Orange Grove fatality?

[The Chairman]

as you still have access to all of the gas with BM doubles.

Possibly. But only if the isolator is open and even then you still might have to change regs. Panic is it's own narcosis. Once it sets in, you become dumber than a box of hammers.

You think that somehow side mount led to the demise of this diver. That's your choice. I'm going to blame the blind jumps and subsequent blind panic.

 

[PfcAJ]

Possibly. But only if the isolator is open and even then you still might have to change regs. Panic is it's own narcosis. Once it sets in, you become dumber than a box of hammers.

You think that somehow side mount led to the demise of this diver. That's your choice. I'm going to blame the blind jumps and subsequent blind panic.

A blind jump doesn't close a reg for you and make you inhale water.

 

[cerich]

A blind jump doesn't close a reg for you and make you inhale water.

I have seen many BM divers (not all students either) jump in with a valve shut, isolator shut and have issues because of it. You are blaming SM for something that also happens in BM.

 

[The Chairman]

If you quit blaming the student

I'm not blaming a student. I'm blaming the diver. His instructor is probably still alive and honoring his limits. The culture of exceeding limits is not an instructor problem, it's a community problem. I could easily see this as being a result of the shaming many participate in. Why didn't he run a proper jump? Could it be that he didn't want to leave evidence of exceeding his limits? He didn't want to be caught and have people climb all over his butt, so he made a couple of blind jumps.

 

[PfcAJ]

I have seen many BM divers (not all students either) jump in with a valve shut, isolator shut and have issues because of it. You are blaming SM for something that also happens in BM.

Either one of those things doesn't render half your gas inaccessible. Together they do, sure, but thats 2x the number of valve closures required.

I'd also hazard a guess that the deceased didn't start the dive with his bottle off. But I don't know for sure.

 

[DA Aquamaster]

/...

For #4 I think there's a huge problem with full cave divers trying to encourage intro divers to break the limits of their training. I've had several former students tell me of people that tried to encourage them to dive to thirds almost immediately after they were done with intro. And while I'm not a fan of Kelly's idea of going back to the days of Single Tank Only, there's one benefit of being in a single tank -- you have a finite gas amount that will limit your penetration. Most of the gas is used just running the reel to the primary line anyway.

Instructors need to do a better job of reminding their students they have a responsibility to not take people beyond the limits of their training. We should all review the previous levels of training and explain in depth why taking people beyond their limits is a horrible idea.

#5 - that course exists, it's called Apprentice. Or Cave 1. Or "TekLite Cave Diver", depending on your agency.

#6 - It's difficult to have a significant statistical analysis of the safety of NAUI Cave 1 versus Intro because the numbers for Cave 1 are substantially lower. You can go out any day of the week and you're likely to run into an intro class, but rarely will you run into a NAUI Cave 1 course. BTW, NAUI Cave 1 requires 9 dives (2 cavern, 7 cave). Apprentice requires 10 (4 cavern, 6 cave). Probably not enough either way, and Cave 1 is really a "zero to hero" program so it is a lot for many people to digest at once.../

/....I think the difference isn't the standards on paper, but rather the quality of the instructors teaching the material. Twenty years ago, even the cave instructors that I thought were goof balls, were stellar cave divers and excellent at sharing how to cave dive safely. But now, not so much. We have "Cavern Instructors" that can't do a frog kick, and are taking students to the Keyhole in Ginnie while the instructor is in a single tank K-valve.

I think this drop in instructor quality goes back to the path taken to become a cave instructor. I mentored/co-taught under a dozen different cave instructors (in no particular order they were Bailey, Berman, Jablonski, Oestreich, Sorenson, Fowler, Cole, Murcar, Bernot, Wyatt, Sellers, Moon), and that used to be the norm. Not so anymore.

I agree with you on #4. I think a lot of full cave divers are taking Intro divers above their level, and in the process seem to also be passing on some bad habits, such as not running a reel and/or doing blind jumps. That's even worse when the full cave diver fails to understand that the Intro diver might not grasp the subtly of when not running a reel or making a blind jump is just a rule violation, versus as serious safety issue.

It has to be addressed as a cave diver culture issue and it will have to be self policed by members sending clear messages that it's a very poor practice.

You (partially) missed the point regarding Apprentice. Cave 1 is a cert that many cave divers will stop at as their pinnacle cert. Apprentice may or may not be, depending on the agency . NSS-CDS used to apply an 18 month expiration. I believe some agencies still have a 1 year expiration date. The fact that it is changing is I think in recognition of the "Apprentice as a destination or pinnacle cert" issue.

I also agree with you on quality of instruction. It has always been far more important than the cert agency, but sadly standards and expectations for instructors seem to be slipping across several agencies.

​

 

[rjack321]

I'm not blaming a student. I'm blaming the diver. His instructor is probably still alive and honoring his limits. The culture of exceeding limits is not an instructor problem, it's a community problem. I could easily see this as being a result of the shaming many participate in. Why didn't he run a proper jump? Could it be that he didn't want to leave evidence of exceeding his limits? He didn't want to be caught and have people climb all over his butt, so he made a couple of blind jumps.

Your blame accomplishes absolutely nothing. If you really think that Intro level divers are doing blind jumps to hide evidence that they are off the mainline so they don't get shamed after the fact you really are beyond reasonable self reflection.

 

[cerich]

blind jumps.

How about we start calling them "dead diver jumps", or "suicide jumps"

When did "blind jumps" even become part of the vocab? I mean seriously... visual jumps are are bad enough because the whole "visual" thing isn't a promise let alone the divers navigation and memory (it is amazing how a different angle can make a cave look like a different one altogether)

 

[cerich]

Your blame accomplishes absolutely nothing. If you really think that Intro level divers are doing blind jumps to hide evidence that they are off the mainline so they don't get shamed after the fact you really are beyond reasonable self reflection.

I would like to think that Pete is wrong on this...however over the years I have learned he is pretty good at sussing out why people do things... he may be right, if he is about a reason that some may use to not run a jump... just gonna sit here and shake my head

 

[rjack321]

I would like to think that Pete is wrong on this...however over the years I have learned he is pretty good at sussing out why people do things... he may be right, if he is about a reason that some may use to not run a jump... just gonna sit here and shake my head

How would we ever know? (I don't think its the case)
Full cave divers do it because we're lazy and big fat gold lines with 100ft arrows etc actually facilitate the laziness.
Intro divers follow our lead - cultural transmission superseding whatever training might have occurred in the past.

Laziness is taught (by buddy's), not dissuaded by distinctive gold lines, and facilitated by intro training limits that don't allow any jumps at all - so "one" seems reasonable compared to the "infinite" offered at full cave. When a significant portion of (full) cave divers do visual jumps today, what some old guy said in fuzy courier font in a little blueprint document from the 1980s ends up being drowned out. The recency and relevance to any given diver today is just not there.