Peacock Fatality Accident Analysis
- Thread starter Cave Diver
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
That is the point everyone agrees on.
Some of us are just applying that equally to the "if she had placed her own line she would have knew where she was at and not a panicked".
The she died cuz she viopated the rules theory is warm and cuddly for the living as it is 100% controllable, so it takes the fear of "it could happen to me" out of the equation - perhaps in cases where it should not. Cave diving is not so warm and cuddly if you look beyond the 100% controllable aspects of accident analysis and actually consider the whole spectrum of *why* she *initially* became disoriented and panicked.
Why does some one panic in familar cave on well marked goldline? At a minimum you have to at elast consider that there was more going on than just faling to follow all the rules.
The changing tone of the discussion and the new evidence coming to light on past behavior supportsthat. The past behavior suggests she should have been even more diligent in following rules and diving within her limits, but at the same time it was important for her to do so because something else appears to have been going on that limited her ability to remain calm and rational. Medical, behavioral, whatever - it just suggests more was involved than breaking three rules and it suggests the event probably was initaited her own congnitive processes.
SuPrBuGmAn
Contributor
Its been implied several times that those wanting to blame a medical condition on this incident are trying to take the "it could happen to me" out of this scenario.
She just did two visual jumps, down unfamiliar cave... she didn't trust she was where she thought she should be, and she had no infrastructure in place to validate that information. Pretty cut and dry.
The changing tone of this discussion is likely because as more new information about this dive surfaces, the more and more it backs up, she wasn't in familiar territory. First time making jumps(visual or not), first time in the crossover tunnel, first time doing a circuit, no mentorship(a diver who's done it once or twice doesn't count), why ignore every bit of this? Foolishness.
Green_Streak
Registered
From the conversation I just had on the phone this sum's it up perfectly. As much as I'd like to think there was some other issue to cause her to bolt I can't overlook that these were the first two jumps she'd ever taken and they were visual(hell they were also the first two jumps I ever took but with the major differences of being in a class with an instructor and running lines). John(her buddy) had completed this circuit exactly once before. It's sad but from what I can see this boils down to a case of Pat making a dive that was too far outside of her skill set and experience base. It pains me when things like this happen, but even more so when all the evidence points to them being completely avoidable.
pussy
(joking, for those of you who are slow to catch on...)
Joking aside,
I have seen MANY cave divers not bother with a primary in certain places (like JB) because the diver looks at the area and decides there is NOTHING that can cause the vis to drop so bad he/she would need it.
Unfortunately they are WRONG, a collapse, partial collapse down system, sudden flash flood with river incursion or even a lost mask with no back up can cause HUGE issues.
There in NEVER any excuse for not having a cont guideline to open water.
OP
I was in JB about 7 years ago when there was a collapse. Viz was 0,and the flow did nothing to clear it out. I have been in a total of 4 collapses,two on top of me,and I am thankful each time for that continuous guide line,with no visuals.
I agree here. People have to rationalize to themselves or family members that this couldn't happen to me. In reality it can happen to all of us,even with all the measures in place,and following all the rules. People are too casual about this sport ie "I'll hook up with a buddy at the spring",I've never been here before,but we'll scooter it","This cave is high flow,so a silt out will clear quickly" etc etc etc. I have seen several good friends lost to this sport,and this is a great equalizer everytime I make a cave dive-even a dive to pothole gets my attention. I feel very sorry for people who learn to cave dive or do cave dives because of peer pressure,because they are the ones that have that little voice talking to them the whole time,and no longer have the mental focus for the task at hand.
OP
Kevin Carlisle
Contributor
I know what has been said but her tanks were empty when found. Go back and look at Robs map he put up. You have an older person, smallish tanks, a long freakin swim and doing thing they were not accustom too doing adding stress. She might not have been too low but low enough to make her panic, then she swam towards her blind jump hoping to hit Olsen's which is the only reason I can see swimming against the arrows.
Similar threads
