that is 700ft into the system, even if one can make it within the gas limits it is a good turn point.

Of course Mexico might be different, like in Chan-hol I know there is a T maybe a hundred feet into the system.

 

[Addison Snyder]

Seriously good on NSS-CDS for actually releasing accident analysis in a reasonably timely manner. Transparency will shed light on truth, which was that they did a risky dive and broke rules, not that cave diving is unreasonably risky. I'm no PR person, but having these reports public makes it easier for uninformed people (media, politics, etc) to understand that accidents happen, but are largely the fault of the victims' decision-making, not environmental circumstance. Condolences to them of course, nonetheless.

 

[Beau Holden]

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?

I would also add; there is an experience level. I am a cave diver, and at what level does not matter at this point and for this discussion. But what does matter is my experience and comfort level. We all push the envelope. I have done so since OW. Why? It gives me experience and causes me to learn. Have I done dives outside my cert level? Yes. Have I done dives outside my training level? Yes, maybe, no. Have there been deaths when every aspect of the dive was inside training, cert and experience levels? Yes, and there will continue to be. Who knows, it might be me one day when the feces hit the fan and everything goes south and all within the three levels, but for what ever reason my mind is not where it should be at that moment.

Let's ask the question what is training? Is it all instructor based? Is it experience based (can you train yourself?) Is it mentor based? Is it information source based? I venture to say it is a combination of all of them. What is certification? Someone who has said I check all the boxes and has validated that I have the knowledge and know what I am doing and can do it? If that's the case, how did I get knowledge to know what I am doing and know how to do it? Training? How did I get the training?

Don't get me wrong. I am all for instructor based training and certifications. I have pocket full of them. Some I don't even remember getting. However, is it ever OK to say a death or incident or accident is based on lack of training or certification or (in some cases) experience? I'm going to say no and I know a lot of people will or might disagree. In my opinion they are based on mistakes, bad decisions, bad choices, inattention, loss of situational awareness and the breaking of basic rules. Those are the root cause(s). Now we can really get into the weeds with those and see what actually feeds them.

This accident causes me sadness and my heart goes out to the survivors and the family of the deceased. The report does a good job of describing the accident and it describes some of the potential causes. Otherwise we speculate, we say we would have, or not, done this or that, they should have, or should not, have done this or that. What really matters is what made sense to them at that time and why it did and the survivors are the only ones that can answer that.

 

[Manatee Diver]

However, is it ever OK to say a death or incident or accident is based on lack of training or certification or (in some cases) experience? I'm going to say no and I know a lot of people will or might disagree. In my opinion they are based on mistakes, bad decisions, bad choices, inattention, loss of situational awareness and the breaking of basic rules.

In my humble opinion yes, we do it all the time. Look at just about every OW diver that died in a cave. In those cases we can run down the list of all the mistakes that they made, but ultimately it boils down to not knowing what they needed to know to accomplish the dive.

Since I knew that I would be framing the debate with my summary, I purposely decided not to nitpick the individual mistakes, as I know at that level I made some of those mistakes. Instead focusing on what I feel is the core issue: a team doing a dive beyond their level be it certification, experience, knowledge, or some combination of the three. As I felt that the mistakes they made are skills newly learned or further refined as you move toward becoming a full cave diver.

And since those were lessons that we already know to instead focusing on the issue brought up by the NSS-CDS Accident Committee that the idea to do the dive, and the dive plan that they did may have instead come from internet research, in particular the video that has been privated.

 

[boulderjohn]

We all push the envelope. I have done so since OW. Why? It gives me experience and causes me to learn.

The problem with this statement is that it lumps all attempts to extend one's experience into one category: "push the envelope." The new OW diver certified to 60 feet who goes to 61 feet is doing the same thing as the new OW diver who explores an unlined cave--they are both pushing the envelope. As such, the statement commits the fallacy of the excluded middle, implying there are only two choices, staying within the initial limits of training or taking death defying risks.

Yes, everyone must extend the limits of their training by extending their experience, but that needs to be done in thoughtful increments, not monumental leaps. I am full cave certified and a trimix instructor. I did not get there by staying within the limits of previous training, but I do not believe I have ever "pushed the envelope."

 

[Trace Malinowski]

Regarding pushing the envelope, there was an episode of the television detective show Columbo from 1978 called "The Conspirators" that I always remember and apply to my own diving. Actor Clive Revill played an Irish poet and humorist who secretly buys guns for the Irish Republican Army. He has a habit of controlling how much whiskey he consumes in one sitting by scratching a line on the whiskey bottle with his diamond ring stating "This far, and no farther."

When I started cave diving, I was in my early thirties and had reached a level of maturity where I could place discipline ahead of all else. I had somehow survived my wilder years underwater as a kid and had spent a decade as an instructor learning to be responsible for others.

I pursued cave training by taking NACD Cavern & Intro, NACD Apprentice, SDI Solo in caves with a TDI cave instructor, NSS-CDS Cave then specialty cave courses. During each evolution, I imagined scenes where Clive Revill would scratch a line on the bottle and say, "This far, and no farther."

I didn't exceed the limits of training and built experience slowly. Like many cave divers, I quit running line in every situation. I stopped running line into Ginnie, Little River, and Peacock. Then two things happened to change that. I was diving with a cave instructor candidate in Madison Blue for fun. Even though it was a fun dive, he thought I was evaluating him off the clock. He tied the primary to some old wood in the middle of the spring. We went in with a team of three. During our exit, we lost all visibility. We were in touch contact for what seemed to be forever with the candidate leading, my girlfriend in the middle, and me as tail end Charlie. Every once in a while, I could see my girlfriend's spring strap flash in my light beam. When we reached open water, we still couldn't see the surface and we only knew we were out of the cave when we felt the primary tie. I forget how many feet the ranger told us the water rose due to flooding but we entered in crystal clear visibility and exited in zero. I told Rose Meadows about that at Ginnie. She told me she lost visibility at the Ear once when teaching due to a storm while she was in the cave with dark skies and sediments from heavy downpours turning day into night. After that, I always ran a guideline into the "tourist caves."

Larry Green and I were talking about it one day. I told him being disciplined again kept me in practice for demonstrating how to run line. He said a lot of the instructor candidates he trained over the years were horrible at running primary reels because they had abandoned the practice until wanting to be cave instructors.

The same girlfriend who was on the zero vis Madison dive said she was depressed as a teenager when her mother and father got divorced and her ocean life was uprooted to Dade City. She said it was a good thing she didn't know about the springs and caves because if she saw a cave diver emerge from a crack in the earth she would have started cave diving during her rebellious years.

Discipline is the best trait one can find in a cave diver.

 

[Lorenzoid]

I suppose this potential for conflating training and experience is why we are encouraged to take our time between the first and second parts of the cave training curriculum to gain some experience, but not take TOO much time.