Northwest Dive Club

was reading this earlier this morning, unbelieveable

It's difficult to consider this an accident. A man without cave training takes his 15-year old son ... who wasn't even a certified diver ... into one of the most technically difficult caves in all of Florida to test out new gear he bought the kid for Christmas. They descended to a depth of 233 feet ... apparently intentional, since they left "bailout bottles" at 130 feet ... and ran out of air.

The irresponsibility is almost incomprehensible ... and as it turns out these two had been diving at this site before, the outcome was eventually inevitable ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Wow. Just... wow. This might seem harsh, but Darwin has struck again...

Jim

"The sad thing is, I told him, 'One night they’re going to call me to come get you,"' Brooks, who worked in their recovery effort, said.

My vote for the parent of the year award..... Sad...

Pathetic.

Can't help but think of the 15 year old son as a victim. Condolences to the family.

Accident? or murder suicide? This reads like a movie script. Could they have done it any worse? I feel for those left behind who have to live with this travesty. There is simply no way to justify what happened here.

I always find myself thinking of the searchers that did the recovery. And let's not forget about the aftermath, In some areas the response would be "It's too dangerous, let's close it."

What a freaking idiot!

More info in this article:

http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafe ... rs/2158541

just watch the Hole you have to get down into to reach the larger room .... now imagine doing this with the silt from above raining down on you... in the dark , the divers in the video manage to stir it up

My question is WHY???? Why bother? is there a pot of gold down there? All that time and money just to follow a string 1400' down a black hole in the ground.

Guess I will never understand the draw.

Why do any of us dive anywhere?

We all do it for our own reasons.

I don't need to know why a particular type of diving attracts someone else ... only why it attracts me.

The issue here isn't why someone would want to do it ... it's why someone wouldn't want to do it properly, by getting the appropriate training, and developing the appropriate skills to conduct those dives with some reasonable level of risk mitigation.

It's reasonable to assume that nobody wants to kill themselves ... much less their offspring ... by doing stupid, irresponsible things. Therefore it's reasonable to assume that this person didn't see themselves as being particularly irresponsible, even though the rest of us would clearly see that they were.

Why then would they behave that way? Probably the same reason why we've had people here in our area doing silly-ass bounce dives to 200 feet off of Lobster Shop Wall ... with similar results. Hubris, ignorance, denial? Or simply an inflated sense of their own abilities?

Human nature being what it is, in any endeavor there will always be those who push themselves well beyond reasonable limits ... and some of those people won't survive. There's a term for that ... evolution ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Scuba is a fairly new thing. All the stuff we are taught now was developed by people who took their lives in their hands and either with or without a lot of thought, went out and tried something. Some of these people are still alive today. Some won the Darwin award. Some died of old age. People do things like that because they are not safe, and they like pushing limits. I think people who climb Mt. Everest are foolish. Even with help and training many die. But then I like depths better than heights.

I'm very interested in what went wrong, but freedom to take the risks you want to take is a wonderful thing.

Fact is we don't really know what happened. More than that we don't know the cause. It is really easy to point fingers at someone and criticize. In other venues people are injured or die when things don't go well. The after event forensic evidence may point one way when in fact something else happened.

A humble example is having a vehicle cross over the center line into your traffic lane. In the effort to avoid a collision you go into the other lane. But the other driver reacts quickly and returns to his own lane just before the head-on collision. Both die. After collision forensic evidence is that you crossed over the line and caused the collision. But, did you really?

Lots of things, including scuba, are risky. My rehab has gone as far as it has because I've pushed it to the edge, and fallen over a few times. That someone piles on with negative comments, to me, speaks more to his character and maybe to drumming up business than the facts.

From what I've read so far I haven't seen anything that really analyzed what happened. I have seen a lot of comments about his certification status, which may or may not be pertinent.

ArcticDiver wrote:I have seen a lot of comments about his certification status, which may or may not be pertinent.

Disagree. Lack of cave diving certification definitely played a part in these deaths.

Joshua Smith wrote:

ArcticDiver wrote:I have seen a lot of comments about his certification status, which may or may not be pertinent.

Disagree. Lack of cave diving certification definitely played a part in these deaths.

Please let me clarify. I said "certification ", not knowledge. Certification is clearly not the only, and may not be the best, source of knowledge.

ArcticDiver wrote:

Joshua Smith wrote:

ArcticDiver wrote:I have seen a lot of comments about his certification status, which may or may not be pertinent.

Disagree. Lack of cave diving certification definitely played a part in these deaths.

Please let me clarify. I said "certification ", not knowledge. Certification is clearly not the only, and may not be the best, source of knowledge.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafe ... rs/2158541

I understand your point. But read the above linked article and tell me if you think a real cave class might have made a difference to the outcome, here. I've dived 200' on air….at cove 2. I would never in a million years dive 233' on air in eagles nest. With my 15 year old son, who didn't even have an OW card. To "test new equipment." This dive was beyond the pale in SO MANY WAYS- hell, maybe you're right. If they could ignore all of the perfectly clear signs that they were wildly out of bounds, maybe a cave cert wouldn't have made any difference at all.

ArcticDiver wrote: I have seen a lot of comments about his certification status, which may or may not be pertinent.

With respect to diving in caves, it's pertinent. With the exception of breathing underwater, nothing you learn in recreational diving prepares you to identify, recognize, understand, or mitigate the common risks of cave diving. Sure you can read about it in books, magazines and internet forums ... but that would be like learning how to play a piano by reading about it.

There are things we know about the accident.

1. He went in not just a cave, but one of the most technically difficult caves to dive in Florida ... if not in the world. And he did so without having taken even a basic cave class ... which still wouldn't have qualified him for this particular cave.

2. He went to well below the depths he was certified for ... 233 feet according to his computer. The fact that they staged tanks at 130 feet would indicate that this wasn't accidental.

3. He took a 15-year old son whose only training at any level was what his father taught him.

4. He had dived this cave system and at least one other (Little River) before, despite being warned by qualified cavers that he was unqualified to do so.

You can draw whatever conclusions you like ... but those four facts are known about this accident. To anyone who is qualified to dive this cave system, the conclusions are obvious. To those who don't dive caves, even if we took pages to explain it, you lack the context to really comprehend what an incredibly foolish thing this is.

Recreational dive training ... and even very good skills and a lot of open water experience ... in no way prepares you to dive in this cave system. It would be like thinking that day hiking up Mt. Si prepares you for an expedition to the summit of Mt. McKinley ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

ArcticDiver wrote:Fact is we don't really know what happened.

Actually, we do. A non cave or tech certified father with a history of recklessness took his 15 year old uncertified son on a cave dive to 233 ffw on air in a dangerous environment.

Do we need to know more?

ArcticDiver wrote:

Joshua Smith wrote:

ArcticDiver wrote:I have seen a lot of comments about his certification status, which may or may not be pertinent.

Disagree. Lack of cave diving certification definitely played a part in these deaths.

Please let me clarify. I said "certification ", not knowledge. Certification is clearly not the only, and may not be the best, source of knowledge.

Anyone can learn to dive on the internet. The ones who live to tell about it are usually the people that have real world experience with an instructor

Stop trying to justify not taking classes.

Who didn't see this coming?

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/topstorie ... ter-deaths

He probably believes his son was a world-class cave diver ... just like the family of the self-taught idiot who disappeared in Vortex a couple years ago.

... and this, folks, is why people who cave dive don't want non-cave certified divers inside of the caves ... because when they kill themselves, their grieving family will always need to find somebody else to blame for it ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

no offense meant, but this guy killed himself and his son.. end of story.. I feel sorry for his family.. this was 100% avoidable..

It is proven that closing a cave won't do any good. There was an incident just last year where a couple of divers cut the lock on the gate to a cave to dive there and didn't make it back. Telling people they can't do something just makes them want to do it more. Look at the case of base jumping. 90% of base jumps are done where it is illegal to do it. There is signage at the site telling people that this cave system is dangerous and should not be entered. Hell I went a lot of places when I was a teen that I should not have gone and as a young adult too. The one thing we cannot protect people from is them selves. To prove to yourself that you can do something people say you can't is a very powerful instinct.

Having said that, the cave did not kill these people. They may have died there but it was there own fault. I have over 1500 dives but do I think that qualifies me to go to 233 ft. NOT! Even in an open water environment. Would I enter an advanced level cave system on my own. Not on your life. No amount of recreational diving gives you the tools to try these advanced types of dives. Testing your own limits is a damn poor reason to die.

spatman wrote:

ArcticDiver wrote:

Joshua Smith wrote:

ArcticDiver wrote:I have seen a lot of comments about his certification status, which may or may not be pertinent.

Disagree. Lack of cave diving certification definitely played a part in these deaths.

Please let me clarify. I said "certification ", not knowledge. Certification is clearly not the only, and may not be the best, source of knowledge.

Anyone can learn to dive on the internet. The ones who live to tell about it are usually the people that have real world experience with an instructor

Stop trying to justify not taking classes.

You misstate my post. Didn't say anything of the kind.

My basic point is that before anyone crucifies this person we ought to have some information that would pass the teat of a critical accident analysis. So far all I've seen is information that the guy is dead and that other people are guessing on his thoughts, motives and competence. In aircraft and other formal accident investigations there are very good reasons good analysis and unbiased information is required. We have very little of that here..

I don't have any problem hanging the guy, virtually at least, from the flagpole if factual supported information says he screwed up. But, so far all I've read could be interpreted that although he was unconventional he did his best and things just came up snake eyes.

Personally, I've done several things, some sanctioned by proper authority, that were unconventional. I know how it would have looked had I not survived. So, I have a great deal of caution in how I assign blame until a proper investigation is completed.


(Sorry for the spastic posting. I've a new Surface Pro 2 and the bloody thing keeps crashing. I've talked to Support and they haven't a clue.)