re: Accident at Ginnie Springs

[Jax]

Thank you. So, basically, will we not know what happened here until someone goes out on a limb and tells us?


Another question, since y'all are being accommodating -- Does anyone produce a guide for first responders' investigation of a diver death?


For example, the DHS produces this guide of best practices for collecting electronic and computer evidence. It gives careful, specific steps for people that don't normally collect such evidence.

If there were such a guide for local LE to investigate diver deaths, perhaps the police reports would have more and better information when something happens.

 

[ucfdiver]

Thank you. So, basically, will we not know what happened here until someone goes out on a limb and tells us?


Another question, since y'all are being accommodating -- Does anyone produce a guide for first responders' investigation of a diver death?


For example, the DHS produces this guide of best practices for collecting electronic and computer evidence. It gives careful, specific steps for people that don't normally collect such evidence.

If there were such a guide for local LE to investigate diver deaths, perhaps the police reports would have more and better information when something happens.

The IUCRR holds courses, typically during workshops. Watch the forums for official news.
IUCRR Course

On rare occasions, they share the information with the diving public, you can find those reports here-
untitled

 

[PfcAJ]

Jax, almost all cave diving deaths are shrouded in mystery for some reason. Plenty of talk about 'waiting for an official report', 'let the facts come out' etc, but that almost never happens. Its a real shame, because there is something to learn from each and every one of them, even if that lesson is simply a reinforcement of what you have already been taught.

 

[SuPrBuGmAn]

It seemed in years past that the IUCRR were doing a good job of both helping the police investigation as well as compiling known facts about an incident for release to the general public to learn from - hence the reports on the IUCRR website. Unfortunately, thats not happened in recent years(with one exception that I can see), which has basically been a very strong kick in the nuts to accident analysis.

 

[LiteHedded]

nevermind. whatever.

 

[georice]

I think you will find that due to the process that the lawsuits that follow these diving accidents takes, it has become necessary to refrain from publishing a lot of information because the lawyers use the communications in these blogs and forums in their lawsuits. It is a shame because by the time the lawsuits are over the dive accident is long past and sometimes forgotten about. I blame the lawyers who have forced the dive operations and or instructors to remain silent in fear of the reprisals. It is all about risk management.

 

[Jax]

The IUCRR holds courses, typically during workshops. Watch the forums for official news.
IUCRR Course

On rare occasions, they share the information with the diving public, you can find those reports here-
untitled

I understood the target of the workshop courses were to educate other divers? Do they also include invites to Law Enforcement?

I believe that educating and providing information to LE would be very beneficial, as their reports are publicly releasable at the end of the investigation. For whatever reason the non-official agencies do not release / discuss reports, they could help by publishing a guide and let LE release the reports for the rest of us to learn.

That's what we do in cyber-crime, and it seems to work well.

 

[ucfdiver]

I understood the target of the workshop courses were to educate other divers? Do they also include invites to Law Enforcement?

I believe that educating and providing information to LE would be very beneficial, as their reports are publicly releasable at the end of the investigation. For whatever reason the non-official agencies do not release / discuss reports, they could help by publishing a guide and let LE release the reports for the rest of us to learn.

That's what we do in cyber-crime, and it seems to work well.

The issue is, most people involved have "real" jobs and don't have time to get the information from law enforcement. To my knowledge, everything the IUCRR gives the sheriff's office is on public record, it's just a matter of getting it from authorities. With active cave divers being a fairly tight knit community (we might not agree, but we do chat) most of us have a reasonably good idea what went on, and the only questions left don't justify the effort of getting those papers.

I had a conversation with Bobby about what the IUCRR guys went through to get information out to the public when he was involved. I'll shoot him an email and see if he cares to chime in here.

 

[nelsoned]

Richard DeVan was an avid diver | Cincinnati.com | cincinnati.com

 

[kotik]

Thanks for this update. I was curious if any details would be published about the event.