Diving incident at Eagles Nest Sink

[cerich]

What's the difference between those two, again?

The "org" is made of people, and those people happen to be the recovery divers.

I wasn't aware that the entire volunteer recovery divers were on the exec... interesting.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Sadly, these divers are dead. We now must also look to the living. When an accident occurs in aviation, there are reports and investigations. These are readily available and used in by the aviation community to make it a safer endeavor. There is a lot of discussion on why the accident happened long before the reports are out. The FAA has even issued directives without complete reports to facilitate safety. Diving has no such thing. The ICURR has some recovery reports but little information. In the Technical side of diving, information is critical. Our methodologies, training and skills revolve around lessons learned from previous experiences, incidents, accidents and deaths. With no formal method of releasing investigation reports into diving accidents, we are left only with supposition and internet 'expert' opinion. To move safety forward in our sport, we must not shy from deep discussions on accidents such as this one. We must not protect the ‘memory’ of the dead to the detriment of those living that may benefit from information gleaned from an accident. A goal of an investigation into any accident is to prevent or reduce further accidents by promulgating information learned. We currently rely on information from private industries and organizations such as DAN or ICURR for what little information we will get. Typically, these Internet forums are our best source of information both valid and invalid.

This is endemic of all of scuba diving. In fact, the cave diving community is better at providing information about diving accidents than pretty much any other facet of the diving industry. I've learned to stay out of discussions about diving accidents because of the visceral responses that typically come from wanting to find out what happened. I understand it ... these are often friends, relatives, or casual acquaintances we want to protect. But the priority isn't about learning, or figuring out how to prevent the same from occurring elsewhere. It's more often about protecting reputations ... or a dive op or dive site that people don't want to see jeopardized.

A couple years ago there was a local diving accident where a woman died. Even from the limited information available, it was clear that there were some serious flaws in the decision to even conduct the dive. Those of us who pointed it out were blasted ... this woman died in front of her 8-year old son, and everybody was more concerned about what he would think than they were about pointing out the obvious flaws that led to this woman even being in the water at that time. We were told to wait until all the facts came out.

Two years have passed, and we're still waiting ... all the facts will NEVER come out. They never do. They won't this time either. They can't. Despite the best efforts of all the people involved ... and like all of you I have nothing but respect and admiration for the folks who sacrificed so much to bring these divers out of there ... the facts died with the victims. There's nothing to learn. Diving's a risky activity. There are ways to mitigate the risks. From everything I've read it appears these two divers were well trained, well experienced, and well prepared for this dive. They did everything they were supposed to do and they still died.

Sh!t happens ... that's all the lesson we're ever likely to get.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[PfcAJ]

There's nothing to learn. Diving's a risky activity. There are ways to mitigate the risks. From everything I've read it appears these two divers were well trained, well experienced, and well prepared for this dive. They did everything they were supposed to do and they still died.

Sh!t happens ... that's all the lesson we're ever likely to get.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Ugh. There's for SURE stuff to be learned and there's more than enough facts reported to learn those things.

 

[kelemvor]

Wow, thanks to the teams who acquired and posted information. I've only been a diver for a few years now, but I've seen far more details released here than for any other accident that I've read about.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Ugh. There's for SURE stuff to be learned and there's more than enough facts reported to learn those things.

Then I will happily stand corrected, and anticipate the day when these lessons will be shared with the greater dive community. It's rare that such things happen when discussing a dive accident. As I said, the cave community is better at this than pretty much any other part of the diving industry.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[dumpsterDiver]

Ugh. There's for SURE stuff to be learned and there's more than enough facts reported to learn those things.

Maybe for you, but us regular divers don't understand what the hell happened, and we (I've) been told to be patient. Are you implying we have gotten all we are going to get?

 

[LiteHedded]

Maybe for you, but us regular divers don't understand what the hell happened, and we (I've) been told to be patient. Are you implying we have gotten all we are going to get?

what else do you want?

in any case, what are you hoping to take away from this incident and apply to your diving anyway? is removing a rebreather during a deep cave dive relevant to your diving?

 

[dumpsterDiver]

I'm not going to argue with the goal to further establish my ignorance - I would like to know what happened

 

[MikeT73]

Maybe for you, but us regular divers don't understand what the hell happened, and we (I've) been told to be patient. Are you implying we have gotten all we are going to get?

This happened less than a week ago. Yes, be patient. We want to know too, but understand the complexities of the situation require time to assemble the puzzle pieces into one concrete set of details.

 

[CuzzA]

Hold the phone... there may be a lot to learn.

I'm not a cave diver, I'm not a CCR diver. Hell, I haven't been past 100 feet yet, but I have interest in deep water wreck diving and closed circuit, so this accident interests me.

Now, at least one diver was wearing a GoPro. We don't know if we'll see the footage, but I can use an example where there was an accident, the footage was released and we learned a great deal about why it happened and it has furthered the safety of our sport.

We all have heard about David Shaw. We've seen the video, but even more interesting was the audio. Simon Mitchell recently posted a report and video (I will link when I find it) on here explaining what we were hearing and seeing. In a nutshell it was about gas density and the lungs ability to exchange gas at high pressures and how this should be considered in your plan for deep diving.

Now, I am not saying that has anything to do with this accident. I'm only pointing out there may be something we will learn.