Diving Risks

[rongoodman]

Bill Curtis on a PBS special a few years ago at Na Hoch site as "the most dangerous sport". One wrong turn, one misplaced fin kick, one error in judgement and your dead. There are no cave diving rescues, only cave diving recoverys. Over 600 divers have died in the north Florida springs since the 70's.

And how many that 600 had any cave training?

 

[Steve_C]

My underlying point was just that I don't feel that I am significantly risking my life by cave diving (within my limits). Similarly, I didn't feel like I was significantly risking my life when I took up diving to begin with.

Our perception of risk may have nothing to do with the actual risk. Many of those who had accidents did not feel they were taking significant risks. The key is to try and have an honest evaluation of the risk and our ability to deal with it. Some folks will try anything. Others are afraid to even try.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

In addition to the 5 Rules of Accident Analysis with which most cave divers become familiar during training, Jeff Bozanic offered 5 additional reasons:

1. Solo Diving - questionable, overlap with other risk factors, no one around to report whether a buddy would have helped or not, but solo dives are associated with a high number of deaths
2. Advanced Technologies - too far too fast, equipment stress, wrong gas analysis or switch, mixed teams
3. Health Issues - aging diver population, cave divers tend to be older, poor fitness
4. Poor Equipment Maintenance - lack of service, use of low-quality gear
5. Poor Skill Maintenance - many cave divers travel to cave dive, honed skills dulled with time between dives, big dives performed too soon into dive trip without time to rebuild comfort and experience

If a psych/emotional profile could be established somehow such as interviewing dive buddies, family and friends, I would be interested in knowing to what extent the following factors could be adding to trained cave diving deaths:

Internet and social media pressure - adding to the "too far too fast" problem.
Complacency - tech and cave diving are becoming more casual and less formal events and less attention is paid to planning and execution.
Lack of respect for the environment - "This is an easy cave."

PSAI's cave diving manual presents this information in greater detail, but you might be able to find several studies that were the sources for our chapter on accident analysis.

When skydiving, I learned most accidents occurred among the newbies because they lack experience. The moderately experienced see their safety stats increase due to experience and respect for the activity. They said the experts get killed just by sheer volume of jumps along with a certain level of complacency. This would need greater study applied to cave diving.

 

[PfcAJ]

Lack of respect for the environment - "This is an easy cave."

The "easy" ones are the widowmakers.

 

[kensuf]

In addition to the 5 Rules of Accident Analysis with which most cave divers become familiar during training, Jeff Bozanic offered 5 additional reasons:

1. Solo Diving - questionable, overlap with other risk factors, no one around to report whether a buddy would have helped or not, but solo dives are associated with a high number of deaths
2. Advanced Technologies - too far too fast, equipment stress, wrong gas analysis or switch, mixed teams
3. Health Issues - aging diver population, cave divers tend to be older, poor fitness
4. Poor Equipment Maintenance - lack of service, use of low-quality gear
5. Poor Skill Maintenance - many cave divers travel to cave dive, honed skills dulled with time between dives, big dives performed too soon into dive trip without time to rebuild comfort and experience

If a psych/emotional profile could be established somehow such as interviewing dive buddies, family and friends, I would be interested in knowing to what extent the following factors could be adding to trained cave diving deaths:

Internet and social media pressure - adding to the "too far too fast" problem.
Complacency - tech and cave diving are becoming more casual and less formal events and less attention is paid to planning and execution.
Lack of respect for the environment - "This is an easy cave."

PSAI's cave diving manual presents this information in greater detail, but you might be able to find several studies that were the sources for our chapter on accident analysis.

When skydiving, I learned most accidents occurred among the newbies because they lack experience. The moderately experienced see their safety stats increase due to experience and respect for the activity. They said the experts get killed just by sheer volume of jumps along with a certain level of complacency. This would need greater study applied to cave diving.

solo is is an obvious addition.

Too far/too fast falls under the first rule (training and experience), and is actually one of the reasons why I dislike the all too common idea of ones week power courses - yes, some people can go from zero to hero and survive, but others...

Health and poor equipment are part of lights. You are your most important piece of equipment.

skil maintenance probably falls under training and experience.

back to six rules, not ten.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

I think Jeff Bozanic wanted 5 more rules that were killing trained cave divers who never broke the first 5.

Taking your concept of incorporating "too far, too fast" into the traditional rule of "Be trained to cave dive and don't exceed the level of your training" and your other incorporations, I still think we could have 7 ...

6. Don't dive alone.
7. Always analyze your gas before each dive and verify gas switches

 

[kwinter]

6. Don't dive alone.

Seems to me we spent a great deal of time talking about your solo cave class............

 

[kensuf]

I think Jeff Bozanic wanted 5 more rules that were killing trained cave divers who never broke the first 5.

Taking your concept of incorporating "too far, too fast" into the traditional rule of "Be trained to cave dive and don't exceed the level of your training" and your other incorporations, I still think we could have 7 ...

6. Don't dive alone.
7. Always analyze your gas before each dive and verify gas switches

I put a lot of consideration regarding oxtox and mislabeled gases in the depth category. I knew two guys that died due to mislabeled gas mixtures (Bobby McGuirre and Jon Gol), and while I didn't know Jim Miller personally, he was close to a lot of my long time friends.

Remember, accident analysis should be a living, breathing, set of guidelines to make you think. Revising them for new technologies and techniques is healthy.

Here's an example: Shecks original work had co2 and extreme narcosis for depth, in other words he emphasized extreme deep air diving (>220') as a cause. No one disputed diving to 270' on air in a cave was reckless, but the majority of public opinion was that less than 170' was reasonably safe. Sometime in the mid-90s, back when I was in charge of doing accident analysis for the NACD, I ran the numbers and found a surprisingly large (statistically significant) number of deaths in the 140-160' range. These were experienced / trained cave divers. In most of the cases, some other event occurred and then there was a compounding effect from narcosis. When I published those results it produced a rather large amount of controversy from the "good deep on air" crowd. But I think people would be hard pressed to argue that narcosis doesn't affect everyone now.

Here's the bottom line with accident analysis, breaking a rule does not mean you are going to die. But it means you are increasing the odds and rolling the dice. People still dive deep in caves, some still dive deep on air, and I have met some that don't analyze their gas because they believe it's really 32% all the time at Amigos. People still dive solo in caves. People still do visual jumps, or skip running a reel to the gold line.

If you want to break any of the rules, fine, but make sure you truly understand the risks first and do everything you can to minimize those risks. Accident analysis isn't entirely about you, it's about the people left behind grieving if you die doing something foolish.

 

[Trace Malinowski]

Seems to me we spent a great deal of time talking about your solo cave class............

People dive solo. Making a rule isn't going to change that. Trained and intelligent divers are able to weigh risk vs. reward and decide if the risk is worth it. I think most people dive solo simply because they get more opportunities to go diving.

As far as solo classes go, one of the best classes that I ever had was the SDI solo class which my TDI cave instructor taught in the caves. As an instructor, I wanted others to be able to experience that same quality and intensity from a solo program in the overhead environment.

Don't forget that some programs are designed more to teach you that the environment is bigger, badder, and tougher than you are rather than say it is totally okay to do it. The value of the program is that it humbles you and gives you some strategies for dealing with things without a back-up brain.

Remember, accident analysis should be a living, breathing, set of guidelines to make you think. Revising them for new technologies and techniques is healthy.

Here's the bottom line with accident analysis, breaking a rule does not mean you are going to die. But it means you are increasing the odds and rolling the dice ...

... If you want to break any of the rules, fine, but make sure you truly understand the risks first and do everything you can to minimize those risks. Accident analysis isn't entirely about you, it's about the people left behind grieving if you die doing something foolish.

Agreed. Great post.

 

[PfcAJ]

People dive solo. Making a rule isn't going to change that. Trained and intelligent divers are able to weigh risk vs. reward and decide if the risk is worth it. I think most people dive solo simply because they get more opportunities to go diving.

As far as solo classes go, one of the best classes that I ever had was the SDI solo class which my TDI cave instructor taught in the caves. As an instructor, I wanted others to be able to experience that same quality and intensity from a solo program in the overhead environment.

Don't forget that some programs are designed more to teach you that the environment is bigger, badder, and tougher than you are rather than say it is totally okay to do it. The value of the program is that it humbles you and gives you some strategies for dealing with things without a back-up brain.



Agreed. Great post.

People are going to make visual jumps. And not run primaries. And violate gas plans. And not analyze gas. And not carry 3 lights. And dive deep. Yet we have rules for all those things, too.

i get it that Sheck was real great. But to just stop making rules/recommendations based on all the cave fatalities since his passing (and there's not shortage of them) doesn't make a lick of sense.

I didnt read anything in Shecks book about his word being gospel and no additions can be made to his work.