Virginian diver dead at 190 feet - Roaring River State Park, Missouri

[crofrog]

But this incident the same season with the same team. So it presents questions about procedures allowed.

Clearly with hindsight bias we can say there appears to be insufficient safegaurds to provide insulation from the risks.

It would be interesting to work to understand the local rationality inside the team.

When the holes line up...

The Swiss Cheese Model is used as a model to explain how incidents happen because the holes 'line up' and then the accident propagates. This blog takes this concept a little further and shows things are far more complicated than that!

www.thehumandiver.com

 

[Manatee Diver]

Clearly with hindsight bias we can say there appears to be insufficient safegaurds to provide insulation from the risks.

It would be interesting to work to understand the local rationality inside the team.

When the holes line up...

The Swiss Cheese Model is used as a model to explain how incidents happen because the holes 'line up' and then the accident propagates. This blog takes this concept a little further and shows things are far more complicated than that!

www.thehumandiver.com

Speaking only for the Gus incident, sometimes you need someone that isn't in a mission focused to take a look at your procedures to make sure that you aren't compromising safety.

Honestly I hope we get a quality accident report.

 

[SlugLife]

I was talking about Gus as well, that is why I said "nearly died" instead of died. We don't know what Eric was using just yet.

But this incident the same season with the same team. So it presents questions about procedures allowed.

That's a good point. Gus and Woody are always harping on safety, and I doubt either one would have intentionally or negligently ignore safety. The team referenced is a fairly well known team, so not exactly amateurs either. However, any time an incident, accident, or near-accident occurs you really want to get to the bottom of how/why it occurred, even if you're not judging anyone.

For example (made up), it's possible they were trained to do a safety procedure, however perhaps it wasn't drilled enough or revisited enough and therefore slips people's mind.

My (so far) one-and-only minor incident had me massively increasing my redundancy, and practice.

 

[PirateFoxy]

I was talking about Gus as well, that is why I said "nearly died" instead of died. We don't know what Eric was using just yet.

But this incident the same season with the same team. So it presents questions about procedures allowed.

One of the recent Dive Talk videos is them at the KISS factory having their rebreathers gone over with a fine toothed comb, and Mike Young seemed to be changing around a LOT on Gus's Sidewinder, so perhaps he didn't like something about the way Gus had it set up? They are kind of representing the brand so having them out there making dumb mistakes because they set stuff up poorly would be not good.

(I think this would have been after the Roaring River dive they did, so there is a question of if it was a set up problem, should it have been caught before the Roaring River dive? In the Roaring River video it did seem like there were quite a few people there as part of the team. Sometimes that itself is an issue because you end up with too many people to enforce rules on properly.)

 

[clownfishsydney]

Well OSHA is a US law, so I was speaking purely from a US perspective.

We also have OHS laws and they apply to everyone, no exceptions. Remember, there are actually people who are not Americans on this forum.

 

[crofrog]

(I think this would have been after the Roaring River dive they did, so there is a question of if it was a set up problem, should it have been caught before the Roaring River dive? In the Roaring River video it did seem like there were quite a few people there as part of the team. Sometimes that itself is an issue because you end up with too many people to enforce rules on properly.)

That issue really rears it’s head because of lack of consistency in SOPs across instructors.

 

[Manatee Diver]

That's a good point. Gus and Woody are always harping on safety, and I doubt either one would have intentionally or negligently ignore safety.

I don't know, Gus mentioned an oxygen cut off. My understanding is that is largely considered to be bad practice now.

I think this would have been after the Roaring River dive they did, so there is a question of if it was a set up problem, should it have been caught before the Roaring River dive? In the Roaring River video it did seem like there were quite a few people there as part of the team. Sometimes that itself is an issue because you end up with too many people to enforce rules on properly.

Do have written SOP or is it informal?

We also have OHS laws and they apply to everyone, no exceptions. Remember, there are actually people who are not Americans on this forum.

In this case we were talking about American teams as we were talking within the context of this recovery.

But even within your laws I am willing to bet that OHS are more loosely applied to fire and police, as it is impossible to do their job without a level of risk that would be unacceptable at other types of jobs.

 

[Robert H. Diver]

One of the recent Dive Talk videos is them at the KISS factory having their rebreathers gone over with a fine toothed comb, and Mike Young seemed to be changing around a LOT on Gus's Sidewinder, so perhaps he didn't like something about the way Gus had it set up? They are kind of representing the brand so having them out there making dumb mistakes because they set stuff up poorly would be not good.

(I think this would have been after the Roaring River dive they did, so there is a question of if it was a set up problem, should it have been caught before the Roaring River dive? In the Roaring River video it did seem like there were quite a few people there as part of the team. Sometimes that itself is an issue because you end up with too many people to enforce rules on properly.)

In the video of Gus where he went to 200’ on air, I believe he said he got his hoses mixed up because he had been used to diving the sidewinder but used his spirit on that dive for some reason and just didn’t think about having to hook the hoses up a certain way that it different than the SW. I think that’s what he said.

 

[reddeaddiver]

On dives like this it more often is the exploration team that recovers the diver. This is because they are likely the only ones nearby with the training, resources, and experience to do it. Police dive teams are rarely, if ever, able to handle recoveries beyond recreational limits. There are exceptions in places like cave country I'm sure, but even then, it's other cave divers or wreck divers who do the dirty work.

This particular team has members that are cave certified and had divers ready but the exploration team already had a plan in place by the time the diver's buddy finished their deco obligation. Just glad they were able to recover the diver same day instead of having the family wait.

 

[Marie13]

In the video of Gus where he went to 200’ on air, I believe he said he got his hoses mixed up because he had been used to diving the sidewinder but used his spirit on that dive for some reason and just didn’t think about having to hook the hoses up a certain way that it different than the SW. I think that’s what he said.

No, he was used to diving the Spirit and was diving the Sidewinder for the RR dive.

Spirit has all hook ups on left side. His Sidewinder had them on both sides.