USF student from Palm Bay Dies in Caves

[Ragnar]

Yes. And that overhead environment was a cave.

She had an accident diving into a cave.

Just because you want something to be true does not make it true.

I guess diving off the roof of my house could be considered a diving accident too, but that isn't the type of diving we are talking about here on this board, hence the name SCUBAboard.

It seems you have a problem with just about everything, or at least every post I've ever run across from you. Give it a break Dr., you're tiring.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

According to dictionary.com, "diving" can mean merely the act of being beneath the surface of the water.

Lets take this several ways, why don't we?

I guess this means accidents in swimming pools count as diving accidents, then? When a kid gets under the cover of a covered swimming pool, that counts as overhead, basically the same thing as a cave diving accident, correct?

People who hit their head and drown in their bathtub, that's a diving accident.

People who drive cars into lakes, those are diving accidents. Since they are contained in an overhead environment, once again, we find they have died in what is basically a cave diving accident.

Dictionary.com suggests that a "surface" is the outermost layer of a thing. We all know there is water in the air, and this atmosphere extends up quite a ways. Therefore, the outermost layer of the water is probably several miles up. It could be that we are all technically under the outermost layer of some amount of water for our entire lives--funny, we are technically diving even on our surface intervals, eh?


It's all in how you define something.


Wikipedia defines cave diving as

Cave diving is a type of technical diving in which specialized SCUBA equipment is used to enable the exploration of natural or artificial caves which are at least partially filled with water.

Dictionary.com defines a cave diver as one who uses specialized equipment to dive in caves. I doubt goggles would be considered specialized equipment to anyone but cave men.

Cavediving.com makes the distinction that cave divers use specialized equipment in the form of redundant gas delivery systems.

During my time at UCF, someone shot themselves in their car in the parking lot. Was that a car accident? And those people who pipe exhaust into their cars to commit suicide, those are also car accidents?

Yes, she died in a cave. However, this was clearly not a cave diver fatality. Being in a cave does not make you a cave diver, as I've shown through multiple definitions, any more than sleeping in a hangar makes you an airplane

 

[DennisS]

People that dive in the ocean are ocean divers
People that dive in quarries are quarry divers
People that dive under the ice are ice divers
People that dive in/on wrecks are wreck divers
People that dive in caves are cave divers
Trained cave divers are people that have undergone advanced training to dive in caves.

 

[Dr Wu]

When a kid gets under the cover of a covered swimming pool, that counts as overhead, basically the same thing as a cave diving accident, correct?

Incorrect. Swiming pools are not caves.

People who drive cars into lakes, those are diving accidents. Since they are contained in an overhead environment, once again, we find they have died in what is basically a cave diving accident.

Incorrect. Cars are not caves.

It's all in how you define something.

Correct. So you want to define swiming pools and cars as "caves"?

 

[Rhone Man]

You have to be a little nuts to want to dive in caves with SCUBA equipment.

You have to be certifiable to do it holding your breath.

 

[DandyDon]

You have to be a little nuts to want to dive in caves with SCUBA equipment.

You have to be certifiable to do it holding your breath.

...without gear...!

The always questionable news mentioned that not everyone had goggles, maybe just one set for the group? Even if they meant mask, still one or more were swimming underwater (call that diving or not?) with naked eyes, and who knows about the possibility of fins? One story said she "wasn't wearing any diving equipment when she was found."

The fireman who did the free diving search & recovery was quite heroic, seemingly also without even fins...

Fletcher said his truck got to the springs in 14 minutes. Though the Citrus County Sheriff's Office has a dive team, they were at least a half-hour away.

Fletcher, 32, a veteran diver who is certified for cave diving, decided he would go in himself.

"I had been in that cave several times before," said Fletcher. "I knew the cave well enough to at least take a look."

Fletcher had no equipment but borrowed a dive mask from a nearby boat and jumped into the chilly water.

There are two holes that open up a couple of feet under the surface, said Fletcher. One is about eight feet in diameter and eight feet deep and another is three feet in diameter 10 feet under the surface. The two holes are about 15 feet apart, connected by an underground cave about five-feet wide, two-to-three feet under the surface, he said.

Fletcher said he dove four or five times before finding her.

"I took a rope in with me and looked through the cave," he said. "It took me good four or five minutes to find her. She was pretty far up inside a dead-end cave."

After a few more dives to position the body for recovery, "I was able to get her out, and then turned her over to Nature Coast EMS," Fletcher said.

It was a very dumb stunt with a very sad ending.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

Dr. Wu,

Apparently, loosely fitting comparisons are lost on you. Obviously, cars and covered pools are not caves, unless of course they sit there long enough for the calcium in the water to lithify around them, at which point it might be possible to classify them as a cave.

However, both of those would be overhead diving fatalities, and since technical diving is diving involving overhead, these are technical diving fatalities, just as a cave diving fatality is a technical diving fatality.

People can claim a title all they want, but "Cave Diver" is a certification issued by several agencies such as the NACD, and as such, it must be earned.

Regardless, I think I made my point very clear: it is incredibly easy to classify this as a "cave diving death" when by all practical definitions used by people who actually cave dive and don't just troll on the internet, it is very obvious the lady was not scuba diving, and the death would be a statistical anomaly if included in the list of fatalities of technical divers in caves. It would make as much sense as calling the death of someone who drowns in their car after an accident into a body of water, a diving fatality. I can make it even more clear: since scuba divers often drift dive, a form of transporation, then calling this the death of a technical diver makes as much sense as including the death of scuba divers in the list of people who die in transportation accidents.



Now, something to really think about, is the role of a rescuer in this situation. Was it foolish or heroic for the person who removed the body to do so without proper equipment? At what point should surface rescuers exit rescue mode and enter recovery mode, where safety and documentation take precedence over speed? That's really a topic for another area, but Don's post made me wonder.

 

[Tricia]

I agree with both Don and JahJah. I was very confused as well as to why anybody would do something like this "sharing goggles" - it makes no sense, let along then going into the cave.

As for the rescuer: I also think he was lucky they didn't end up with two victims. I can only surmise that he thought maybe she had found some kind of air pocket under there and therefore, she might still be alive. That fellow is a very lucky guy.

 

[Dive-aholic]

Now, something to really think about, is the role of a rescuer in this situation. Was it foolish or heroic for the person who removed the body to do so without proper equipment? At what point should surface rescuers exit rescue mode and enter recovery mode, where safety and documentation take precedence over speed? That's really a topic for another area, but Don's post made me wonder.

Foolish. She was already dead. What was the point in free diving down there just to locate the body? Wait for the proper equipment to do the job safely.

 

[DandyDon]

Well, this is a hijack from the accident, what caused it and what could have prevented it, but I guess that's obvious. A very dumb stunt with a very sad outcome, and I guess her boyfriend will regret his actions for the rest of his life - and I don't know that I could offer much consoling for him, except I have been responsible for some very dumb stunts involving others over the decades and it's only by grace or luck (you chose) that none of mine hurt anyone seriously. I remember waking up in a hospital once around that age, then learning my passenger was ok, and being so glad that I insisted on seat belts before I drove the car like a maniac.

As far as telling a fireman not to risk his life on a probly futile attempt to rescue someone because she was probly already dead or it was too risky for him - that just doesn't happen. Firemen are the most giving people in our country, our very best. It's their amazing nature to pull rescue attempts like that. :medal:

By the time he'd got the call, drove 14 minutes to the site, borrowed a mask, dived a few times to even locate her, I guess that any hope of saving her was gone - but even then that's just not how those heroes think. At least he was cave trained and experienced in that one. The additional free dives needed to get her out once he discovered her dead seem excessive, but those men and women just don't admit loss.