The Second I Saw Him Breath Into His Reg On The Surface I Knew He Was Doomed...

[Reku]

Dude is creating condensation before the dive even begins - no wonder it froze. I suppose they all did it - considering all 4 of their regs froze.


and apparently they were not using cold weather sealed 1st stages? That's what the person said in the video near the end - That's just stupid...

Thoughts?

If this is in the wrong place - please move it

 

[divad]

Thoughts?

I can't believe the "mullet" was ever considered a legitimate hairdo.

 

[CuzzA]

I'm no expert on ice diving, but I'm pretty sure those snorkels would be useless....

So, I think the analysis is pretty simple here. Don't use tropical scuba gear for ice diving, especially without a redundant air source in an overhead environment. Don't go into an extreme/overhead dive without proper training. And finally don't deviate from the dive plan. The victim claimed he couldn't buddy breath. Why not? His buddy's reg was still working. They should have calmed down, buddy breathed and made the 3 quick pulls on the line to notify the surface they were in trouble.

 

[Resqdivemedic]

What a mess. Absolutely no prep work at all. When I took my Ice Diving Operations course, we spent more time prepping the hole and the area around the hole than just cutting and jumping in. We had swept circles in the snow around the hole, one at 50' and one at 100' then swept lines with arrows back to the hole. This was in the event we came off the line and could find the hole. I was skeptical that they could be seen through the ice but with 2 feet of ice, they could be seen clearly. We dove with full face mask, put them on just before entering hole and breath through the ambient air breathing valve in them until in the water then engaged the regulator by breathing in hard. Prevented freeze up. We even wrapped the regs in towels on the surface. The other thing they taught us was if there was any problem was to become buoyant and head for the underside of the ice. This way it would be easier for the safety dive to locate the primary diver. The other thing about his regulator is that it did not fail in freeflow, which I thought regulators were supposed to do. I had a team memeber have a freeze up once and his reg failed open, he resorted to the basic skill of breathing from a freeflowing reg, surfaced and aborted the dive. Also looks to me that they all had poor basic SCUBA skills.

 

[Compressor]

What a cluster ...!!

 

[Scott]

Wow, there's a face and name from the past.

 

[Reku]

The video is just horrible. They literally cut a hole and jumped in - one of them wasn't even tied off. It's just like the caves down here - OW divers underestimate the skill and determination required to dive them...

 

[Storker]

Overhead environment without proper training. Strike one.
Overhead environment without proper gear (i.e. two 1sts, redundant air supply). Strike two.
Non-sealed regs in freezing water. Strike three.
Not following proper procedures for ice diving. Strike four.

Some people are darned lucky to be alive. They should thank whatever deity they believe in that Murphy was half asleep that day

 

[Trevormclay]

sounds like they were extremely unprepared. Even the person holding the rope just assumed someone was caught on the rope instead of pulling them in. Also I think Joe went onto a acting career in Orange is the New Black

 

[2airishuman]

Some things to consider.

First of all, I believe that a good deal of the footage is a reenactment. It may not be faithful to the details of the original accident in important respects.

Second of all, ice diving predates the tec/rec era, and is typically conducted according to a set of safety rules and procedures that are different than cave/wreck/deco dives. In particular, there are people who conduct these dives without redundant first stages. The overall safety record of ice dives conducted in this fashion is not poor.